CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Evie kept an eye on Ray out the window of the farmhouse when she could. The men seemed to be chatting near the barn, though it was cold enough outside that their breath made little clouds in front of their faces. Male bonding, she supposed.
The women had gotten down to serious wedding planning, including creating a kitchen schedule that boggled Evie’s mind. They had everything planned down to the minute as to who would cook what and when. A shopping trip was being organized to pick up a two-page list of supplies they’d compiled, and Deena’s mother and aunt had already volunteered their husbands to go along with them on the expedition to the local grocery store.
Evie was glad they weren’t depending on her to contribute too much. She was feeling a little overwhelmed by the organized chaos of their conversation, and she realized she’d missed this after leaving home. Her Pack had been big and boisterous like this too. They’d had their good aspects, though her family’s refusal to accept Ray had been the breaking point.
As a result, Evie had missed out on this sort of thing. She wouldn’t have changed things. She’d gotten Josh, and he’d been more than enough for her. Now, she’d gotten Ray back, too, and her life was finally looking up once again. But watching Deena’s family, she felt a little wistful too.
When the minivan left down the gravel drive carrying Deena and the rest of her family, along with the huge shopping list, Evie felt a little relieved. Ray had come back in with Josh, and they were eating a quick lunch of sandwiches before they went back out to take advantage of the relative quiet to get a bit more training in before the family came back with the supplies.
It was just the three of them—Josh, Ray and Evie—eating a quiet meal together while Deena went shopping with her family. Evie thought she’d have a bit of time to recover from the madness of the morning when Josh broached a subject she’d been dreading.
“Mom, do you have contact information for your parents?” Josh said, using his purposefully-nonchalant voice. She recognized it immediately, even as her stomach lurched at the question.
“Why?” she asked in reply, needing time to sort out her feelings before dealing with this emotionally charged topic.
“Deena was wondering if we shouldn’t at least make them aware of our wedding. It seemed rude to her not to at least send an announcement. I told her you wouldn’t go for it, but I did promise to at least ask.” Josh was examining his sandwich as he explained, pretending that this subject wasn’t as important to him as she knew it was.
Evie looked to Ray for support. She honestly didn’t know what to say, so she started with the simple stuff.
“I know where to find them if they haven’t moved. But you know how territorial wolves are, so I suppose they haven’t moved and probably never will,” she told him.
“Look, Mom. I didn’t ask this to hurt you. I know you don’t ever talk about the past, but just recently, the past has come back to bite me on the butt.” He chuckled wryly, and she knew he was talking about the fact that she’d never told him he was half-fey. “I think there are a few things I need to know about before any of my missing knowledge inadvertently puts my mate at risk. It’s not just me I have to think about anymore, but Deena too. I’d like to know about your old Pack and maybe reach out to them, if they’re at all reasonable people.”
Evie felt sick. She hadn’t been able to talk about the past when she’d thought Ray was gone forever. That included anything about Ray himself and how her family had forbidden her to mate with him. She had kept Josh in the dark about so much. It hadn’t really been intentional. It had just been too painful to bring up all those old memories, and they’d done all right on their own. Just the two of them.
But Josh was right. There was more than just the two of them now. Ray was back—a miracle—and Deena was now part of their family. By extension, that meant all those nice people in the minivan, who were out hunting and gathering at the local grocer right now, were also part of it. At a minimum, Josh needed to know the baggage he brought to them, just through his blood.
“The simple truth is…” Ray said, coming to her rescue because Evie couldn’t speak around the emotion clogging her throat. “Your mother’s Pack forbade her to see me. We eloped. Though at the time, I was in favor of going in and finding out what was wrong with the Pack that they rejected my magic so vehemently. I mean, it’s not unheard of for shifters to mate with humans and even fey. It’s not like some of the forbidden combinations. There was nothing that should have barred our mating. I would have expected a warm welcome for the increased magic I could bring to the Pack, not the cold reception we got.”
“I didn’t want you to fight them,” Evie said, reaching out to capture her mate’s hand with her own. “And it would’ve come to that, in the end. They weren’t listening to me, or to you.”
“There was something wrong there, Evie. You must see that now, with the distance of years,” Ray insisted.
“Maybe so, but we didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t want you in any danger. You’ve never seen a wolf Pack when they hunt. Even with all your magic, I feared for your safety,” she told him.
Ray moved closer to her, bringing his chair right up against hers before putting his arm around her shoulders. “Sweet Evie.” He gave her a rueful grin. “And here, I was imagining all these years that you ran away to protect them from me.”
She chuckled with him, knowing from his teasing tone that he was just joking around, trying to cajole her into a better mood. Ray had always been able to sense when she needed cheering up, though it had to be obvious that talk of her lost Pack would make her feel low.
She felt horrible for the way everything had happened. Had her inability to talk about the past put her son in terrible danger? She feared she knew the answer to that question all too well. Maybe Josh was right. He’d always been brave. Even as a little boy, she’d clung to him. Her anchor in the storm of their lives.
But the storm clouds had finally cleared. Ray was back, and maybe it was about time she faced the fears of the past and put them completely behind her, once and for all. And maybe by coming clean with her son, she could avoid putting him in any more danger from the past rearing its ugly head at the least opportune moment.
“I doubt my parents have ever changed their home phone number,” she told Josh. She waited only for him to get a pen and paper before rattling off the digits, and their address, as well. “You should know, your grandfather was the Alpha when I left home, and the Pack was over a hundred strong. Make sure you know what you’re doing if you ever decide to enter their territory. My dad’s word is law up there, and he didn’t like your father at all.”
“Yet you raised our son with your family’s last name,” Ray observed. His voice held a hint of irony, but he didn’t seem mad.
“Really?” Josh asked. “I thought you just made up our last name or something. I mean, fey don’t have surnames, do they?”
“Surnames in faerie are a bit more complicated than here,” Ray explained. “And unless you speak the old tongue, mostly unpronounceable for all except maybe a few of my former Welsh subjects.” Ray’s tone had gone wry again. “I hear Duncan has affected the surname le Fey. Then again, he always enjoyed the region and people of what you now call France.” Ray shrugged. “When I lived in Wales, I went by Sir Rayburne of Glyndyfrdwy or just Ray Glyndwr. Of course, it’s spelled nothing like it sounds in modern English and would cause more trouble than it’s worth to try to stick to the old way. I could probably use something like Glindur here in America, though I suppose that’s not a common surname either.” Ray seemed to be thinking this through.
“How about Smith?” Evie offered, hoping to make him smile.
He frowned at her, instead. “But I was never a smith. I did not work iron or make horseshoes.” He sounded truly insulted, but then, she realized he was teasing her back. “Actually, I’ve given this some thought. My folk originally hail from the mountains, so Gwyllion might be appropriate. It’s the term used for mountain fey in Wales. How’d you like to be Evie Gwyllion rather than Evie Mahigan?”
“Mahigan is just the Cree word for wolf,” Josh said quietly. “I looked it up when I was a kid. Not much of a cover, I always thought.”
“Well, rightfully, your proper fey name and title is too long to fit on a birth certificate, if modern Americans could even spell it. I’ll write it out for you and teach you a bit of the fey language while we’re at it, if you wish,” Ray offered. “The old tongue will help you channel your magic, so it’s something I was going to talk to you about, anyway, but with the wedding, Deena should know more about the fey family she’s getting into. She will gain a title by joining our line, though it’s only something other fey would recognize. Still, she should be made aware of it, since she knows at least three full-blooded fey at this point, and who knows what the future may bring?”
“I think she’d like that,” Josh said, smiling. “Especially since her great-grandmother is going to try to come to officiate at the wedding. Everybody in her family is a bit in awe of Lady Bettina.”
“As they should be. A more formidable woman I have never met. She was ancient when I was a lad, and she has served the Goddess for longer than any of us have been alive,” Ray revealed.
Silence reigned for a moment while Josh finished his sandwich and then cleared his plate. Evie noticed that he tucked the piece of paper with her parents’ address and phone number into his shirt pocket as he rose from the table. She dreaded the phone call she knew he would make. If they rejected her son as they had rejected her and her mate, she would never forgive them.
Evie sent a prayer up to the Mother of All as Josh left the room, saying he wanted to clean up a bit before he rejoined Ray outside for more training. Evie clutched Ray’s hand. Josh wasn’t fooling anyone. He was going to make that phone call.
“I hope they don’t hang up on him,” she whispered as Ray’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“If they do, they’ll answer to me,” he said, a grim look on his face when she turned her head to look at him.
“I wish he’d wait,” she whispered, moving her gaze to the archway through which Josh had left.
“He can’t. Not with the wedding so close. Now’s the time to reach out, if ever there was one. If they want nothing to do with him, better he know that sooner rather than later.”
Evie and Ray finished their lunch in silence as she worried about what might be happening in another part of the house where their son was undoubtedly on the phone, calling a certain werewolf household in Canada. She almost wanted to hold her breath until Josh returned, but that was silly. Instead, she held Ray’s hand, thoughts racing through her mind about what would happen.
When Josh returned to the kitchen, he was smiling. Just a little, but it was definitely a smile. Evie’s worry turned to curiosity in an instant.
“Well?” she prompted when Josh stood for a moment, a bemused expression on his face while he stared out the kitchen window.
He turned toward her. “I’m not sure exactly what just happened, but I spoke to my grandmother. She said she’d call back with their flight information so I could pick them up at the airport tomorrow. They’re coming for the wedding.”
“They? My mom and dad?” Evie breathed, stunned.
Josh nodded. “And maybe some of the extended family, if they can get away. Mom.” Josh’s gaze zeroed in on her. “They’ve been looking for you—for us—for a long time. Grandma said they’d been trying to find you since almost the moment you left home, but your trail was fouled by magic. Once they realized that a mage had interfered, they went on a hunt and found that almost the entire Pack had been under the influence of a human mage with bad intentions. Someone named Bolivar?” Josh’s expression turned questioning as Ray tensed beside her.
“I knew it!” Ray exploded up out of his chair, smacking the table as he rose. “I told you there was something wrong with your Pack, Evie.”
“The minute you left, Bolivar packed up and moved on, fouling his own trail with magic, as well. He’s been in the wind all this time, and they’ve been searching for you without any luck at all,” Josh continued.
Evie felt tears gather. Could it really have been as simple as that? Had she been wrong to leave? She’d thought any wolf who cared enough would’ve been able to follow her trail. That nobody had come for her had only reinforced her idea that they didn’t give a damn about her and wanted no part of a daughter who didn’t obey. She’d felt cut off by them, but if what Josh was saying was true—and she had no reason to believe it wasn’t—then she’d been wrong. So very wrong.
“I should’ve let you check, Ray,” she whispered, heartbroken at what she had just learned. “My pride got in the way. I thought, when nobody came after me, that they didn’t care. That they didn’t want me. That they’d shunned me for going against them.”
“Sounds like that wasn’t what happened at all,” Josh said, his voice gentle.
“Foul play,” Ray muttered. “That’s what happened. That’s why they never found you. It was by design, Evie. Designed to destroy you.”
“Well, it didn’t. I survived and so did Josh,” she said, feeling a bit stronger. “I may have been born a Pack animal, but I did pretty well on my own.” She stood, trembling with all the revelations.
Josh came over to her and tugged her into his arms. He’d only been a teen when he’d surpassed her height, and he’d enjoyed hugging his little mama as he grew into the formidable giant of a man he was today. She’d missed his hugs while he’d been away, searching for answers she hadn’t been able to give him.
Come to think of it, she’d survived that too. Maybe her wolf had been a little lonely all this time, but she’d grown stronger for overcoming her fears. She was a survivor, and she was strong. One thing troubled her, though…
“Why target me?” she wondered aloud. “I’m nobody.”
It was Ray who replied in a somber tone. “Not true, my love. To me, you are the world.” His gaze met hers. “You are the true mate of a fey Knight and the mother of a powerful half-fey werewolf. Cripple you by denying you your Pack, and there is the potential to cripple a strong adversary of darkness—our son, Josh—before he’s even born. And it sounds like your disappearance created havoc within your family and Pack. That was probably worth something to this mage, as well.”
Josh released her and turned toward Ray. “Grandma said the Pack has been in decline since Mom left. That they could lose her so easily caused chaos within the Pack.”
“A strong Pack that had held their lands for generations,” Ray commented. “Destroying their cohesiveness could also have been the mage’s goal.”
One thing was becoming clear to Evie. “We need to know more about this mage.”