Chapter 33
CADE
The next morning, I stopped over at the Derringer compound to talk to my mom. She was surprised to see me. She looked as if she’d just gotten up. Her hair was still wet from the shower. I thought she seemed a bit uneasy, but maybe she wasn’t completely awake yet.
She sat me down at the kitchen table and offered me coffee. The rich scent of it was stronger than usual and mixed with other scents I didn’t recognize. Was my mother wearing perfume at this hour of the morning? That was odd.
“Haven’t seen you for a while, Cade. Is something wrong?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this query, so I ignored it. I took a large sip of my coffee and then said, “Remember when you asked me about Jess’ mother’s family? What do you know about them?”
She looked wary. “Why are you asking?”
I was in no mood. “Look, Ma. I’m the alpha of the pack. You got information, I want it. Now.”
“That’s something of a harsh tone, Cade,” a voice said from behind me.
I’d scented the man a split second before I’d heard him, and I was on my feet almost as swiftly. But I recognized the voice. And the scent. What shocked me was the way Heck’s scent was mingling with my mother’s.
“Heck?” I said as my father’s old lieutenant entered the room and helped himself to a mug from the cabinet. Mom had given me a mug from the kitchen table. One of two sitting there, waiting for morning coffee.
Holy shit.
My mother was shacking up with Hector. How long had that been going on?
“Morning,” Heck said. He pulled out a chair and sat down. Mom looked from him to me and sighed.
“We were going to tell you,” she said. “Soon.”
My mind was spinning wildly as I tried to come to terms with this new knowledge. Dad had only been dead for two years and she’d loved him. Hadn’t she?
Of course she had! Two years was a long time. Had I ever gone two years without sex?
Maybe it was just a thing? The idea of Mom having a thing with anybody messed with my head. “How long?” I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything else to fucking say.
“Not long,” Heck answered in his calm, loose-limbed manner. He’d always been the solid, reliable one. My dad’s right hand man. His beta. “Few weeks.” He glanced at Mom and I could feel the love rolling off him. “But I’ve loved your mother for years. She never even looked at me, though. Not that way.”
Mom reached over and took Heck’s hand, squeezing hard. I was embarrassed. Damn. She loved him, too. “Sometimes friendship ripens into love,” she said.
I wondered if I ought to leave. It had never occurred to me that I might be interrupting something. “So, um, congratulations. Does this mean another wedding is in the offing?”
“We’ll see.” My mother was noncommittal. “What was it you wanted to know about your wife’s family?”
Yeah, right. I glanced at Heck, who looked as if he were staying put. I could order him out and he’d have to obey. Unless he was planning to challenge me. Take the official alpha female, my mother, because I still hadn’t claimed that position for my own mate. I hadn’t cleared the way for Jess. Why hadn’t I?
Was that even possible now? Would the pack ever accept her if they knew what she was?
I saw in my mind again the creature she’d become in the meadow. The memory gave me a little chill. She’d carried some sort of darkness with her, like an aura.
Dammit! What the fuck was wrong with me? I’d demanded that she accept herself. What if I was the one who couldn’t accept who or what she was?
Could I really be that much of a dick?
“I wondered how much you knew about the Scots relatives. Jess was, uh, telling me some things about her mother’s side of the family that seemed a little far-fetched.”
“I know Jess’ mother is a multiform shifter, if that’s what you mean,” his mother said calmly. “She is related to the Mallochs of Mallochbirn.”
“Yeah, she told me.” I looked from my mother to Heck. I noted that the latter didn’t seem surprised by the subject. He was nodding as if he already knew this. Did everybody know who the fuck the Mallochs of Mallochbirn were except me?
I was never that good at shifter lore and history. Aaron had been interested in that kind of thing, but I’d rebelled against learning it. Why study dusty old tomes about the history of shifters when I could be out getting wasted with my friends?
Damn. I’d been such a fuckup. Why the hell had Aaron died? He’d have been so much better at this pack leadership gig than I was.
“You guys better fill me in. I obviously didn’t learn all the things I needed to know for this job.”
They didn’t rail on me about it, at least. Heck, who’d always been knowledgeable about all sorts of esoteric shit, said, “There are a lot of myths and legends about the Scottish shifters. It was supposedly somewhere in the northern Highlands that shifters first entered this world. Through some kind of rift from another dimension. Some even claim that Mallochbirn is sitting on a tiny island right near the place where the worlds crack open. Beings from one of the other Nine Worlds can sometimes slip through into ours.”
Right. The Nine Worlds legend. I’d heard that one. I’d always thought it was utter bullshit. “So shifters aren’t native to this planet? According to this myth? There’s, like, a shifter world somewhere long long ago and far far away?”
“Something like that,” Heck agreed. “It’s a classic origin myth, for people who believe in those. The important thing is that the family at Mallochbirn has maintained a certain status in the British Isles for generations. Centuries, in fact. They appear to have special powers that are uncommon among other shifters.”
“They can shift to more than one animal form,” my mother said. “At least, the direct descendants of the ancient Malloch clan can. No one knows how many Malloch descendants have this ability, but clearly some do.”
“Some reputedly have two animal forms, like a wolf and a hawk, for example,” Heck continued, “Or a bear and a lion. Others may be capable of more than two. The most famous Malloch creature is the sea dragon.”
Even I’d heard that story. “The dragons who fell from the sky, losing their fires and condemned to the deep?”
“Even so,” Heck agreed. “No one’s ever seen a fire dragon in the sky, but there are definitely a few sea monsters in the oceans.”
I mulled this over for a couple minutes. How many forms did Jess have? Given how scared she was to shift, maybe she didn’t even know?
“Is Jess a multiform shifter?” Mom asked. She didn’t sound shocked by the prospect. She had probably been expecting it.
“She has another form, yes. But she was always discouraged from shifting, so it doesn’t feel natural to her. She keeps it locked up inside. I’m trying to encourage her to be more open and accepting of her shifter nature.”
My mother nodded. “That’s wise of you. It’s not good to keep the other parts of one’s self locked away.”
I hesitated. But I needed advice, so I said, “What if you can’t control the actions of the other parts of yourself? What if you have something inside you that’s ferocious and—” I cast around for the right word “—alien?”
Both the older folks looked mystified. My mother set her coffee cup down. “Cade, do you object to your wife’s other animals?”
“No, of course not.” I was beginning to wish I’d never initiated this conversation. “She hardly ever shifts, except when she’s stressed out. She was raised to believe it was wrong to shift at all. Not by her mother, but by her mother’s asshole second partner. Her pseudo-stepfather. They weren't actually married. But the guy had a son who was some kind of psycho. He assaulted her and tried to rape and murder her, so she shifted to defend herself.”
And ripped him to shreds, if her account had been accurate.
“How terrible for her,” my mother said, with the empathy and concern that she was known for. “Did this happen when she was in Scotland?”
I nodded.
“Where’s her attacker now? Is he still stalking her? Do we need to be on the lookout for him?”
“No. Her attacker is dead.”
Mom and Heck exchanged a quick glance, and they both nodded. “Good.”
I was pretty sure they understood who’d killed him. Not that there would be any trouble over that. It was accepted within the shifter community that when you were attacked, you had the right to defend, even unto the attacker’s death.
My mom reached out and covered my hand with her own. “It sounds as if she has a lot to work through. But Jess strikes me as a strong woman. She’ll be okay. I hope she’ll begin to feel more comfortable within our community. No one is going to judge her, son.”
“I hope not.” I honestly wasn't sure what people would think if they saw her darkling.
“As for her other forms, if she has trouble accepting those sides of herself, the best thing you can do is be open to them yourself. Encourage her to shift for you when she feels the need. Keep your own animal restrained if you fear some conflict. If she has a big cat, for example, your wolf might not take to it at first.”
A big cat. Hell, that would be easy.
I overheard my own thought and felt ashamed. This was Jess. How was she going to learn to accept herself if her own mate was a little freaked out by her?
Fuck my life. I’d better get over my wariness or whatever the hell it was, because Jess needed me.
Enough. I couldn’t tell them anything more, and I had to get out of there.