Tony turned into the familiar drive. Micah nodded as he noticed the shifters guarding the gate. Though they wore security company uniforms, he knew they were members of the Pack living here. Their scent alone confirmed that fact. The men suffered a brief pat-down search and when one of the guards turned toward Carly, Tony couldn’t stop snarling at him as his wife was subjected to the same. Only her quiet reassurance held him back. Micah didn’t even feel the body scan. His every fiber was set on getting into the house and getting this hearing over and done with.
My daughter belongs with me.
Search completed, the guards told them the hearing was in the great room of the white mansion. Carly reached for Tony’s hand and he brought it up to his mouth for a brief kiss. Micah wasn’t sure who was comforting whom and wished he had the support of a loyal mate as he walked through the doors of what had most recently been hell.
“Can you get me to this address?” Olivia shoved the paper under the nose of the cab driver.
He nodded and tossed her carryon on the backseat. She watched the city change from modern to quaint to narrow row houses and then to large spacious holdings as the cab took her to the place Gareth said the hearing was. Clutching her purse, she flexed her fingers, trying to relieve some of the tension.
Climbing out of the cab, Olivia didn’t wait for the driver to unload her bag, she yanked it out of the car herself. She pushed too much money at him and faced the guards at the gate.
Guards.
Why are there guards?
Shaking the useless worry away, she strode up to the gate.
“I’m here for Talia Genaro’s hearing.”
One of the men lifted his head scenting the air. “You smell like one of us but I don’t know you and you aren’t on my list. If you want in, you need to show what you are.”
Olivia gasped. “What? You want me to change here in the open?”
The man scoffed as he pointed toward a small guardhouse. Jerking a finger at it, he clipped out, “Go change in there if you are shy. No one is going to see you out here but Pack anyway.”
A statue might have been more mobile than Olivia in that moment. Her feet had frozen to the ground. Surely her heart had stopped beating as well. There was no way she could shift. She’d sworn to never turn from human to wolf again.
I can’t do this. I have to do this. Micah needs me.
Struggling with her fear was only half of it. Olivia swallowed heavily. What if she failed? What if she couldn’t shift? Would these men harm her? Would Micah lose Talia because she was too scared to try?
Olivia, get a grip right now. You are going to walk over there and do this.
She remembered the freedom she’d felt as a wolf. And she thought about how much she had wanted to stay in that form that first time. Now her fears were twofold. If she did manage to shift to wolf, could she shift back? Micah had been there to help her-to encourage her-both times.
A tear tracked down Olivia’s face as she opened the door to the small building. If she couldn’t help Micah, he might lose the child he loved. And, if she allowed her heart to open that much, the child she cherished as well. She loved him too much to let that happen. It was time for her to overcome her terror and embrace the beast inside her.
Stepping inside, she laid her tailored jacket on the desk and followed it with her skirt. The rest of her clothing followed, then Olivia stood there shivering in the damp air. Focusing on the feeling she’d had before when shifting from wolf to human, Olivia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
And nothing happened.
Her eyes flew open in horror to see her well-manicured nails in front of her instead of furry paws. Squinting her eyes shut again, Olivia tried to will herself into wolf form again and on opening her eyes again, was still met with her human self. Pacing in the small room did little to alleviate her fears. She could feel her heartbeat increasing and in spite of the chill in the air and her nudity, she felt sweat starting to break out on her forehead.
“Monster.” She whispered the word to herself. Clenching her teeth and her fists, Olivia strode back across the room. For so long she’d kept her fears about the monster living in her body at bay-through therapy, medication, meditation and everything else she could think of or had heard about. To consciously reach for that monster…
Not a monster…not really…Micah isn’t a monster, Gareth and Talia and Pete aren’t monsters. They’re my friends and, they could be my family…
That thought-so out of the blue but so bone-shakingly true-nearly tripped Olivia as she crisscrossed the small room.
“Family.” That word she said louder than the previous one. “My family is a bunch of doctors, lawyers, waitresses, housewives, factory workers, real people who just happen to be wolves too.”
As soon as she gave voice to what Micah had told her that night of the Gathering, Olivia knew. She belonged with them, she belonged with Micah and Talia and the rest of the wolves in Wisconsin. Stopping in the middle of the room, she glanced outside. A long tree-lined drive led the way to the man she loved and the child she wanted to claim. All she had to do was be true to herself, true to her own nature, accept who and what she was.
“Okay, Olivia, okay. You can do this.” Coaching herself out loud helped a bit. She searched her mind for images of wolves, imagining herself running in the woods, remembering seeing Micah playing in the snow, running with Micah, making love with Micah, seeing the pride on his face when she’d shifted. A ripple pulsed through her body at the sight of a blonde wolf in her mind and she knew she was seeing her wolf form for the first time. A smile crossed her lips as she reached for that form with her whole being. She could do this. Micah believed in her. She believed in herself.
Another ripple ran through her body, she could feel her skin and bones realigning, felt a slight sense of falling. This time the shift didn’t feel as strange to her although Olivia still didn’t like the elongating of her face into the muzzle of her wolf self. Still, she gave a brief howl of triumph only to follow it with a yelp of frustration when she realized paws would not open the door. Throwing her body against the wood, Olivia gave voice to her situation.
“All right, already! Shut up, will ya?” One of the guards stood at the door. “So, are you going in like that or as your two-legged self?”
Olivia’s answering snarl sent him stumbling back a few steps. Once he was out of her sight, she focused on what Micah had said before.
Just put the pieces of the puzzle back together, Liv. Remember yourself human.
Concentrating again, she willed herself back to human form.
The joy she felt in finding her human form much faster than she’d found the wolf spurred Olivia. Dressing quickly, she returned to the gate. “Now tell me where Talia and Micah are.”
With a knowing grin, one of the guards jerked a thumb toward the house. “In the door and to your left. Great room. Hearing’s been going on for forty-five minutes though. You’d better hurry.”
“Your Honor! It’s clear this shifter is not fit to be this child’s guardian. Surely her mother would not have wanted a man who would so casually mate and mark another and then let her leave him to rear her only child? Surely she would want the security of a real Pack for this poor orphaned child.” The words rang in the room as Micah’s nails dug into the arms of the chair where he sat.
The Pack had set the great room up as close to a courtroom as they could. The judge, also a shifter, sat in the front of the room and another shifter worked the steno machine. For all intents and purposes this was a legal proceeding and Micah had never felt more out of his element.
The judge nodded. “Is this true, Mr. Keeps Vigil? Smell would tell me that you are bonded, but I can get no aroma of your mate. Why are you here without her? You have no Pack, no mate. Are you a lone wolf, sir? Remember you are under oath.”
Micah stood. The air crackled with the anticipation of the Compound Pack. He could see Frank smirking at him and knew the bastard was smelling victory. His friends sat silently waiting for him to call them to his defense, but he felt mute. The judge was right. What kind of man was he who wouldn’t take up his role as Alpha-who lost his mate because he couldn’t convince her to accept his life? Opening his mouth, he began to declare defeat.
“You are right, Your Honor,” was all he got out before another voice interrupted him.
“No, actually, Your Honor, you are wrong. Micah does have a mate and I’m here now. Where I was is really not important. All that matters is that I am right where I belong. With my mate.” The feel of Olivia’s hand tucking into his made Micah want to howl with joy. He couldn’t help but turn to face her, he wanted desperately to pull her into his arms.
“Olivia? What are you doing here? Did you get my message?” Micah heard his own voice break and felt torn between his desire to sweep Olivia into his arms and his anguish over losing Talia. Turning to the judge, he began to speak again.
“Your Honor, I’d like you to meet my-” But another voice rang out.
“Pack, Your Honor. He’d like you meet at least part of his Pack. I am Gareth Volpe, this is Pete Standing Elk and his mate Margie and we represent the forty-seven members of the Wild Haven Lodge Pack from Howard, Wisconsin.” Gareth paused to stare straight at Micah, standing with his head up and not trying to hide his scars or the patch over his eye in any way. “We’re Micah Keeps Vigil’s Pack.”
Micah swallowed hard, nodding at Gareth standing unflinching in front of his former Pack as the room filled with whispers. Pete and several other members of the now named Lodge Pack stood at Gareth’s back, all of them smiling at Micah and Olivia. Olivia put her arm around Micah and turned him back to face the judge as angry voices erupted from the room. The Compound Pack shifters stood to challenge the strangers in their midst. The judge bellowed over everyone until order could be restored. The burly were-bear judge glowered around the now-silent room. “Another outburst like that and I’ll shred the lot of you. No one does that in my courtroom, do you hear me?
No one.
”
At the thundering echo of his roar every shifter in the room managed to find their seat. Even Micah swiftly sat, pulling Olivia into his lap. She tucked her head under his chin and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Micah.”
He silenced her with a kiss. A cough from the front of the room reminded him where he was so he raised his eyes to the judge.
“Given the overwhelming last-minute evidence, Mr. Keeps Vigil, I must reconsider my lone wolf statement. For you are certainly overwhelmed with Pack for a so-called loner.” The judge leveled a cold look at the compound’s lawyers. “I suppose there is a good reason for that vicious accusation?”
Only stuttering and stammering came from the compound side with Frank snapping at his legal help, his smirk nowhere in evidence now. Even when they pulled it together and tried to regain their momentum, it was clear that the judge’s favor was for Micah. Though the judge retired to another room to deliberate, the decision came as a surprise to no one when he named Micah guardian. However the Compound Pack was given visitation rights which did not make Micah happy but he knew he would deal with that as it came.
Finally the moment came when Talia was released from the room she’d been held in. Her tear-stained face nearly broke Micah’s heart as she flung herself into his arms. She leaned from his arms to Olivia. Olivia returned the fervent hug with whispered promises to never leave again.
“Livia? Will you be my new mommy?”
Olivia stared at her for a moment then swallowed. “If Micah still wants me, yes, baby, I will. I will try to be the best parent I can be, but you will have to help me, okay?”
Micah shook his head. “As if there were any question about that, Liv. You belong with me, we all belong together. We’re a family.”
Sniffling, Talia nodded then paused. “Livia? Are you gonna have a boy or a girl?”
“
What?
” More than one voice exploded on that question.
With careful questioning and Julia’s equally sensitive nose, Olivia’s pregnancy was quickly confirmed. Wrapping his arms around his mate and his child, Micah tipped his head back and let loose a howl of pure joy.
It didn’t take long for the courtroom to empty. Though Tony and Carly offered the new family their guestrooms, Micah opted to take his mate and child somewhere he knew they could all be alone for a bit. He and Olivia had some unfinished business, something he intended to take care of as soon as he could get her alone.
They returned to his hotel where Micah upgraded his room to a suite with two bedrooms. Eating their first meal together as a real family, Olivia and Micah kept touching one another’s hands or faces while Talia sat safely between them, talking a mile a minute about what she wanted to do as soon as they got home. Micah felt his heart swell as he realized he would soon be taking both his mate and his daughter home-to stay. It didn’t take long for Talia to start yawning and for Micah and Olivia’s glances to become more yearning. As soon as the child’s head bobbed for the second time, Micah scooped her up into his arms and carried her into one of the bedrooms.
Tucking Talia safely into one bed and waiting until he knew she slept deeply, Micah watched his mate and his daughter. He couldn’t believe Olivia had come back the way she had. He had a feeling he owed a debt to a certain surly shifter-or more likely, that their slate was now even. Catching Olivia’s gaze, he nodded toward the other bedroom.
She took his hand as they walked into the other room, closing the door behind them. Olivia turned to face him and Micah smiled slightly. “Liv, sweetheart, we really need to talk.”
“Micah, honestly, you talk more than any man I’ve ever met in my life! You want talk, okay, I’ll give you talk. I’ll start. I was wrong. It was stupid of me to run from you, from what we had-or what we almost had. But you were wrong too. You were wrong not to tell me what it meant when I marked you. You were wrong not to tell me what that meant for you when I left you.”
Olivia punctuated each of her statements with a finger to his chest. Micah backed up as she took the initiative, tossing words at him like knives, each sentence cutting across his senses. When his back hit the wall, Micah grabbed Olivia’s fingers to keep her from drilling into his chest any more.