“We’d need a pack,” he whispered against her ear.
“No way in hell am I going to those bastards. They tried to take Ippy from us,” she shot back.
Caelum smirked. “Not saying them. But a pack is the best family type I’ve ever seen. I want our kids to grow up around one, to have that kind of protection. When you and Ippy ran away there was a rush of people that all cared about you coming to rescue you.”
“Selkies have that, too,” she was quick to remind him.
Shrugging, Caelum opened his eyes and looked out at the sea with her. Going to her pack would mean not living within walking distance to the ocean. He’d still have it when they took vacations, he was sure of it, but it wouldn’t be like this. “What I have with my family is different. It’s not worse, but it’s not the same either. It’s less a complete family unit and more of a pyramid. There’s a similar structure in the pack, but Samson is still there, still available, still a part of everyone’s lives. Selkies are largely solitary. There are months between times when I’ll see members of my family outside of my dreams. That doesn’t bother me. But being without you and Ippy for so many years was too hard. I won’t do it again.”
“We won’t ask you to. I had him, so it was easier on me, but we still missed you all the time. We both did. And we talked about how great it would be to live together, just like this,” Hannah softly said, sounding like she was trying to reassure him.
His mind made up, Caelum kissed her cheek. “Call your father. Tell him we’re all coming back there.”
She turned in his arms and frowned up at him as she cupped his face between her hands. “Seriously? You’d give up freedom, a house by the sea, and your own country to go live with my dads?”
Caelum cringed, but wouldn’t back down from it now. “Not with your dads. With you and Ippy. And yes, I will miss this place, but Ippy isn’t safe here with those wolves lurking about, and you were both so scared last night. I won’t do that to you again.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and pinched the tip of his nose before moving out of his hold. “You’re so selfless. You really think we’d let you give up everything in your own life for us?” He couldn’t say anything to that and so he simply stayed quiet as their hands re-joined and they continued walking away from the house and down the beach. “How about a compromise?”
He was listening. “What did you have in mind?”
“When is your family coming back?”
He didn’t know because really, they hadn’t given him a time frame. They were like that. “Few months, I think. Give or take. Not into the tourist season in Spain though. It would be too risky getting seen there.”
She gave him a little shrug, but her smile said that she was forming a plan which was so very much like her. “How about this—for right now we spend the next few months here. We’ll show that pack, and my dads, that we’re able to live together. All of us. And be a little family. We’ll be a pack for Ippy. I don’t know what he’s missing, but I know he’s hurting, so we’ll do our best. And then, if things still aren’t better, we’ll go back home. All three of us. We’ll move in with Samson or something, since my dads’ house is in no way big enough for all three of us.”
It was a good plan and he knew that she was full of them. But there were still a few points missing. “University?” he pointed out. “Jobs?”
With a sigh she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. All I want is a life with you two and right now I’m just trying to make that work. The three of us is already going to be complicated. Add in everything else and it’s a bit much. But we can do it right?”
He was quick to smile at her, hoping to ease the worry in his light brown eyes. “Of course we can. We always can. I believe that you can do pretty much anything, Hannah Glass.”
She blushed a dark pink and shook her head. “Not without my two best friends I can’t.”
Slinging an arm around her shoulder, he steered her up the hill back toward the house. They hadn’t found the perfect shell for Ippy, but they did have a plan now. And that was something. Or at least it was going to have to be for the time being.
Ippy was awake when they got back in. But he wasn’t alone and when Hannah and Caelum saw the man sitting on the couch opposite him in the living room, Hannah shrieked and the piece of glass she’d been holding to give to Ippy the moment she saw him fell from her fingertips to bounce against the hardwood floor beneath their feet.
“Who are you and how did you get in?” Caelum demanded, pulling Hannah behind him as she started going to Ippy.
The man stood up and Caelum realized his height. At nearly a foot taller than Caelum, if he had to guess, this man was taller than any he knew and his bright red hair added a good three inches even above that. “I’m Isaac, alpha of the pack that visited you last night. Miss Glass, your father called me this morning and asked that I check in on you since you weren’t answering your phone.”
Hannah’s hands went to her pockets. “I must have left it here.”
Isaac gave her a tight smile. “Yes. It rang six times while you were out. I do wish you’d had a different ring tone. Something a bit less American pop scene.”
“How about a bit less complaining about our girlfriend’s taste in music and more about why you’re here. You could have seen us on the beach from the front door. You could have waited for us to come back to talk to all of us. Instead you’re talking to our boyfriend without us. I don’t like it,” Caelum protested as he tried to get control of his anger. He did not like people in his house that he didn’t invite in, and he especially didn’t like people that made his boyfriend look like he was about to cry.
I can’t exist without a pack. We all need one,
Ippy said. His words were soft, much more so than Caelum was used to hearing.
Hannah pushed Caelum out of the way, ignored Isaac as she passed him, and went to sit across from Ippy in Isaac’s vacated spot. “We talked about this. Right? We’ll make it work. Caelum and I were talking, and we’ll give it a few months here, and if it’s not working then we’ll go back to Pine Hollow. Super simple. See? So you don’t have to be sad. We’ve got this.”
Caelum wanted to go to Ippy as well but he wouldn’t let Isaac get the jump on him. “You don’t trust me, little selkie,” Isaac said, stating the obvious for anyone who was completely out of it.
Caelum nodded, not wanting to hide it. “No. I don’t.”
“Because I’m a wolf?”
“I’m in love with a wolf,” Caelum pointed out with a nod in Ippy’s direction.
“Then why?”
Caelum gave the man a little shrug. “Because you decided to invite yourself over. Because you are in our house. Because my boyfriend looks more upset now than the night he told me about his parents kicking him out of their house. I don’t know what you said to him, but I won’t let you tell him lies.”
They aren’t lies, Caelum. I need to have a pack. And Isaac has offered to let me be in his.
There was something there, something Ippy wasn’t saying. And then it clicked. “Without us.” It was a simple statement and Isaac didn’t deny it.
“What you have here is unnatural,” Isaac said, taking a step toward Ippy.
Caelum moved quickly, blocking his path and putting a hand on Ippy’s shoulder. Beside him, Hannah didn’t look any less miserable. “Says you.”
Isaac shook his head. “No one is meant to live the way that you think you can. This doesn’t work out. No one will win here. Let me take the boy to the pack. He’ll be taken care of there.”
“We can handle it,” Caelum quickly argued.
Isaac frowned and it might have even been genuine, but frankly Caelum didn’t give a damn. This man was not getting his hands on Ippy and Caelum was not about to see one of his best friends walk out that front door. Not when he’d just gotten them.
“You can’t, lad. You may want to. But a wolf needs a pack. An alpha may not, but a submissive pup like him, weakest of the pack, he won’t last a month without the support of a pack. He’ll get sick. He’ll be depressed. Stop being selfish and let me do what’s right for him.”
Caelum didn’t take his eyes off Isaac as he spoke to Hannah. “Call your dad. Ask him what happens to a wolf without a pack.”
She didn’t argue with him and for that he was grateful as he stared up at the other man. She spoke in broken whispers and then put Liam on speaker. “Caelum, Ippy, Hannah, I need you three to understand something. Phillip, you may not have effects from being away from us. You may be completely fine. Or you may not do very well. I don’t know what Isaac has said or what you three think is going on, but Ippy, you may need the support of a pack. There’s a reason that we have packs and it isn’t just so that we can all get along and things can get done. It’s far more complicated than that. When we’re together it’s like we’re whole, like being with the other members of the pack makes us feel better overall. We are healthier and we live longer. It’s an overall positive force that exists within our bonds. When that was broken for me, when I left the pack for a very brief time when Hannah was only a toddler, I felt the difference. I wasn’t sick, but I wasn’t as happy either. But I was a grown man when I did that and I still lived nearby. You’re thousands of miles away right now. I don’t know what you’re feeling right now, but it may be extremely rough for you. Consider what Isaac—”
“He wants Ippy to go with him, without us,” Caelum said, cutting him off.
He heard the growl before anything else and then it sounded like the other end of the line was being fumbled until Travis came on the phone. “Alright, what just happened? Who pissed off my husband enough that he just turned into a wolf?”
Caelum smirked, knowing exactly how Liam was probably feeling right then. He felt the same way. No one messed with his family. “Isaac wants to take Ippy away from us,” Caelum clued Travis in.
“It’s for his own good,” Isaac nearly shouted at them. “He could die a miserable death, completely alone, if he doesn’t join our pack.”
Hannah shot up from the couch and suddenly she was in front of Caelum, shaking as she stared up at Isaac. “He could do that anyway! You don’t have the right to take him away from us!” She pushed his chest and though she wasn’t able to do any real damage to him, Caelum still arched forward and grabbed her little wrists, then clamped her arms against her chest to keep her out of Isaac’s reach in case he tried to make a grab for her as well.
Travis spoke up. “Caelum, I know you wanted them there, but in light of this situation—”
“I can be packed within ten minutes,” he interrupted Travis, knowing what the man was likely going to say. Travis wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his daughter’s happiness and so there was no way he’d be stupid enough to suggest sending Ippy away.
Hannah stopped struggling in his arms. “What?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at Caelum.
“We’re going home,” he said, giving her a quick smile before turning his attention back to Isaac. “And so your offer is no longer welcome. Ippy has a pack. His own. And he’ll be with them by tonight. Now, get out of our house.”
“A car is on its way there to you now. You’ve got an hour. It’ll take you to the airport where a plane is waiting to bring you home. Samson is borrowing it from a friend. Liam apparently will owe him a favor according to these text messages Samson is sending. Whatever, I don’t even care anymore. I just want you three here and safe. Where I know exactly where you are and that no other alphas are trying to kidnap the boy I helped raise.” Travis sounded angry, too, and though he was a human, Caelum knew he would be handy in a fight.
With a few gruffly muttered curses, Isaac showed himself out. Caelum didn’t move away from Ippy until the front door had closed behind him, and even then he only stopped touching him long enough to come around the couch so that he could face him while Hannah locked the door. “I’m going to go start packing,” Hannah said, giving them both a little wave as she said goodbye to her dads and hung up the phone. Only Caelum returned it.
Once he was sitting on the couch, Ippy crawled across the couch toward him until he had his upper body laid across Caelum’s lap. Caelum put his arms around Ippy’s shoulders, holding him tightly.
I’m sorry,
Ippy whispered into his mind.
“Don’t be. I’ll let my family know that they need to come back. We have a family friend that can look over the house until then. My family won’t be happy about their vacation being cut short, but I don’t really care,” Caelum said as he ran his finger through Ippy’s tangled curls.
We were here less than a night and I was hardly able to sleep. I’ve felt sick all morning. I had nightmares even before the pack showed up. I’m such a nuisance.
He shuddered and Caelum sighed. “No, you’re not. Not to us. Not ever. And I wish you would have told us.”
What would you have done?
“This,” Caelum replied instantly.
Ippy shook his head.
It’s not fair to you. Or Hannah. This was the dream. The three of us moving to Ireland and living together, forever. Only, I had to mess it all up.
Caelum smirked down at Ippy. “The dream was only to have you both in my life. I don’t really care where we live.”
You need the ocean as much as I need a pack, though.
Caelum shrugged. True, he did need to have salt water around him. He had to have that connection, but he didn’t get sick from it like Ippy had so quickly. “I’ll be fine. I can go a good year before it starts to affect me. You’ll see. This will be good.”
Hannah came out of the bedroom with their bags packed. “Caelum, Samson is getting new papers and identification made for you. You don’t have to use them if you don’t want to and we can do the fiancé visa thing with me if you’d rather, but this is the fastest, and easiest way, to get you into the US for a long time. He says there’s an empty apartment, too, that we can take over. It’s a two bedroom and he’ll give us a few months before he starts charging us rent. It’s even in the pack apartment complex that he owns, so that’s nice. There’s only twelve units so it’s not like it’s a huge place or anything. But it sounded okay. I haven’t seen it, though, so if we don’t like it we’ll find somewhere else and—”
“And you’re rambling,” Caelum told her with a gentle smile.