Solid Ground: Territory Walk Book 6, page 18
What the hell?
Rory flinches a little when I sink on the couch next to her, so caught up in her conversation that she didn't notice me walk in. She immediately leans into the touch though, making me feel important.
“Laney please. I’m not mad at you, I promise. I love you too. I’ll text or call a little bit later to let you know what we decide. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this; go have my brothers take care of you. Put it out of your mind, this isn’t anything you need to worry about. No, it’s really not. The stress isn’t good for your baby. Oh, yeah, good thing. Hormones would be crazy if I was pregnant too, huh?”
I look at her wide-eyed. I thought she told her family. We’ve definitely told our sister.
“Okay, okay. Bye. Thank you. And sorry again.”
She hangs up and looks at me with sad eyes, and that same sense of violence rises up in me. I just want to demand to know who hurt her so I can track them down, but in this case, it’s an ill pregnant lady, so there’s not much vengeance to be had. “What’s going on, babe?”
“We better go back to the other room. Everybody needs to hear. Is Donny going to be here soon?” She eyes the door anxiously, and I know instantly he’s not going to be one of the guys going on this trip. Both of them with their weird, freaky, connector-connection thing, they’re kind of nightmares to be around if they don’t get to see each other regularly. “I heard one of the other guys say they were gonna get him up here while I was walking over. You know he’ll be here as soon as he can if he thinks you need him.”
She nods her head and starts picking at her nails anxiously, not making any move to go back to other room. It’s a bit strange how this group relationship thing works, because even though there’re a whole room full of guys who’re willing to give Rory everything, and even though she’s head over heels in love, or nearly in love, with every single one of them in return, sometimes she just needs a specific mate to calm her down. She craves us individually, and right now it seems like Donny is getting that privilege.
The second Donny is through the door he’s looking for her, his eyes manic. She runs and jumps at him, but as usual, no jealousy swells within me. I’m just glad that she’s getting a need met.
“What’s happening little connector? Talk to me. Caden’s text was all over the place.”
“Why can’t I just be happy for more than one day at a time?” She starts sobbing and he raises his eyebrows, looking at me in confusion as he also battles the need to hunt down who hurt her. He's looking for magic words he can say to her that will fix this. I shrug though, because I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know what we need to fix yet.
The guys are all still tense and mostly quiet when we come back in, and Rory will not let Donny put her down. With Jameson’s assistance he manages to at least turn her around so we can hear her better, but she’s very clingy right now.
“Christine…” she starts, looking scared to finish the sentence. She looks to Caden, who's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, sweating bullets.
“What’s going on, Scraps? What did you find out?”
“Laney was just about to call me when I called her. Because you missed it, Donny, Caden got a strange text from Christine while they were eating lunch, asking if he could come sooner because she wanted to spend time with him. So we called her to make sure everything was okay, and she just sounded a bit off.”
“Off how?” Donny asks.
“She kind of had a bad attitude and didn’t sound like herself. When she referred to Caden as the father of her child, we thought it was a red flag, so I called Laney to check in. She was frantic.
“Everybody here knows by now that Christine has a full staff that rotates to care for her during the day, so Laney and my brothers thought nothing of running to a bakery down the road, because she had a craving.
“Christine was resting when they left, and the nurses were just about to switch shifts. When Laney and my brothers got back though, and they weren’t even gone all that long, the new nurse hadn’t shown up yet, and it seems the other one left a few minutes early. She had gotten a call from her son’s school got some reason and had go pick him up.
“Christine apparently assured the nurse that she’d be fine for a few minutes before the next nurse got there, but that nurse never showed up.”
Jameson has his phone out, immediately thumbing through stuff, trying to find the problem. He’s been the one paying and hiring the staff there, and knowing what I do about him, he'll figure out exactly why his employee never showed up.
“Christine was gone, too. They’ve already contacted police, but the house is a bit isolated so there’s not exactly neighbors they can talk to to see if anybody saw anything. Laney feels guilty; I tried to reassure her it wasn’t her fault, but you all know how she is. She loves to take care of people, and if she can’t, it’s a problem.”
“She’s gone?” Caden bites out. “Then why was she texting me like nothing was wrong?”
“That’s all I know right now,” Rory’s voice is a bit shaky. “Oh, and some of the baby stuff was gone with her. Maybe she just decided to run?”
“She's terminal,” Jameson snaps. “Sorry, I’m just flustered. And worried. She’s in no condition to be going anywhere right now.”
“That probably wasn’t Christine on the phone,” I surmise out loud.
“Don’t call her again,” Holden says before Caden can do just that. “If that actually wasn’t Christine, but somebody who maybe took her away or something, which seems like it could be a possibility, then calling her will inform her that we're questioning things. If whoever we just talked to thinks that we’re in the dark though, she won’t have time to hide anything.”
“How can I not call her though?” Caden sounds like he's two seconds away from screaming at everybody, and I know it's because he's crazy worried.
“Trust us,” Ari says. “We run a security firm, man. We’ve dealt with all kinds of hostage situations over the years. If that’s what we’re dealing with now, you don’t want to try and negotiate with the kidnapper. You need to play along while we get a plan in place; it sounds like there are already police on it anyway.”
“What do you think, Caden?” Before Rory can get any more words out, she starts crying again. “They don’t know I’m pregnant!”
“Shit, she’s crying. Rory, baby,” Brett begs, crawling on his knees to get in front of her. “What can we do?”
“Somebody has my baby!” She wails even louder.
“I don’t know how, but we’ll fix this,” Donny reassures her. “That baby has ten fathers, none of us are in this alone. There will be a trail one way or another. We will find her, Rory.”
“Well she wanted us there tonight, and I said I’d text her. How are we getting there, and what time do you think we can make it happen? If we have a meeting place, we can tell the police where to look.”
“We could probably charter a helicopter,” Ari suggests. “Let me reach out to the company we normally use and see what can be done.” He stops to give Rory a kiss on the head, and then goes to solve some problems for her.
“How do I choose between my baby and the whole group of connectors that can’t be fixed by anybody but me? What if this magic has an expiration date, and I do go to find the baby first, and then the rest of these connectors and their mates are ruined for the rest of their lives because I lost their magic? What if I stay and help though, and we lose that baby? There’s no right answer here,” she sobs.
“There is a right answer,” I inform her. “You have ten mates, so we’re going to take some of this burden away for you. We can’t help you with the connectors, but we can help with the baby. Whoever is with Christine, if it’s not Christine herself, wants Caden for whatever reason. It seems dumb to not give into that demand. There’s no point taking on any extra risks, so Caden should go. But he’s not going to go alone.”
She breathes a little deeper, because having some sort of short-term plan in place to focus on helps her get more clear-headed. “Of course he's not going alone. You’re all going with him, right? You'll take care of that baby when I can’t? I’ve got to give everything I have to get the connectors fixed so I can get up there. These connectors are victims that have suffered enough, and I don't want to drag it out.”
“No, we're not all going,” Donny says. “We need to make sure you’re okay, too. If we all left, you’d be a big, fat mess. Your mental health is just as important as all this other stuff going on. And none of us would be okay being without you, knowing you were alone.”
“Half and half?” I suggest again. “Five go, five stay?”
“You guys should go,” Rory says, looking at Holden, Jameson, and Charlie. “You're the experts at security and situations like this, so it makes sense.”
“I’ve been apart from you long enough,” Jameson rebukes. “They can go, but I’m staying. Might be helpful for one of us to be here anyway. I make an excellent bodyguard.” He tries to come off like that last part was a bit of a joke, but the atmosphere is way too thick for it to land properly.
Charlie stares long and hard at her. “You know we can’t tell you no for anything, but I kind of want to when you’re asking me to leave you.”
“I’m sorry Charlie,” she whispers. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he sighs. “Promise me you won’t be more than a few days away from me?”
“I’ll take four naps a day so I can dream sculpt and recharge if I have to. The second I get these connectors fixed, I’ll be there.”
“And you’re going to pull us into your dreams at night, right?” Holden asks.
“That’s a given,” she says with a thin smile.
“Donny’s staying too,” I say.
Rory’s cheeks turn red, and she hangs her head like it’s a weakness she should be embarrassed by that she needs him so badly.
“What is that look for now?” Felix asks. “We’re not going to take your connector away from you, baby. Him and that freaky dick of his can’t be that far away from you. We all understand.”
“It's not because I don’t love you all, too.”
“We know,” my brother replies.
“Bennett?” she asks, not adding anything else to the request.
“Yeah, I’ll stay with you. You don’t even have to ask.”
“Maybe more than half of you should go, it’s not like I can get into very much trouble here. Christine needs us, and I hate to say it, but I think she needs you all more than I do right now if we think there's something going sideways. Plus, it would help my mental stability knowing more of you were helping that situation, instead of hanging out with me while I try to sort all this out.”
I’m sensing she doesn’t want to make the decision, because she’s scared to look like she’s choosing favorites. I jump in to help her out. “My brother understands her better than almost anybody, so I think he should stay too. I can keep Brett calm if he’s going up to deal with that drama, and I know he wants to support Caden.
“I don’t think any less than four should stay. There's no way we'll be able to keep our head in the game up there, if we know you don’t have a good support system here. You’re trying to be strong, but you’re still a connector, and you still need your mates. There’s nothing wrong with that, Rory.”
She nods at me, and I like the baby smile she relaxes into. “Okay. I can live with that. I don’t want to, but I will. I just need to know that Christine and that baby are taken care of.”
“Jameson, Donny, Felix, and Bennett are staying then. You good with that my love?” I see her relax a little into Donny at my summary. She eyes the guys that are leaving, and her eyes widen when she gets to Caden.
“I know, I know Scraps. It’s going to be okay, though. I’ll make sure of that. I promise I don’t want to leave you, but as parents, our priorities are going to split us up sometimes. This is why there’re a ton of us, so that we can divide and conquer. It’s just a couple days, okay? And then you’ll be back with me. Promise.”
“You can do this Rory,” Brett promises. “You’re strong as hell, and the sex we’re going to have when we’re all together again will be worth it.”
She laughs a little bit, and we all sit there trying to accept what’s about to happen, sending prayers to a silent goddess that this helps us get closer to our happy ending.
Rory
I feel sick to my stomach. Instead of being helpful, I’ve gone numb. We just finished our bonding ceremony the other day, and now I’m having to part with over half of my guys because once again, I’m not allowed to just live my life in peace. Maybe I should feel flattered this keeps happening, because maybe it means that we’re so happy that things keep trying to take chips out of us to balance things out; instead, I just feel a bit hopeless.
The guys that are staying with me step out of the room so I can have a bit of privacy with the ones that are leaving, and honestly, it’s just not enough.
Charlie is the first to grab me, settling me on his lap while all the others go to pack. “One of these days, we’re gonna pack up our suitcases for the last time, and we’re just gonna stay put. Do you hear me, Rory? That day will come.”
“But at what cost? What will we have to lose to make it to that point?”
He settles his hands on my hips and pulls my body flush against him. My hips are open to him, but it doesn't feel the least bit sexual. I just want to be held and touched while all the places where my heart dwells outside of my body are still next to me. “We’re near the end of our trials baby.”
“Maybe this all seems silly to you after all you’ve been through—”
“No, it’s not silly at all. That’s our baby out there, and we don’t know where she is. Christine is your friend, and we’re all worried about her.”
I nod, trying to memorize the way he smells since I won’t have it for the next few days.
“This is going to be fine, okay?”
I know he’s referring to us being apart, and I wish it felt fine; I know they need to go, and I’m glad that they can, but part of me just wants to be selfish and keep them next to me. “I hope so,” I say, instead of offering up all of my doubts.
Ari comes to sit next to us, and I drape my arm around his neck as well, suspended between them. “I feel like I just got you guys back.”
“I know Rory, I know.”
I kiss Ari, needing a way to show him my thanks for taking care of the transportation. “I kind of hate that we're asking you guys to do so much so soon after becoming mine. I was hoping that mated life would be a lot simpler.”
“This is what we’re here for,” Charlie tells me.
Ari nods and agrees. “If we weren’t here, you’d be in so much more of a mess. We’re happy to take this burden off of you. We’re thrilled that we have skills and resources we can access to make your life even a fraction easier.”
“I’m glad you’re all going to be together; it makes me happy to know that nobody’s alone.”
Ari starts drawing little designs on my hand, and it's the little things like this that I'll miss the most. “You’re going to be so busy working with these connectors, you probably won’t even notice we’re gone. And then it’ll be fun to sleep because you'll be pulling us into your dreams. We can frolic through fields, or flowers, or I don’t know, whatever you want to do. The point is, we can do this, and we’re all gonna be fine. Okay?”
I know I’m being a little over the top, but there’s not much I can do about that. I sit and snuggle with them a few more minutes before Holden steals me, pulling me in to one of the now empty rooms and shoving the door closed behind us. He pulls me onto the bed and tucks me into his side, pulling my leg over his hip so we’re completely intertwined.
“I just needed this for a little bit before I go,” he tells me.
“Happy to comply.” With my head on his chest I listen to his heart, relaxing into him. The ease with which I’ve already gotten close to him is incredible; it still stuns me every time I look down at his wrist and see my mark there. Actually, I get little tummy tickles and an involuntary smile when I see any of my guys’ mate marks, really. They make a girl feel a bit possessive.
“I want you to do something when I’m gone,” Holden tells me.
“What’s that?”
“I want you to focus on our happy ending, okay? On our end of the road.”
Great, now I’m panicking again. “Holden, I don’t even know where we’re going to live after all of this. I guess we just go back to your guys’ house...”
He ‘hmms’, but there's not much thought behind the noise. “It’s an option. It’s there, and it’s big enough for everybody. But that can just be short term.”
“Holden, I really don’t ask for much. I just want to be with you guys somewhere our little babies can be safe and comfortable.”
“They will be, don’t worry. Let us handle that, okay?”
“Alright. So that’s all you want me to do? Just focus on our happy ending?”
“I want you to spend some time on the app you have that lets you pick things for mood boards. Start thinking about furnishings for the house, for the baby’s room, anything that gets your mind off of what’s happening. Figure out what colors and textures you like in a home, and daydream about what it’s going to be like when we’re all under one roof and don’t have to go anywhere. And then I want you to hold on to that dream until it happens.”
That sounds fun actually, I think to myself. I don’t know how we’ll ever achieve it, but if he’s telling me not to worry about it, I guess I can do that, too.
We lay there long enough that I start to get a bit sleepy, and then Caden and Brett slide into the room as Holden leaves.
“This feels familiar,” Brett says quietly. They end up on either side of me, sandwiching me like they know I love.
