Pack, page 28
part #3 of Five Fangs Series
"And a sun hat for her for tomorrow," Jay added. "Probably sun block, too, since some of the flea market is outside."
"Good idea." He nodded and trotted off upstairs while the rest of us kept watch over our angel.
"Which do you think is more likely to happen when she wakes up? Yelling or crying?" I muttered.
"What kind of question is that?" Cole hissed.
"I need to prepare myself if it's crying," I hissed back.
Link so you don't wake her, Jay told us, and we all nodded.
Yelling bothers me more, Ash admitted with a shiver. I don't like getting yelled at.
Aw, I'm used to getting yelled at. I shrugged. Sure, it hurts coming from Posy, but it's just yelling. Tears, though? They kill me. I can't stand to see her cry.
None of us can, Cole said, and we all nodded.
Silence fell between us, and we settled around her to wait for those big blue eyes to open - and hoped they wouldn't be filled with tears.
32: Making Up is Hard to Do
Cole
Our little mate began to stir, and her small fists stretched over her head.
"Mmm. Pine," she whispered with a smile and snuggled into her pillow more.
Shocked that she'd call me out over the others, I took a second to respond, and Ash wasn't having it.
"That's you, dude!" he said in a hushed yell, which was as close as he ever got to whispering. "Talk to her! Touch her!"
Shooting him an irritated look, I touched her jaw with my fingertips. She hummed in approval and leaned into my hand, and I cupped the whole side of her face in my palm.
"Posy?" I murmured. "Are you okay?"
Her eyes blinked a few times before they stayed open.
"Cole? You're really here?" She looked around and saw my brothers hovering anxiously around her. "You're all really here? You came back?"
"Of course we did, honey. We will always come home to you." With a soft smile, I stroked my thumb over her cheekbone. "You know why? Because you are our home."
"I'm sorry I got mad and yelled at you." She lowered her eyes. "I only ever lost my temper like that once before. It didn't end well then, either. I should have stayed calm and talked to you. Instead, I screamed at you and sent you away. I'm sorry."
"Oh, no, little flower." Mase grabbed her hands and pulled her into a sitting position. Then he took her chin in his hand and made her look up. "You don't apologize. We messed up. We deserved everything you said because you were right. In fact, there was a lot more truth you should have yelled at us."
"For example, you should have told us to trust you," Wyatt said next. "You knew what you were doing, and had Ariel there in case something went wrong. I even saw for myself that you were fine and in control. I shouldn't have doubted you."
"You also should have yelled at us for embarrassing you in front of the gammas and betas." Ash's sigh seemed to come from the depths of his soul. "That had to hurt, and we were wrong to do it."
"We are sorry about so many things that happened in that tiny span of time," I finished. "Everything fell apart so quickly, and it was entirely our fault. We're going to do our best to make it up to you and earn your forgiveness. We're also going to celebrate your achievement with a ton of surprises."
"I don't need—"
"We want to, sweetness." Jay sat down next to her and laid his hand on her knee. "And we're going to. Even if you can't forgive us right now, we want to do some things to give you back your happiness. It hurts our hearts so much to know we robbed you of that today."
"Let us pamper and spoil you a bit, little flower," Mase added. "We're not trying to buy your forgiveness. We want to give you our time and attention to show how much we love you. That's what Cole meant by surprises."
She looked around at all our faces with wide eyes, but remained silent. Had we missed something, or was she waiting to make sure we were done?
"We're okay again, right?" she said at last. "You're not mad at me for getting mad at you?"
She bit her bottom lip before continuing, making me moan silently. I should be the one doing that.
"Because I don't like this ... this upset between us. It makes me so sad and anxious, I feel sick. I don't want to do this again."
"Oh, baby," I said, laying my head in her lap, "we don't, either. This last hour or so has been absolutely horrible."
"I'm sorry!" She sank her hands in my hair and massaged my scalp. "It's my fault for making you feel that way. I—"
And she stopped herself. I felt her body tense under me and raised my head to look at her, but all I saw in her eyes was curiosity.
"What is it, cutie?" Wyatt asked, and I knew my brothers also recognized something had happened in her thought process.
"Ty explained the fawning response that some trauma survivors have after stress," she said slowly, "and I'm doing that right now. Huh. It's so ... odd to think about the way you're thinking, isn't it?"
We looked at each other, then slowly shook our heads.
"We know what the word fawning means, sweetness, but we've never heard of the fawning response you're talking about. Will you explain it?" Jay asked for all of us.
"Basically, to keep from being hurt again, trauma survivors like me and Ty will say or do anything to please the other person, usually agreeing with them even if we really disagree or know it's wrong. He said it starts as children because our caretaker is also our abuser, so we learn to try to please them to avoid pain."
When she paused for breath, I linked the boys that we needed to bring this up during our next session with Dr. York. They all agreed, then we listened in fascination as she continued.
"He also said it can lead to big problems later in life because we'll give up boundaries that we shouldn't. That's why he said to try to notice if I'm doing it and to stop myself if I can. I'm going to talk to Dr. York about it next time. Oh, and I also want you to set up an appointment for Ty with him. Ty's worked hard to educate himself about his mental health, but I think now that he has a mate, he would be thankful to get some professional support."
"Oh, my love," Wyatt whispered, his eyes full of anguish. "Can I hold you?"
She looked at him as a gentle smile tilted her lips up.
"Yes, please!"
We moved aside a little so he could gather her up in his arms, and he held her like a baby as he walked back and forth, his face buried in her neck near her mate mark.
After a few minutes, when his sniffling stopped, he wiped his face with the front of his t-shirt, then linked us to ask who would like to hold her next.
We sorted out an order and passed her around with her consent, each of us hugging her and whispering in her ear, until finally she caught sight of the flowers and gasped.
"Are these all for me?"
"Yes, honey." I was the last one to hold her, and I was making the most of it. I wasn't going to put her down until she asked me to. "Do you want us to tell you who picked which, or do you want to try to guess?"
She clapped her hands and her eyes once more sparkled with happiness.
"Guess, of course!" she laughed. "What do I get if I'm right?"
"The same thing you'll get if you're wrong," Wyatt said with a wolfy grin. "Long, lingering kisses that usually end in a tangle of sweaty limbs, but we have a surprise planned for you, so you'll have to wait for that until tonight, cutie."
Sighing, Mase reached over and smacked his head, but not nearly as hard as usual. Probably because it was true.
Posy's pretty pink blush told us she caught his meaning, and her shy smile and demurely lowered eyes told us she wasn't opposed.
Pressure’s on you, Mase, Wyatt linked with a waggle of his eyebrows. Better rise to the occasion so you don't disappoint her.
Mase shot him the bird behind Posy's back.
"What is it? What's my surprise?" she asked.
"If we told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" Ash teased her. "Now try to guess which flowers are from who."
She got all of them right and made a big fuss over each bouquet, thanking us profusely with hugs and kisses, even though we told her that she didn't need to thank us for getting her make-up flowers after we screwed up.
After smelling Jay's roses, she told him he shouldn't have bought her any since he had nothing to apologize for. He just shrugged and told her he wanted to.
Then she asked who the pansies were from.
"Did you just buy an extra?"
"No, sweetness, there's one more person who wants to apologize."
Jay gave us a look, and we all nodded silently to show that we understood he was letting Quartz out for a minute.
"Posy," Quartz said in a grave, formal tone that made us hide our grins, "I owe you my deepest apologies. If I hadn't lost my temper, these idiots wouldn't have, either."
"Oh, Quartz," she mumbled before throwing herself in his arms, the lucky dog. "I forgive you."
After he released her and gave control back to Jay, she looked at each of us with a happy smile.
"I forgive all of you."
With sighs of relief, we passed her around again, this time with solemn thank yous and delicious little kisses. She ended up in Mase's arms, and he smiled down at her.
"And now, sweet little flower, you need to freshen up and put on one of your favorite outfits," he told her. "I've taken care of everything else."
"Why? What's going on?" She tilted her head, looking more adorable than Ash's flower puppy - and that thing was damn cute.
"I'm taking you on a date, baby," Mase said with the biggest grin I'd seen on his face in a long while.
The way her eyes widened and sparkled as rosy pink flushed her cheeks made us realize just how remiss we were to not follow up on our promises to take her out. In our defense, a lot of things had been going on this summer that we had no control over.
But now it's time to fix that, Topaz said with a wiggle, happy to see our mate happy. I hope she likes our date, boss!
Oh, she will, I grinned. I'll make sure of that.
Letter from Posy’s Mom
Dear children,
If you are reading this, I died before I could explain anything to you, and for that I am sorry. A sad story poorly told on notebook paper will have to be explanation enough now.
Kendall Briggs was not my Goddess-given mate. We met at an alpha conference when I tagged along with my father, William Swift. At thirty, I was one of the oldest unmated females there, and Kendall the oldest unmated male at thirty-four. We chatted and found some common ground we thought we could build on, so we made an arrangement. We would be chosen mates with the understanding that we'd separate amicably if ever one of us found our true mate.
Kendall did not stand by that agreement. When James was four and Aiden three, emissaries from the king arrived at Green River, and among them was my true mate. Logan Everleigh wasn't an alpha or a beta, not a gamma or even a delta. He was a regular wolf, as he liked to call himself, but to me, he was everything I ever wanted in a mate.
When the emissaries left to return to the royal pack, I went with my mate and brought you boys along. I should have known then that Kendall was plotting something. If I hadn't been blinded by bliss, I would have realized that he'd never let his heirs leave Green River.
For three months, my mate and I lived in happiness and peace, visiting often with my family. Every day shone brighter, and I dared to dream we had the rest of our lives to spend together as a happy family. Logan loved you both, James and Aiden, as if you were his own sons. Posy, you would have been the apple of his eye, his little princess, if only he had lived to know you.
Unfortunately, Kendall destroyed everything. Before I was even sure that Posy slept under my heart, Kendall found us and killed Logan. He killed my mate in front of my eyes while James and Aiden were at school. He reported to King Magnus that he'd found the man who'd 'kidnapped' us, but was too late to save me from Logan's 'madness.' He faked my death so that my family wouldn't know to save me, then spun a tale for his pack to think I'd been taken by rogues.
In his ignorance of the truth, the king praised Kendall for his unrelenting dedication to finding us and offered him compensation for the 'atrocious crimes' committed by a member of the royal pack.
How ironic that Kendall was paid handsomely for killing my innocent mate and dragging us all back to Green River - or should I say, dragging us back to hell?
Children, I promise you, if I'd known what awaited us there, I would have slit all of our throats that very night. Ever since our return to this alpha house, I have tried to escape or at least contact my family for help, but every attempt has been punished with torture, starvation, and rape.
I don't know how much more my body can stand. I am only sorry to leave you behind, darlings. I'd stay and shield you until he beats the last breath from my body if I could, but I fear the sickness will end me before he can.
By now, I pray that you are free from the monster known as Kendall Briggs. If you are not, keep trying, my darlings. Try and try until you escape this wretched hell. If you cross the borders of his territory, head for my father's pack, Crystal Caverns. He and my family will protect you.
My loves, I am sorrier than words can say that I ruined your lives and caused you such suffering at the hands of that monster. I pray he meets an appropriate end for his atrocious crimes. Learn from your mother’s mistakes, children, and wait for your true mate no matter how long it takes. It may be painful or embarrassing at times, but trust in the Goddess and await her gift.
I hope that all three of you know how very much I love you. May your futures be as bright or brighter than the one I dreamed for each of you.
Your loving mother
Family Trees
THE ALPHAS’ SIDE
Royal and Julia Price AKA Papa and Mama
Former alpha and luna of Earthshine pack
Children (twins):
● Mason Andre, 21
● Willow Diane (deceased)
Nathan Barlow AKA Dad
Former alpha of Great Rocks pack
Children with Goddess-given mate and luna, Kelly (deceased):
● Cole Nathaniel, 20
● Peri Eloise, 17
● Archer Graham, 15
Children with chosen mate, Genevieve Black:
● William Paul, 5
● Winston Jack, 3
Jay and Denise Carson (both deceased)
Former alpha and luna of Moonset pack
Children:
● Jayden Ellis, 19
● Ash Loto Mitchell (adopted; Jay’s nephew), 18
Gabriel and Kristy Mitchell (both deceased)
Former alpha and luna of Dark Woods pack
Child:
● Ash Loto, 18
Genevieve Black AKA Mom
Former luna of River Rapids pack
Children with Goddess-given mate and alpha Shawn (deceased):
● Wyatt Shawn, 18
● Wayne Andrew, 15
● Wade Vincent, 12
● Wesley Alec, 9
Children with chosen mate, Nathan Barlow:
● William Paul, 5
● Winston Jack, 3
POSY’S SIDE
(as known to date)
William Swift
Former alpha of Crystal Caverns
Children with Goddess-given mate and luna Zora (deceased)
● Isaac (deceased)
● Aaron (deceased)
● Naomi (deceased)
Isaac and Ginger Swift (both deceased)
Children:
● Liam, 23
● Camille, 19
Liam and Leyly Swift
Alpha and luna of Crystal Caverns
Child:
● Gage, 6 months
Naomi and chosen mate Kendall Briggs, alpha of Green River (deceased)
Children:
● James, 23
● Aiden, 21
Naomi and Goddess-given mate Logan Everleigh (deceased)
Child:
● Posy, 18
End of Book Three
Books By This Author
Mates
Posy Briggs, the runt of Green River, turned eighteen years old alone in a dark room, whimpering from the pain of her latest beating. After her mother's death six years ago, her father turned her into his punching bag, taking all of his sorrow and rage out on her small self. He isolated her from her pack, turned her older brothers against her, and put her wolf into a coma with an overdose of wolfsbane. Posy's sure she won't live to see her next birthday, yet every morning she rises with the sun and hopes for something to change, and it finally does when Alpha Kendall Briggs' madness draws the attention of the Werewolf King. He sends five alphas to investigate. Five alphas who burst into Posy's life with the most delicious scents she ever imagined…
Luna
After surviving a nightmare, werewolf Posy Briggs is loving life with her alpha mates at Five Fangs - at least until the time comes for them to part. Mason, Cole, Jayden, Ash, and Wyatt head off with the werewolf king, determined to kill whoever is behind the trouble at Tall Pines. Of course, that's if they don't kill each other before they even leave the alpha house! After her beloved boys finally get on their way, Posy spends time with her new friends, learns more about the pack, and takes on demons from her past, all with her loyal betas by her side.
Pack
Now officially the luna of Five Fangs, Posy steps into her role with determination to do the best she can for her new pack, and her resolve and skills are tested right from the start! From the truth about her mother to a devastating loss, Posy meets each new challenge with dignity and wisdom. When a shocking betrayal knocks her down, can she find the courage to rise again and keep going - or will she fall prey to despair and give up on her pack, her mates, and herself?
