Chapter Nine

Terrick

I started to pick up my mate and carry him back into the safety of the basement, but he stood up with a sigh. I silently prayed that if I had younger siblings, I didn’t treat them how Trista was acting now.

“Don’t mind her. That’s just how she is,” Scott sighed again. “Let’s go back down there. You’re as clean as you’re going to get for now. If we stay up here, I’m going to eat her face. I’m just going to let my wolf out and let him take care of it.”

“I’ll still take care of it, if you want me too,” I told him, cupping one side of his face in my hand.

His skin was soft and smooth without a trace of a five o’clock shadow. I wanted to touch him forever. Maybe I didn’t need to know who I was. Maybe knowing who he was would be enough.

“Stop it!” The dog chimed off in my thoughts. “Stop it! You have to remember and soon I think the dragon will tell us why!”

“Can’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Nope.”

The three-tailed fucker wasn’t very helpful, but what did I expect? If I didn’t remember him, maybe he didn’t remember me either.

Hand-in-hand, Scott and I walked back to the basement door. He cracked it open and called down softly to the men inside.

“Come on,” Duke called back. “Is anyone else with you?”

“Just me and Terrick,” Scott called. “Liam wants to tell us all something after Dara and Sam get here.”

“Come on then,” Duke called again. “No shoes in the nest this time, though, okay?”

We both stripped our shoes off and left them outside the basement door. I peeled off my socks too, covered in tiny blood splatters. Something really had attempted to take me out. Maybe we were safer in the basement with some unknown predator running around out there.

Scott walked so lightly on the stairs, holding onto my hand. I wondered how often he crept around like that, trying to be more invisible. With how his older siblings acted, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were all the time. That had to change. I’d clear the space for him to exist without worrying about assholes.

Down in the basement, Scott kept ahold of my hand and led me to one of the sofas. It was probably a good idea that we steered clear of the nest. Duke sat in front of his egg, rigid backed, with his mate’s head in his lap. He swept his fingers over the coyote shifter’s hair gently, but he was all senses.

“If it’s too much we could meet them upstairs,” Scott offered.

“He’s fine,” Syre said. “Trista and Travis always wind him up.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t whip out her phone on the way down,” Blithe said, rolling his eyes and sharing a commiserating look with my mate.

“I didn’t give her time to,” I said.

“This is Terrick Lost Fang. Apparently, he’s a prince,” Scott grinned, and that smile melted everything inside me.

I’d fight whole armies by myself to keep him smiling like that.

“Lost Fang, huh? You guys don’t have much contact with the outside world,” Blithe said.

“I wouldn’t know. Well, maybe I would, but I don’t remember,” I shrugged one shoulder and wrapped my other arm around Scott.

“And there’s a reason for that,” Liam said as the basement door creaked open. “Is it okay for us to come down? It’s me and Dara. Sam stayed out to make sure the twins went somewhere else. We locked up, though.”

Blithe and Duke shared a look that involved a lot of eyebrow twitching before they nodded at each other and Duke told them they could come on down.

Dara was a giant of a man whose expression was akin to someone who just won the lottery or had the most fantastic secret.

“What you so cheerful for?” Duke asked him.

“The more we know about things like this, the more we can help people,” Dara said.

“I told you, this is more magic than medicine, but I wanted you here to look at him anyway, because no one should show up covered in their own blood and not see a doctor,” Liam sighed.

“Magic and medicine aren’t that far apart, Liam,” Dara said as if he were merely reminding him.

Liam let out a long, slow breath.

“Before I say anything,” he said, sitting down in an armchair while Dara hovered behind him, a tiny black notebook in hand and at the ready. “You all should know that if I sound frustrated, I am, but not at any of you. Trista and Travis --- well, they’ve just pissed me off. I try not to get mad at idiots, but I draw the line at bullying.”

“What did they do?” Blithe asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Liam said. “We have more important things to talk about than their antics.”

“Something bad enough that their parents cut them off from the money,” I chimed in to let Blithe know how serious the situation was.

“Are you okay, Scott?” Blithe asked, as he tensed to get out of the nest.

“They’ll be plenty of time to talk about it later,” Scott shrugged. “It can’t be undone, and I don’t want them to overshadow this. I’ve met my true-mate and my head is spinning.”

“There is a lot of lore that we aren’t sure about,” Liam said, changing the subject and dragging us all back on track, “but the more we live the more I’ve come to believe most of it can be believed. I had the honor of being in and out of the Temple of Juda back in the GGB Territory a lot while I was a teenager. That gave me the chance to read a lot of stuff most people would never know about. One of the things I read was what at the time my mentor, Sincla, and I thought was just a story. It was an odd ball one, but it stuck with me. I’m going to tell you that story and then we’ll brainstorm. Dara, you might want to sit down, because this could take awhile.”

“I’m used to standing,” he said. “My dragon’s on edge too. If one of those igits hit Sam, well, you’ll see.”

“Okay, your feet, not mine,” Liam shrugged and rolled his shoulders before leaning back into the armchair. “I don’t remember the guy’s name from the story. So, there’s that already, but the rest of it I remember pretty well. There was this dude. He was a human who didn’t shift and he was in a human army that did some pretty shitty things. By this time, Frost and Juda had already taken their younger kids and fled to the Other World. But some of their children like Syra and Cyrus, their firstborns, were already grown and had a lot of descendants. Well, this guy was the true-mate of one of those descendants. Well, as armies go around doing bad shit, a lot of people die in said army. Dude was dying on the battle field and the story goes that Juda was so distraught at the idea of one of their descendants never meeting his true-mate that he begged Frost to save him. Well, Frost was born in the Other World like a lot of the wild dragons back in the day and probably still to this day. So, he was a well-connected man and years of surviving Earthside taught how to think on his claws. So, he went and paid a visit to the Cerebus Territory. None of the three headed dogs agreed to go with him. None of them could agree with their other heads. There was one born, though, with only one head. He had these big glowing eyes and a couple of tails. At one point in the story, it was three and then another time they said four, but the dog had more than one. We can probably safely assume that much.

So anyway, Frost crafts up this spell, to put the dog inside this guy. He’d live for as long as the dog would’ve, but Frost is the Teacher of Lessons. That’s why he has the Pit and all that. So, part of the spell said, dude had to remember who he was but also figure out he shouldn’t spend his precious life doing shitty things. If the spell worked by the next moon, the man would live out his remaining years as a Pit hound shifter. If he didn’t figure things out he’d die and go to the Pit. Well, he figured it out and supposedly they lived happily ever after.

But after the first ‘odd dog out’ got to leave with Frost a lot of those like him started migrating over and hanging out with him. No one likes to feel out of place and like Frost and Juda did with most folks, they made the dogs feel welcomed too. They hung around the Pit so much that they came to be known as Pit hounds. They do help him out and I guess occasionally he does this spell.”

“You think this guy named Frost cursed me?” I blinked when the dragon shifter stopped speaking.

“No,” Liam said, meeting my gaze. “I think he saved your ass or at least gave you the chance to save yourself.”

“Don’t you think the angry woman would’ve said something if I was a soldier or something?” I asked, swallowing down frustration.

“No one is saying you’re bad,” Scott said, frowning at Liam and the others. “Maybe Frost just wanted to save you. He and Juda did start our whole family.”

“Maybe we should call Marcus to mediate,” Dara chimed in.

“We’re not fighting,” Scott said. “We’re just discussing.”

Dara picked up the frazzled edges of the tension dancing through the room better than my mate. Just because I had amnesia and some long dead dragon had given me a pit hound didn’t mean I was a murderer or even an asshole. It wasn’t like the dead dragon was around to tell us what was going on.

“I just think emotions will run high today and having the village therapist around might prevent some misunderstandings,” Dara said.

I wasn’t sure about all that, but I gave the note-taking dragon props for reading the room.

“We don’t have a lot of time to play with semantics,” Liam said. “If the story is to be believed, you have something to learn or realize or change.”

“Do we believe the story?” I asked him.

“I do. I have the Omega Sight. I’ve seen a lot of shit that I’m not going to go into right now. I’m here to help, but I can’t make anyone do anything. I can’t make you believe me or not believe me,” Liam sighed and massaged his palm into his forehead.

“He couldn’t have been too bad,” Dara chimed in again. “I mean, Frost wouldn’t save him if he were. I think we can trust Frost that much, if we’re going on the theory he did this.”

“Shadow work is never easy,” Liam said. “And that’s what the spell is. It’s about the shadow side and recognizing what we don’t recognize can hurt other people.”

“We can talk that part in circles all day, but we don’t know,” Scott said. “We don’t know that Frost did this for sure and we don’t know why he did it, even if he did. If anyone needs to learn they’re assholes, it’s the twins and I don’t see him turning them into pit hounds.”

I tightened my grip on him. His scent was turning from confused to frustrated and I wanted to sink my fangs into them all for making him feel that way.

“We all can be assholes,” Duke spoke up. “We’re not saying he’s like the guy in the story. Like you said, we know he wasn’t in a war.”

Liam sighed again and I shot him a dirty look.

“How about we don’t moralize it,” Liam tried again. “I hate this happened to you two when you first met, but I don’t want you two to be ripped apart again either. So, let’s start here. Dara, can you take Terrick to the clinic and look him over? Maybe try to convince him to get into the shower while he’s there?”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m a kid! I’m right here!” I snapped, my fangs poking out from my gums.

“We’re all under a lot of stress right now,” Dara said. “We’re worried. Liam’s worried. He’s the sort who takes on everyone’s problems and he can’t help it. Makes him a good first mate, but also runs up a therapy bill.”

“Dara!” Liam snapped, but then laughed.

“I’m going if Terrick goes,” Scott said, and I tightened my grip on him.

I wasn’t willing to be apart from him either.

“I want to talk to you,” Liam said, gently.

“Better talk nice to our mate,” the dog chimed off in my thoughts and I barely stopped myself from flinching.

This whole argument was about him, and I almost forgot he was still inside of me.

“I’m right here then,” Scott said. “Right here.”

“We need to talk to you alone,” Blithe said, glancing up from his kittens.

“Why?” Scott said, his scent turning red hot.

“Because I’m your damn brother and I have questions,” he sighed.

“You can talk to me in front of Terrick,” he shook his head.

“He needs to see the doctor and Liam said we don’t have a lot of time,” Blithe frowned, trying to keep his voice level.

“I’ll take good care of him,” Dara said, trying to sound reassuring.

“No one wants to hurt him, Scott,” Liam said, avoiding looking at me. “We’re all trying to help.”

Scott reached for his pocket but stopped short.

“We’ll work on getting your phone too,” Blithe offered up. “Who were you going to call?”

The siblings shared a look and then Blithe looked at Duke.

“Probably not a bad idea,” Duke said.

“What isn’t?” Liam asked before I could.

“Calling the Dads,” Scott frowned.

“We call the Dads,” Blithe nodded. “Not that we don’t think you can handle things, Dara.”

“No, your parents specialize in vampyric medicine. I’d have consulted them either way. If this is as serious as Liam has led me to believe, we’ll need all the help we can get and we’ll have to all go into this believing we’re all acting in the best faith we can,” the dragon said, sliding his notebook back into his pocket.

“Also, maybe they can do something about the twins,” Liam sighed.

Scott looked up at me, his eyes searching my face for something. I kissed his forehead and let out a long, slow breath. Whether or not a dead dragon shoved a pit hound inside me, something was going on, because while I believed my name was Terrick, I never recalled one instance of hearing the name before today.