Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Agnar

Prairie Rose and the boys napped the whole way back to Nightfall Pack lands. The boys had been yanked from a warm bed barely awake and they were asleep the minute they were tucked into the backseat, using their duffel bags as pillows and his and Prairie Rose's jackets as blankets. She dozed too, even though she tried to stay awake. She'd burned with the need to ask him what really happened, but after they left Casper behind, she'd closed her eyes, rested her head against the window, and had stayed silent. He thought she was sleeping. Maybe she just chose to give him those few hours of silence because she was always going to be wise and automatically know what he needed.

Like some magic trick, when they pulled past the guards on the road, the boys stirred. "Are we home?" Blake asked, blinking sleepily.

Home. "Yeah." His voice was thick. He still thought of himself as a stranger in a land that was never meant to be his, but clearly the boys didn't feel that way. How much longer would it take until he viewed Wyoming the way they did?

It wasn't so long ago that he'd rolled in here with the survivors of that horrific night and had promised himself that it wasn't forever, just long enough to regroup and heal enough.

He might not feel at home yet, but he did feel different. He'd never been the kind of man who looked back, but he was learning what nostalgia and everything else was like to experience. Arizona represented oblivion, that sweet relief that he'd been chasing.

Now? Parking the truck in front of the small log cabin on that street where most lights were off because it was five in the morning? Now, when he turned his head and glanced at Prairie Rose with the heavy lids and the full lips quirked in the smallest smile at him, eyes glistening, he felt a shiver work up his back and spread into his shoulders. It morphed into his chest. Rome told him to let Arizona go. He still hadn't made up his mind if he could do that, even if he didn't go down and end Alexander.

"Would you like to go to the woods?" Prairie Rose shifted closer to him fractionally, like subconsciously she was trying to shield him from all the pain out there. "To try your new braces?"

Just like that second chance Rome was so convinced he needed to embrace. He was alive as a punishment, but he'd come through the worst of it and he was ready to try to raise his head and live again. There was a part of him that couldn't even imagine leaving Blake and Levi again.

Or Prairie Rose.

He pushed that back down, not ready to admit the possible depth of that connection yet.

"Take the boys, they can help you with the braces if your wolf has any difficulty. Run with them first. I'll join you shortly."

The braces weren't a miracle fix, as yet no one had developed a material that would withstand the shift, so they'd have to be put on afterwards. Tadpole had developed a simple fastening that could be nudged in place by a nose or paw, but he'd yet to try them out. He swallowed hard, the old Agnar would have been angry that his mate could think him weak, but he knew that Prairie Rose was being practical, and she didn't think him any less of a man. Instead, he said, "You're welcome to come with us."

"Here, we start out running in separate spots and end in different places, the men and the women. You might think that's prudish, but it's the way it's always been done. Plus, I'd like you to have this experience with the boys."

She was right. He needed this. They needed it. Levi and Blake had heard for weeks that he was going to go seek justice and vengeance. They'd prepared themselves to be abandoned. Even if they thought he'd come back, they'd lived with half the father they knew. He was never half the father he should have been to them.

"But we want you to come," Levi begged, rubbing his eyes.

"You need to listen," Blake scolded him. "She said she will, Prairie Rose doesn't lie."

"I'll shift close to the cabin, and I'll come out and find you in half an hour." She blinked hard, but one silver tear trailed down her cheek anyway. She smiled at him and brushed it away. She got out of the truck, then helped the boys out.

His braces were in the backseat between them. He reached in and held them, awe seeping through him that someone had made this for him. Made him a miracle. Awe that Prairie Rose arranged it all.

The boys were warm from sleep, still in their jackets. He'd kept it fairly cool in the truck when he drove because blasting heat was uncomfortable, but they'd been under the layers of extra jackets. They both stretched and inhaled like it was good to be out of hibernation.

His sentiment exactly, but it was a different slumber he was waking up from.

Prairie Rose shooed them off and she gathered up their bags. He led, and Blake and Levi trailed after him. The night wasn't that absolute dark like so many of the nights he'd come out to take shelter amongst the solemn solitude of the trees.

It was different tonight. No, it was him who was different, not the ancient forest. Him and the rest of the world. All of it had changed, but the trees stayed the same. It wasn't time for them to come awake yet. Spring was still too far off.

An owl hooted in the distance and Blake smiled at Levi. "What kind do you think it is?"

"Sounds like a great horned owl."

"I think you're right."

The only sound after that was the boys breathing behind him and the crunch of snow as they plowed down well-worn trails. Prairie Rose wouldn't even need to follow her nose to find them. Her wolf would just trail their prints starting from that place she knew he'd go to.

He kept his hands wrapped around the braces, holding onto them like they were his salvation. The wolf howled and howled. He'd have to be careful. It would be a hard trade off. He'd been so consumed with his grief in his human form that he hadn't given any to the wolf. He'd tried to shut the other half of him, and he'd ignored that crushing pain because he was afraid he just couldn't handle a single ounce more. That just that fractional extra would break him.

He finally stopped under a tree he knew well. In his mind, he saw Prairie Rose bringing him his jacket that night, a thermos of coffee he refused to drink because he was an asshole. He'd been lost to her and himself and everyone else.

He wasn't lost now.

He was here, with his boys.

Levi took Blake's hand and they both watched him quietly. They were always quiet in his presence, but he never noticed just how much until he saw them with Prairie Rose. They needed more from him, and he hadn't known how to give it. He still had no idea, but now at least he recognized it.

He stripped out of his jacket and his shirt. Kicked off his boots and peeled away his jeans and socks. He let the cold snow crunch underfoot, feeling a part of nature again like he hadn't when he sat out there with no intention of ever shifting again. Snow to skin. Chill air biting against his body. Earth to earth. Ash to ash. Except he wasn't ash yet. Hopefully not for a long time yet.

"Will you help me?" He held out a brace to each of the boys. He probably could have done it himself, but he'd never felt prouder of his sons than when they held those braces like they were the most precious thing ever created and he wanted to involve them in this moment. "When I shift, I'll need you to help the wolf and make sure the braces are in place and fastened properly. When they're right, you'll know. He'll know. I'll wait for you to undress and come with me. Leave your clothes on top of mine so they won't be wet when we come back here to get dressed afterwards."

"Dad?" Blake wasn't usually the one to hesitate and his voice was cautious, as if he was worried how his question would be taken, "Are you okay?"

Everything in the world faded except for his boys. He hadn't hugged them nearly enough. He hadn't been held himself since long before he was taken, and certainly never after—not in friendship nor in love. The only embrace he'd known was one of physical contact wrestling an opponent to the ground in practice or in a real fight. His technique had saved his life many times.

There was no technique when he threw one arm around Blake and one around Levi. He pulled them in tight to his side and their arms went around him. Something strange happened to his eyes. They burned like he'd been looking up into the sky and falling snow gathered in them. He'd been trapped in the darkest cavern, a hole that went all the way down to the darkest pit of the earth, but the earth had turned itself upside down again and had shaken him out and he was back.

"Yes," he mumbled, his throat on fire. "Yes, I'm okay. We're going to be okay."

He let the wolf come that way, with his sons' arms wrapped around him. He used to throw himself into the shift and the wolf came out like the deadly, wild animal that it was, but it was different. Even after being locked away in the cage of his human body for so long, the spirit of the animal was there. It understood gentleness. The wolf knew his children and he felt their love.

He was huge, so much larger than they were. He stumbled when he hit the ground, his paws all wrong, but the boys propped him up. Levi stuck his little shoulder under one half and Blake took the rest of the weight.

"Hold on. We'll get you fixed up. Can you sit back?"

The wolf did, following the soothing sound of Blake's command. He sat on his haunches and turned his face to the sky, taking in the brightness of the stars, of the round disk of the moon. He'd missed it all so much. Missed it as much as his breath, as his body, as the earthy scent of the forest sharp in his lungs, of the cold taste of snow on his tongue, of his boys running beside him.

He felt whole in a way he hadn't in a very long time.

Probably since he was running with the pack he'd been born into.

Blake fitted the first brace around the wolf's paw. It wrapped up and around the leg, straightening it and giving a cushioned bottom to land on, kind of like a platform shoe, but made tight for an exact fit. It was amazing that something like this could even be created, let alone in such a short time. The wolf who made them was a master at his craft. He knew the human form. He knew the wolf's form because he was a wolf himself.

Blake helped Levi with the other brace. It flexed just enough that it didn't cause pain going on. They arranged it around the paw.

Was it perfect? It wasn't ever going to be unless he had surgery, and probably multiple times, to correct his physical anatomy, but when he took that first step through the packed down snow, the cold reaching up into his pads and soaking the fur between them, he knew it would hold.

He lifted his head and howled out his elation to the sky.

There was nothing that could have stopped the wolf from leaping around, racing through the woods, circling the trees, bounding through chest-high drifts of snow, yelping and barking like a puppy.

Blake and Levi laughed, chasing after him, throwing snow, wrestling each other, until the moment of elation passed, and they returned to the pile of his clothes and stripped their own off. They shifted, one after the other, their sandy, shaggy, half-grown wolf forms taking the place of their human ones. They were no longer pups. They were in that awkward halfway stage.

And somehow, against all the odds, they could still lift their heads with him and howl out in joy and innocence and drink in the sweetness of the night.

They ran, at first slowly, as he was still learning the braces, making adjustments and instant calculations, but the boys were patient. They stayed right behind him, trusting him like they used to trust him to lead the way and to keep them safe. He'd been their father, but he'd also trained them and many others in the pack at the start of their road to becoming fierce warriors. He'd helped the boys with their school lessons and had told them as much as he knew about the world. They'd always looked to him and that had humbled him, and he wasn't a proud man to begin with.

Their continued faith in him shook him. The wolf looked at each of the slightly awkward, gangly youngsters trailing through the snow, cutting through trees, drinking in the cold night air, and his heart swelled. He didn't stop for miles, but when he did, they were still in the woods. He let out a howl that felt very much like an I love you. I'm always going to love you. No matter where I go, I'll always be proud to be your father.

The wolf's nostrils flared when he scented his mate. Tree branches snapped in the distance and snow crunched, but up close, when the shining white wolf appeared, the air seemed to ripple around her. She was magic incarnate. Even the wolf nearly forgot how to breathe. All his careful training was so easily undone by the moonlight beauty reflected in those rippling waves of fur. She was a sea of white, swaying with every musical step she took. He'd seen her as her wolf with human eyes, but to see her through his wolf's eyes was a revelation.

Even the boys were impressed. They stared openly at her, frozen until she came up and rubbed her muzzle against his. A friendly greeting that he leaned in to.

Prairie Rose was all movement and energy, and she wasn't willing to pause. She loped off, walking as if the snow itself parted for her, bathed in the pale glow of winter. She was silver in a silver world, a wolf at home in her pack. There was nothing he'd ever seen that was more spellbinding.

She slowed her pace to let them catch up, but then she clearly dropped back and let him lead. It was significant and symbolic that she let him be at the head. He was alpha of no pack, no home, no life, but when they ran, he was still their leader. She'd been his support without his even knowing just how firmly he'd leaned on her these past months. Her strength was enormous. There were men in the world, a warrior and a monster, men like Kieran who fit into neither category. There was worse and there would always be better. Worse monsters. Better men. And then there was the entirely different class of wonder that he'd known nothing of. That quiet, calm confidence that could withstand anything life threw at it. Whatever Prairie Rose had, whatever she was made of, it was a force that refused to buckle or break.

His sons and his mate trailed behind him, streaming like arrows drawn from a bow. When he picked up the pace, they did too. His family, his wolf, his breath, and his body. He'd found his way back to them in equal measure. He was nearly there, but it was like a grainy sighting in the distance, a speck on a path, pinpricks of light through shuttered lids.

Forget Arizona. There is nothing left for you there.

He'd never forget, but his wolf knew and surrendered. He drank in the fragrant night air.

He stopped short, looking back at his family, and in the very same instant, he turned his face away from the temptation of oblivion and the justification of a hard, loveless life.