Chapter Two

Lee

It was nearly 10 AM by the time we dropped off Graylin and the other pups at Blake and Jonah's. Blake's aura was a soft baby pink. Either he was pregnant or considering expanding their family again. He always turned pink before another kid came.

"No," Graylin shook his head when I asked if he was excited to see his cousins.

"Why not, buddy?" Bane squatted down to his level.

"Stay you," Graylin nodded.

"Oh, buddy," I said, squatting down too. "It's just for a little while. I bet Uncle Jonah will play guitar."

"No," Graylin shook his head and put his hands over his ears.

"Okay, maybe he won't," Bane chuckled.

"Stay you," Graylin said.

I glanced at Bane, ready to give in and take our kids home. We managed to celebrate Wolf Day for more than a quarter century now. One of them spent at home with the kids wouldn't be the end of the world.

"Stay with your littermates?" Bane tried.

"You stay," Graylin shook his head.

"You stay," Bane laughed.

"You stay too."

Blake glanced over at us as the rest of the kids ran off to the backyard to play. He made his way over and sat down on the floor next to our baby. Graylin plopped down on his lap and buried his face in his uncle's chest.

"Okay. Bye," Graylin said a second later.

"Are you sure, buddy?" Bane asked.

"Bye, bye," he said.

"I got him. He'll be okay," Blake laughed. "He's just the sort of pup who always wants an adult around."

Leaving my pups with anyone else has never really gotten easier. I trusted Blake with my life and soul, but anything could go wrong when the pups weren't in my line of sight. Over the years, I grew accustomed to the worry-filled headspace that always followed dropping them off somewhere. Hell, sometimes I still had nightmares that I forgot to pick up Travis and Trista from daycare and they both had mates of their own now.

"He'll be okay," Bane said, taking my hand and entwining his fingers through mine.

"I know. He's such a little guy, though," I said, letting out a worried laugh. "Everything makes him nervous. He sorta reminds me of Scott when he was little."

"And look at Scott now. He's off married to a vampire prince with four pups. He's running a baking vlog thingy and keeping spirit animals fed. He turned out okay."

"I don't know that Terrick would call himself a prince."

"I know, but isn't it my job to annoy my son-in-law a bit? It's not like I can annoy Sheldon. He's an omega and I think Trista annoys him and Travis enough for both of us," Bane teased.

"She has a pregnant mate now. They have to let her annoy them. It's the rules," I laughed. "So, what's first on your Wolf Day list?"

"That was breakfast in bed which turned into breakfast on the living room floor," Bane laughed.

"Okay then, Alpha, what's second on the list?" I teased him, squeezing his hand.

"A run through the forest to actually let your wolf have some of today," he said, stopping and playing with the hem of my t-shirt.

"A naked run?" I arched a brow. "We're going to streak down Mage Street? I'm in."

"Our wolves always run naked."

"Only, because you won't let me buy you a wolf hat. We have a niece who makes hats for wolves and you won't wear one."

"Family loyalty only goes so far," Bane said, tugging my shirt off over my head.

"So we're finally streaking," I nodded.

"You really like this shirt," he said, tossing it onto Blake's porch. "I don't want it all ripped up. I'm not sure they still make that particular Grim Howler's t-shirt. Though, I'm surprised Jonah hasn't gotten tired of you walking around with his face on your belly."

"He should be honored. Not many men get to touch my belly even by proxy," I smirked up at him, rising to my toes to steal a kiss and unbutton the top button on his shirt.

"That's because, my dear, I'd eat their fucking faces off," Bane growled, and his eyes shifted to that of his wolf.

The vibration traveled through me stirring up my own inner beast. Fur tickled at the small of my back, poking out through unseen fur follicles. Bane's fingers trailed over the fur, playing with it and making more prod out higher up on my back.

"Shoes," I reminded him.

"Thanks, mate," Bane said and kicked them off right there on Blake and Jonah's walkway.

Recently, his shoes had become massacre victims any time he wore them while he shifted. I liked to tease him that his paws had gotten bigger than any mortal made shoe could handle. Then his wolf lost a dragon-made shoe in a shift, and we gave up and admitted the defeat. Bane shifted barefoot now.

We kissed as we started to give in to our inner beasts. His lips were warm against mine as our hungry tongues danced between our mouths. His fingers trailed over my bare chest teasing my nipples as fur sprouted around them and they shrank down. We dropped to our knees as fur erupted from our fingers and faces. The shift forced our mouths apart as our muzzles extended from our faces. A few seconds later we stood side-by-side as wolves. Bane threw his head back and howled.

"Don't get Graylin going," I said over our mating link.

A second later, Graylin howled, a sound full of joy and playfulness.

"Blake and Jonah are going to get you later," I said, but Bane's paws were already propelling him forward toward the woods.

I raced on his heels until the sidewalks all ended and people randomly strolling around became sparse. He stopped at the tree line sniffing the air and waiting for me to catch up to him. I nipped at Bane's fluffy tail as I skidded to a halt. He rubbed along my body, nuzzling me as I passed him. Then we were off.

The running trail through the Hemlock Academy hunting grounds was as familiar as our own backyard. While we didn't hunt as often as some wolves did, we ran the trail at least twice a week to keep our wolves fit and to keep away the zoomies. No one wants to see a wolf headbutt his way out of his human host and take a zoomie trip or a dozen around a medical lab.

Bane skidded to a halt on the trail. I stopped, looking back over my shoulder as he sniffed the air.

"Are you already hungry again?" I asked him over our mating link. "We could get the deer but I'm not skinning what's left of it after you slobber all over it."

He didn't answer, but instead sniffed the air again before jerking his head left for me to follow him. I sniffed the air as I padded in his direction. Someone else was around. The scent of another shifter blended in with the smell of the woods. Wild wolves were nearby too. They liked to follow shifters around when we hunted because we'd usually share with them. Darian liked to tell everyone not to feed them or we might turn them into dogs, but no one listened. Who here was going to let a fellow wolf go hungry? Besides, it was easier to let them eat it than it was to skin and dress what was left after we finished eating.

"Do you smell that?" Bane asked over our mating link.

"Probably someone taking a nap or skipping class."

"That smells like a baby, mate. Somewhere beyond the wild wolves' scents. There's a baby out here."

"People do bring their babies for walks. We've brought our kids out here before."

"The wild wolves smell confused."

"Do you think someone left a baby out here?" I asked, sniffing the air harder and discerning the shifter's scent was that of a very small baby.

"A newborn?" I sped past Bane.

The crunching over the leaves set the wild wolves on edge. They'd calm down in their own time because I had to find the baby out in the woods. Who left their baby out here? No newborn that young could've made it this far by himself. Not even a shifter.

When the wild wolves finally came into sight, they were all gathered around a small den opening. The biggest one, a grey wolf, looked over his shoulder at me and then Bane following on my heels and relief washed over his scent. The wild wolves around Mage Street knew shifters meant them no harm, but I never smelled one relieved at the sight of us.

He nosed the other two wolves out of the way so I could peek inside the den. I sniffed first, blinking to clear the dirt from my eyes that fell when I shoved my head inside. There was definitely a shifter baby inside. When my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting inside the cave, I saw him suckling at the mother wolf along side two wolf pups.

"My pup," the mother wolf whined.

My heart skipped a beat. It was rare – almost unheard of these days – for a wild wolf to give birth to a wolf shifter. It still happened. Well, we guessed it still happened since there wasn't a reason for it to stop. Some folks theorized it was evolution. Others guessed it was reincarnation, but the soul got lost on the way to the womb.

The mother trembled nosing at the furless baby who clung to her. I could only imagine how scary it must've been for her to watch one of her pups lose his fur and grow into a human baby. I reached out and touched the baby's foot. She growled low but didn't snap at me. He was nice and warm against the pad of my paw.

"What do you want me to do, Mama?" I whined in wolf.

She lowered her eyes and gazed at the dirt floor of the den. Even if she'd never seen a wolf pup turn to a baby in the wild, she knew this pup was different. The guards outside the den probably had to chase away other wolves who would've made a snack of the strange pup they didn't understand.

She licked the baby's head and he cooed against her fur. My heart broke straight down the middle when I met her gaze. She knew the pup couldn't stay with them. He'd grow up to be different and have needs that she couldn't provide in the wild.

"You can visit him," I yipped. "You'll be able to find him."

She licked the baby's head while I tried to figure out how to drag the baby from the den without leaving bite marks. Then Bane's long arm appeared beside me. The she-wolf growled and sniffed his hand. She lay against the back of the den licking her furless baby's head until the baby was out of reach. She let out a howl that finished crushing my heart into pulp as I shimmied out of the den.

Bane sat against a nearby tree in his human form with the baby clutched to his chest all wrapped up in the shirt he hadn't taken off before he shifted. The three guard wolves rushed forward. Two stopped, while the one who nosed them away stepped forward and sniffed the pup. He was the likely sire to the little shifter. He whined and wagged his tail even as the mother wolf howled her unavoidable grief. Part of me wanted to tuck the baby back into the den and leave them all be. He could shift into his wolf form and survive alongside his littermates. He could be more wolf than human and survive just fine. Only, that wasn't true. Not entirely. Other wolves had been nearby and the guards wore scratch and bite marks. Leaving the little guy out here with his mother meant a harder life for the whole pack. Giving in to what had to be I tossed my head back and howled with the she-wolf. I couldn't imagine nature forcing me to give up my baby.

"We need to get him to the clinic and look him over," Bane said to me and the male wolf now licking the sleeping baby's head. "And we should probably let Darian know too."

"I'm not giving him to Darian. We found him. I told her we'd take care of him!" I said, the fur on my back bristling.

"And we will. I just think we're going to have to explain where he came from before they think we're out here stealing babies."

"Well, we sort of are, but it can't be helped," I said over our mating link.

"This is hard. I don't like the idea of taking any baby away from their parents, but the others are out there watching us. They're watching the baby. They don't understand the pup and well just look at these guys," he nodded to the three wolves standing close by. "He isn't safe out here. He makes the rest of their pack less safe too. I'm sorry, sweetheart. I really am."

I gave in and shifted back to my human form. After a few deep breaths and knocking the leaves out of my hair, I said, "Maybe we can try to talk to the others."

"Lee," Bane met my gaze, "I'm not saying these wolves aren't capable. I'm saying we can't leave a shifter baby out here with no other humans. It's unconscionable. We also can't take him, his littermates, and his whole pack home with us. They're our cousins on the evolutionary chain, but we're not that similar. Not similar enough for them to live inside."

"I know," I hung my head.

I knew from the moment I peeped into the den and saw the baby that he was coming home with us and we'd leave behind a broken hearted she-wolf. The three male wolves said their goodbyes, but the shewolf didn't peek out of the den. She'd miss the pup for a while, but she lived by the laws of the wild more than any of us did. She had two other pups to tend to and since they were still with her they took precedence over the soft, squishy cub we took away.

"Talk about a Wolf Day present," Bane tried to tease me, but that line wouldn't be funny until months from now.