The next morning, Sawyer and I showered together and then stepped out into the living room, where Sage was asleep with Creek on the couch. Her back was facing the open room and Creek was tucked between her and the couch back so he wouldn’t fall off. She had the best motherly instincts. I was so grateful to have her help in raising him.
Reaching over, I shook her shoulder gently. “Go get some rest,” I told her, “I’ll take over now.”
She looked bleary-eyed from me to Creek, and then nodded, planting a kiss on Creek’s forehead. She shuffled off to her bedroom.
Sawyer swooped in beside me and replaced the empty spot where Sage had just been, raising his arm above his head so that he could lie on it and stare down at our son. “You and Sage did all of this alone? In the woods with no diapers or anything?”
I could feel the pain in his voice, regret and shame. I knew he wanted to be there for me and Creek, I felt it through our bond.
“Yep. We made do,” I told him.
Sawyer nodded. “You’re amazing. Tell me everything. I want to help take care of him. How often do we feed him, when should I change his diaper, how do I change his diaper?”
Creek stirred at the sound of Sawyer’s voice and I giggled. “Well, first off,” I whispered. “When a baby is sleeping, try not to use your loud alpha voice right in his ear.”
Sawyer looked up at me, terrified. “Oh. Shit,” he whispered, just as Creek started to cry.
“And we feed him now. Take your finger and stick it near his mouth. If he starts sucking on it, he’s hungry.”
Sawyer’s eyes widened. Taking the finger of his free hand, he put it near Creek’s mouth and Creek started to suckle on it, calming his cries instantly.
“Whoa,” Sawyer said, and I laughed again, running into the kitchen to mix some formula.
Over the next hour, I gave Sawyer a Baby 101 class. I taught him how to feed and burp Creek, how to change a diaper, and the different ways to carry him, which was easier now that his neck wasn’t floppy and he could hold his head up.
“I love him,” Sawyer mused, as Creek reached up and played with the scruff of his beard. “I’ve only known about him for a week, and met him for half a day, and I utterly and truly would die for him.”
I beamed, raking my fingers through Sawyer’s hair. “Welcome to parenting.”
Sawyer looked over at me with one of those panty-dropping smiles, the ones he used to give me at Sterling Hill, but then his face fell. “You must have been so scared, so alone out there. I—I can’t imagine it, Demi.”
I nodded. “I was. But those woods made me into the strong woman I am today. Without them, I’m not sure I would have what it takes to do what we will need to in order to defeat the vampires.”
Sawyer inclined his head. “You have ideas?”
I did. “You?”
“Yep,” Sawyer said. “I think it’s time we called a meeting and made a plan. Every day those vampires sit there and get more comfortable in our city, they increase their hold on our land.”
My heart flipped over in my chest. “Our land?”
The Paladin lands were mine. City was his. Did he expect me to go there and live with him full time after we expelled the vampires? To leave the Paladin people behind? He seemed to guess my thinking and shook his head.
“Our land. Our pack. Paladin and city, as one.” His voice was thick with emotion, and I knew it was one of the hardest things he’d probably ever said in his life. This pack, my pack, cursed his family for years, causing them to take wives for all the wrong reasons. Forgetting all that, starting fresh, it was a big deal, one I did not take lightly.
I gestured around the small cottage. “I know it’s not a fancy glass mansion with solar panels and a Range Rover in the garage, but I was thinking when we get Wolf City back, we could spend half the time here.”
Sawyer grinned. “Honey, I just spent the last year in prison with a vampire prince as a roommate. This is amazing.”
My skin prickled at the words “vampire prince.” “Luka?”
Sawyer’s brow furrowed, and he seemed like he was cursing himself for telling me.
“Luka is a prince?” My mind reeled at that. “That means … he’s the queen’s son! He’s Vicon’s brother?” My jaw dropped open as shock slammed into me. How could Sawyer become best friends with the brother of the man who raped me, the entire reason he went to jail!
Sawyer’s eyes widened in horror. “No. He’s the queen’s nephew. She jailed him so that he couldn’t take over the monarchy. He hates her.”
I relaxed a little, but only just a little. Luka was a Drake! He shared DNA with the evilest woman alive.
Sawyer stood, set Creek down on his little handmade playmat, and faced me. “Demi, when Walsh and I first arrived, every inmate on the eightieth floor had it out for us. It was only later we found out that the queen had said that anyone who killed us in prison would be released from their sentence early, no questions asked.”
I gasped. That was a low blow.
He nodded. “We were ganged up on daily, beaten within an inch of our lives. The only reason I’m alive today is because Luka jumped in one day and fought back with us. Then the next day Bennett, and the next day Talon.”
Tears filled my eyes at that, and my gaze fell to the tattoo on his collarbone. “Five Crew.”
He nodded. “Once there were five of us, people realized it wasn’t worth it. They backed off or they got broken bones,” he growled.
Holy shit, I’d had no idea what he’d been through. It was time to put away my prejudice and accept Sawyer’s new friends as family. Even if one of them was a rotten Drake.
“They’re welcome here as long as they like,” I managed to croak out.
Reaching up, Sawyer cupped my face in his hands. “I know this past year apart has been hard, but I think it’s only made us stronger.”
I smiled, leaning forward to capture his mouth in a kiss.
When he pulled back, he took my hands in his and looked down at them. “Where’s your wedding ring?”
I winced. “I gave it to Seam for insider knowledge on how to break you out of prison. Sorry…”
Sawyer grinned. “I mean, if you had to trade your wedding ring, that’s a pretty good excuse.”
“Yeah, I had to bail my felon out of jail.” I lightly punched his arm.
Sawyer chuckled, a full belly chuckle, and it warmed my heart. We were together, out of the Dark Woods, out of prison, and with our son. It was almost perfect.
Almost.
“They’ll be looking for you,” I told Sawyer. By now the jailbreak was all over the supernatural news. It was only a matter of time before they started looking here.
Sawyer sighed. “And you.”
Wasn’t that depressing? The two leaders, the people our pack needed the most, and we were the biggest danger to them.
There was a knock at the door and Sawyer crossed the room to open it. Luka, Bennett, and Talon stood there, and Sawyer invited them inside. Creek had fallen asleep, passed out on his little rabbit fur playmat that Sage had made him.
Luka’s eyes were nearly black, and there were dark circles under them. A vampire’s natural sleep time was just about now, as the morning sun was coming up. They could go out in the sunlight, but didn’t do well. It looked like Luka wasn’t feeling so hot.
“What’s up?” Sawyer’s voice held concern as he looked over his friend.
Luka reached behind his neck and scratched it, a sliver of his tan abdomen peeking out of his black t-shirt. “I need to feed. Missed last night and this morning.”
Oh.
Ohhh.
Sawyer was less shocked than I, probably because he’d been living with the dude for a year.
“You can feed from me if you need to, and I can put out a call for volunteers to keep you supplied in the future.” Sawyer’s voice was calm, like he hadn’t just offered to let a vampire feed from him. Something surged inside of me, some need to protect him.
Alpha Sawyer letting a male vampire feed from him. It was … mind blowing.
‘He’s done it a couple times before,’ Sawyer spoke into my mind. He must have felt my anxiety. ‘They tried to starve him and kill him in prison. I kept him alive. I don’t like it, but I’d do anything for him. He’s one of my best friends, Demi.’ Sawyer had to keep drilling that in my head, because clearly it was hard for me to understand. Shit, it was so hard to just be thrown into each other’s lives like this. Not knowing or remembering who the new person was.
‘Okay,’ I told him, trying to be supportive.
“Actually…” Luka hesitated. “We were thinking of heading out into the human world, laying low for a while. We will only be a target on your pack if we stay.”
I felt the sadness rip through Sawyer in that moment, but he nodded. “All of you?”
The fey and troll nodded as well. “Nothing more here for us, bro,” Talon stated. “Nothing but a death sentence. We just said goodbye to Walsh.”
They were all wanted felons … this didn’t really hit me until now. They couldn’t be seen in Magic City without being arrested.
These people were Sawyer’s crew, his best friends. The thought of losing them tore at him, but he knew it was necessary. They’d been there for each other to survive, and now it was time to go their own way, do what they needed to do to endure on the outside.
“The hunters will come for you,” Sawyer warned.
It was the second time I’d heard of these human hunters…
Luka shrugged. “Hunted here, hunted there, what’s the difference? I can handle some weak human hunters.”
Bennett laughed, clapping Luka on the back. “Weak is not how I would describe them, brother. My cousin said they’re lethal, and not exactly all human.”
Luka’s eyes went stormy, almost black, as he squinted at Bennett. “Well, my aunt is more lethal, so until the time comes when I can have her killed, I need to hide out somewhere else.”
At the mention of killing his aunt, anger surged up inside of me. “She’s mine,” I growled, stepping forward, and then swallowed when all four guys looked up at me with surprise. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, but if anyone is killing your aunt, that honor will be mine.”
Luka grinned, and holy hell was he hot. He was like a black-haired James Dean.
“Alright, well, call me when you do that, Mrs. Alpha, and I’ll come home.” He tipped his head to me.
Luka then faced Sawyer. “We can stay and fight if you need us. Just say the word. I can be back over here in an hour or two after feeding.”
Sawyer waved him off. “Nah, you better go. We don’t need anyone else luring the vampires to us.” His words might have said go, but the tone of his voice said something else entirely.
Luka looked conflicted as he stared at Sawyer.
“Go on. We’ll be fine,” Sawyer urged him again.
Luka nodded, handing Sawyer a piece of paper. “This is the number of Bennett’s cousin who we’ll be staying with.”
Sawyer took the paper and tucked it into his pocket. The four guys stood there awkwardly for a moment, until finally Bennett stepped forward and pulled Sawyer into a bro hug, smacking him hard on the back. “I’ll never forget that one day at lunch with the tray,” he said as they pulled away.
Sawyer and Bennett burst out laughing at the inside joke and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. These dudes had created a bond unlike any other.
Talon was next, hugging Sawyer, before nodding. “Remember, finger to the eye.”
Sawyer and the other boys laughed again, and it made me so damn happy to see that they had these inside jokes, this bond. I also needed to know the details on all these stories later.
Luka was last. He stepped forward slowly and placed one hand on either of Sawyer’s shoulders. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you when I had the chance,” Luka told him with a twinkle of mischief in his eye.
Sawyer grinned. “Oh, please, I’d like to see you try.”
Luka chuckled, pulling Sawyer into a quick bro shoulder hug, and smacked him on the back with two flat palms.
“Call me when Demi finds out she has a long-lost sister who looks just like her,” Luka stated as he stepped away.
“Fuck you.” Sawyer ran toward him playfully, fist raised.
Luka beamed, jumping back with vampire speed, just out of Sawyer’s reach, and everyone smiled, then the smiles slipped from their lips one by one.
“Bye, Sawyer,” Luka said.
Sawyer cleared his throat. “Yeah, see you later.”
“Thanks for getting us out, Demi.” Luka bowed his head in respect to me.
I could only nod, seeing their brotherly love had really touched me. I had been wrong to judge Luka as a bad person just because of his family association. It was clear by this display that he was a good man and a good friend to my mate.
As the three guys turned to walk away, I felt Sawyer’s sadness rip through my chest. They were his brothers and he wasn’t sure when he would see them again. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his back.
“We’ll get Wolf City back, kill the queen, and have the biggest, most amazing, delayed wedding reception anyone has ever seen, and we’ll invite your friends.”
Sawyer spun, taking my face into his big hands, and nodded. “That sounds nice.”
I released a huge sigh, the weight of the task ahead stacking on my back like bricks. “But first we need a really good plan.”
“Let’s get everyone together and figure this out,” Sawyer agreed.
