“That’d be great, thank you.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m back and you can let me in to help you change.”
“Okay, Cat. Thanks.”
***
“Riley, Joel, Jason, and Lincoln want a meeting with you. You can use the waiting room while I go upstairs.”
He shakes his head at his mother. “I don’t want a meeting. I need to stay with Ivy.”
We’re back in the room with the hospital bed, I’m on the bed and I’m wearing a pair of grey jersey shorts which are much more comfortable than jeans. The sight of my now torn Lucky jeans that were brand new and not bought on sale is sad. I could cut the other leg and turn them into boyfriend cuffs, or maybe just capris. Boo.
The TV from the waiting room has been wheeled in and a 24-hour news station is on.
“She’ll be absolutely fine in here while you use the waiting room. Or, you could have the meeting in here so that you don’t have to leave her alone.”
He looks at her like she’s nuts.
“You think I’m stupid enough to be in a small room with four men and my woman in the midst of that?”
“Stupid enough? What about that scenario is stupid? This is your pack, Tyson. We’re your family.”
“I don’t know any of you.”
Her expression falls. There’s a long moment before she says, “I see you don’t trust us. What lies did that man’s poison tongue and demented mind poison you with? What did he say about where you came from?”
The room goes dead silent.
“Riley Savage didn’t tell you?” Tyson asks.
“Tell me what?” Cat’s eyes look haunted.
Absolutely haunted. Goosebumps rise on my arms watching the exchange.
Tyson leans toward her and his voice takes on a sinister tone. “He told me you were dead and that the pack raped and devoured you after killing my father. He told me this when I was a small child. He said he’s my father’s brother and that he took me to save me from the pack that would have me dead as well.”
I swallow.
She straightens her back and says, “Cornelius is one of your father’s brothers, all right, but other than that, the rest is a pack of lies. You believe that I’m your mother, don’t you?”
“I recognize your scent.”
Her face changes, it half-crumples, but she composes herself.
“Tyson, six years ago, I caught your scent on the breeze and it made no sense. I couldn’t figure it out. I thought I was going crazy. The grief of losing you both has never left me, never… but I was living life at that point and then I could smell you. And then you showed up. You showed up and I didn’t see you with my own eyes, but I caught your scent in the air and knew that what they said was fact. A great black wolf was our Tyson, the alpha, son of Tiberius and Catrina Savage, prophesied to be the pack’s top alpha of this generation and they knew not only your scent, but they knew by your bearing that you had to be him. Larger than any alpha in our pack and an air of authority that could not be mistaken. Not to mention pure black like Tiberius. Just like him, except with my green eyes instead of his amber ones. We hadn’t lost you. Just before this, Cornelius’s scent was caught on the wind. In fact he’d been caught a few times but never physically, because his scent would simply vanish. I don’t know when you came to spend time at that home Riley visited you at but…”
“Cat grass,” Tyson says.
She jerks and her back goes rod-straight.
“We ate it daily,” Tyson said. “Disgusting as it was. I’ve lived there my entire life. He couldn’t bring himself to leave the region, saying a shifter couldn’t leave his territory for more than a few days or else go mad. We ate it and we lived on the fringe. I lived in that house until he died. We denned underneath, hibernated there each winter as he couldn’t stand winters and each spring lived as men for a month before returning to wolf. When he died, I stayed in the bush, denned at the house in winters, but stayed in the forest otherwise.
“Almost under my nose.” Cat shook her head. “Cat grass.” She dashes a tear off her cheek and then reaches her hand out and cups his jaw. He leans into it just a little and his eyes drift shut. A lump forms in my throat. “And hibernating? That’s insane. We don’t do that unless we need to due to food shortages. And we haven’t needed to for centuries. Why would he make you hibernate every year?”
“I don’t know. He told me we had to. He despised the cold. Couldn’t regulate his body temperature the way I can. I think he hated himself, could barely stand to look in the mirror more than necessary.”