“It’s not true about the territory. Shifters can go where they like.”
Tyson’s lip curls in anger.
“Where is he now?” she asks.
“The bottom of a gorge halfway between this village and my house. If you knew he took your child, why didn’t your pack go after him?”
She blows out a breath and then looks at me before looking back to Tyson.
“We couldn’t find him. We didn’t think you were alive before six years ago or I’d have moved mountains to find you. We knew we couldn’t approach you. Rye said you were feral and thought of us as enemies, would destroy us on sight. Then, you came back, and we could tell by the surge in certain facets of your scent that you’d found your mate. We decided to make an approach. We hoped it would mean you would calm down and be open to the truth. We didn’t know what lies were told, we didn’t know what he’d done, we didn’t know why his scent would show up occasionally, but we never caught yours until six years ago and since then, we’ve never smelled him again. And yours came up often, but we suspected you didn’t know you were ours. Didn’t know we were yours. If you did, you’d come h-home.”
Tyson leans forward.
“I stopped eating the disgusting grass. He wasn’t there to insist, and I didn’t give a fuck whether any of your alphas ran into me or not. In fact, I wanted them to. I wanted to run into them in the forest or even to come here and destroy all of them, for what they did to my father and you. But something stopped me.”
“What?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he growls and thumps his chest. “Something in here.”
“Feeling like you know, deep down, there’s more to the story?”
“That and mostly… your scent. Something about it was familiar. And I smelled it on him once… when he…”
Her eyes close and she raises a hand. He stops speaking.
“If I knew he had you with him all this time?” Her eyes open and they are filled with wrath. “If only I could deal with him now. He knew something about a habit of mine to collect a healing mushroom and he found me in the spot I’d usually go that year. He wouldn’t have found me otherwise because he had a poor sense of smell.”
“He had no sense of smell. None. He made use of mine to survive. He made use of me for many things.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Food for Ivy, please.” She freezes and stares at him a moment, then seeing he’s done talking, I suppose, she nods and turns on her heel and leaves the room.
He sits back down and completely ignoring me, props his elbow on his knee and puts his chin to his palm.
I tilt my head to the side. “Wow, ” I say. “I’m sorry, Tyson.”
His eyes sweep over me and then they drop back to the rug.
Fine. Silent treatment. I’ll close my eyes. I’m feeling like crap anyways.
***
“Ivy?”
Cat is jiggling my arm.
“Sorry, sweetie, I have to check your vitals.”
Tyson is sleeping on the couch, sitting up, head back. The television is still on, still playing the news station.
She catches me looking.
“If anyone else were here, he would’ve woken as soon as I entered. It’s nice that something inside him knows me, knows I’m no risk to you.”
“It’s a lot for him to digest, I bet. After thinking one thing his whole life and then finding out it wasn’t true.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “You slept for six hours; your swelling is way down. How do you feel?”
“Sleepy.”
“That’s the pain meds. I’ve got more fluids here since you slept, and I didn’t want you woken. Talk about coercion to convince him not to wake you up to force-feed you a tomato and bacon sandwich.” She smiles. “He likes bacon. He ate your sandwich. Though he tossed the lettuce.”
I smile. And then my smile falters. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through,” I whisper. “I just can’t imagine.”
“Tyson is a lot like his father from what I’ve seen so far. I’ve heard you call him Ty. I called my Tiberius Ty as well. That’s why we named our boy Tyson. It’s astounding to see him all grown up when I hadn’t seen him since he was eight months old. It hurts but it feels good at the same time. Because he met you, we might have a chance at a real relationship.”
Tyson straightens up, eyes open. He’s awake and it’s obvious he’s heard what she said. I grab her hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m so sorry for all you’ve lost. Words just aren’t enough.”
“No, but hope is everything. I’ll let you get some more sleep. I’ve given you more pain meds. How’s the pain?”