Chapter 9
Saturday morning, Honor was up before dawn and out in the kitchen making coffee. Although some things had been updated from when she was a teenager, the house still felt exactly as she remembered it, from the old-school Mr. Coffee machine to the worn coffee mugs. He still had the World’s Greatest Dad mug that she’d picked out from a gift shop for a Christmas present for him when she was in elementary school.
“You couldn’t sleep?” Hope asked as she walked into the kitchen.
“I’m an early bird by nature,” Honor said. “You?”
“Uh, not really. I like to sleep in, especially on Saturdays. But Pop says if you don’t get up until noon then half the day is gone already.”
Honor smiled. “I think I inherited my early-bird tendencies from him. Do you drink coffee?”
“Only if it’s really sweet, flavored with chocolate, and poured over ice.”
“Can we do that in this kitchen?”
“Nope. There’s a coffee shop in town, though. Pop gets bagels every Sunday morning and they have a really great mocha iced coffee.”
“Bagels every Sunday? How long has he been doing that?”
“A few years. He dated the coffee shop owner for a while.”
Honor pressed the button on the coffee maker and it sputtered to life. “I didn’t know he’d dated. What happened?”
“Her kids were grown, and she didn’t want to get serious with him because she didn’t want to be raising another kid.”
“That’s shitty.”
Hope shrugged. “Pop said it was better to know that up front than for her to pretend to like our situation.”
“That’s true.”
Hope poured a bowl of cereal for herself and sat down. Honor fixed her coffee and sat across from her daughter.
“Do you want to ask me any questions? I’m sure you have some.”
“Are you going to move to King?”
“Would you like me to?”
“At first I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to get to know you. My friend Tawny’s mom said that any mother, shifter or not, who walked away from a newborn should be run out of town. She said I shouldn’t bother to get to know you because you weren’t worth knowing.”
“Damn.”
“Well, she’s human. Humans don’t get shifters. She can’t even begin to understand shifters in general, but add in this curse business – which I’m not sure I get, either – and she’s lost. It’s easy to say that sort of thing about a shifter from the outside looking in, but she can’t possibly know what it’s like for us. But after talking to you on the phone this last week, meeting you yesterday, and waking up this morning knowing you were still here… Yeah, I think I want you to move here.”
Honor’s heart swelled. “I haven’t talked to Jax and Holden officially yet, but I’d like to move to King.”
“Good. I’m a sophomore. Maybe after I graduate, we can talk about going to Ashland. Pop’s waiting until then to retire.”
“That sounds like a plan. I’m sure we can find a place to rent in town. I appreciate you being willing to give me another chance.”
“I don’t look at it that way.”
“What do you mean?”
Hope poured a second bowl of cereal, the brightly colored, sugar-coated flakes bouncing in the empty bowl. “The curse meant you didn’t have the ability to do anything maternal. You didn’t have a first chance. It’s not as if you looked at me and decided you didn’t want to be a mom. You went into things with my biological father knowing that you weren’t in it for the long haul. So it seems like this is technically your first chance.”
“Then I’ll do my best not to mess up.”
Hope smiled. “Good. Can I ask you something else?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“You have two mates? No shifters in King have two. Why do the Ashland males share mates? And how does that even work?”
Honor blushed sharply. “Can I not talk to you about my sex life if I answer your other question?”
“What? Ew! I didn’t mean I wanted to know how you’re with them.” She shivered and made another disgusted sound. “I meant how can males share a mate? Aren’t they possessive of you?”
Blowing out a relieved sigh that she didn’t have to have a sex chat with her daughter the day after meeting her, Honor said, “I don’t know why the males in Ashland share a mate and the ones here don’t. Jax and Holden said that they thought they might, but they weren’t sure until they saw me. I felt very drawn to both of them, especially once the curse was broken.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, it wasn’t romantic,” she said with a chuckle. “I bit Jax’s hand, and then when I was trying to get away and I stumbled, Holden grabbed me and I kissed him and bit him.”
“Why?” Hope’s eyes went wide.
“I felt compelled to. I can’t explain it any other way than that my lion wanted me to, so I did. I had a terrible headache afterward, and all of my memories came back. Then, slowly, my emotions returned, too, but I was trapped in Canada and couldn’t get back to my mates.”
“They found you, though. That’s kind of romantic.”
“Yeah. Do you have any males you like?”
“No. I don’t think my mate –or mates – is in King, or I would feel differently. I’m not entirely poisoned, so I want to find my mate, I’m just pretty sure he’s not here. Or they’re not here.”
“You want two mates?”
“I want to be with whoever I’m supposed to be with, so I can have a family. I want to give my cubs what I missed out on by not having two parents.”
Honor’s heart panged. The curse had taken so much from her and the other female lions. “I’m so sorry.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for what that goddess did to our people. I wish I could find her and make her take the curse away.”
“Me, too. I also wish our people had known about the curse before now.”
“At least I wasn’t fully poisoned.” Honor lifted her arm and pointed to three tiny scars on the underside. “I vaguely remember two females doing this to me. I don’t remember who they were. I only know that sometimes when I’m around a lot of males, I want to just leave. Did you feel like that?”
Honor thought back to her past. “Yeah. But females never lived with males once they turned sixteen and the poisoning was complete. I was picked up on my birthday by a group of females and went to live with them. I got my driver’s license, dropped out of school, and went to work. Dad came to visit me whenever he could, but the older I got the less inclined I was to see him, until I stopped entirely, even when he’d sit out on the porch for hours waiting for me.”
“He’s a good male.”
“Definitely.”
“Did you know my biological father well?”
“No. He approached me to have a child and I agreed. It was every female’s responsibility to ensure the next generation of our people were purebred. If a male tried to mate with a human or another kind of shifter, the females would drive her away by any means necessary.”
“I wish I’d known him. But Pop’s been so good to me.”
“And the males in town don’t give you any problems, right?”
“For the most part. I’m the only female lion in the high school. The males keep their distance because their fathers have told them that I won’t want to be with them in any romantic way. I guess the males accept me because they know I wasn’t fully cursed, but they really don’t trust me. Is it better in Ashland?”
“I only spent a week there, but yeah, it seems to be. The town is mostly human, but it’s just the pride and no other shifter groups.”
Hope got up and put her dishes in the sink. “Maybe we could visit Ashland sometime? After school’s out for the summer?”
“Sure.”
Hope rubbed the space over her heart absently. “I kind of feel like I should go there. But not right this second.”
Honor wondered if Hope was feeling a connection to the town through Jax and Holden, or if something else was going on.
“A road trip would be nice. Dad can come, too, since he’s never been there.”
“Good. I’ll see you later. I think I’m gonna go back to bed. This getting up early is for the birds.”
“Bye, honey.”
Hope smiled at Honor and then walked out. Honor’s shoulders slumped as she relaxed, so happy to have her daughter reach out the way she did. She hadn’t expected to have a serious conversation with her at the kitchen table, but it had been perfect. She’d been able to share some of her history with Hope, and also feel her out about them moving to King.
Standing, she moved to the cabinets and pulled down two more mugs. She filled them and refilled her own, fixing all three with cream and sugar. Walking slowly so she didn’t spill the hot liquid on herself, she opened the door.
Jax looked up from his phone. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Morning,” Holden said.
Honor closed the door with her foot. “I brought coffee.”
“You’re a life saver,” Jax said, taking a mug from her. She climbed onto the bed and handed the other one to Holden.
“I had a great conversation with Hope.”
“Yeah?” Holden asked, taking a sip.
“Yeah. Can we talk now?”
“Of course,” Jax said. “We’re all ears.”
* * *
After a long talk, Honor and her mates spoke to her father and Hope about moving to King permanently. She was amazed and humbled by how quickly Holden and Jax had agreed to the move, but they’d seemed to already know that she wanted to be where Hope and her father were. Whether they stayed in King forever, or moved to Ashland at some point, Honor only cared that they were all together. The location didn’t matter as much as the people.
By the time Monday rolled around, she and Hope had spent a lot of time getting to know each other. After her father and Hope left for school, she and her mates headed out to scout rentals in the area. Her father had offered to let them stay at their house, but it was really too small for four adults and a teenager. It took a few days, but they eventually found a three-bedroom house within walking distance of her father’s home.
Jax came into the backyard of the rental home, where she and Holden were looking at the outdoor kitchen the homeowner had installed.
“Brad said our old jobs are available if we want them,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket.
“That’s good news,” Holden said.
Before they moved, Jax and Holden had worked at King Automotive for Brad, who was a cousin of the Fallon males who called Ashland home. They’d worked for a garage in Ashland after they relocated. She was relieved that they were able to secure their old jobs.
“Dad said there’s an opening at the school for a part-time secretary.”
“That’s cool,” Holden said. “Do you want to work there?”
“Yeah. Hopefully my daughter won’t think I’m trying to horn in on her life too much.”
“Nah,” Jax said. “It’s all good. Plus, you can be a good support for the pride there, too. It’ll be a chance for everyone to see how amazing you are.”
She nodded. “We have to go back to Ashland and pack.”
“Brad wants us to start next Monday, so we’ll need to go soon so we can have time to set up.”
The realtor cleared her throat. “If you have first and last for a deposit, I can get you the keys by the end of day.”
“That would be great,” Holden said.
Jax pulled Honor into the house and shut the sliding door. “Do you like the house, sweetheart?”
“Yes, it’s really nice. Do you?”
He hummed, his eyes darkening. “I like the bedroom. There’s a nice big tub in the master bath, too.”
She smiled, her body warming at his sexy tone. “I noticed that, too.”
“I think we should head to Ashland as soon as possible. What do you think?”
“The sooner we get there, the sooner we’re back, right?”
“You got it.”
“Sounds good to me.” She rose onto her toes and brushed her lips against his. “You’re so sexy, Jax. How did I get so lucky?”
He whispered against her lips, “Trust me when I say that I’m the lucky one, Honor.”
* * *
By the following weekend, Honor, Jax, and Holden had traveled to Ashland, packed up their belongings in a trailer, and headed back to King. The pride had been understanding of her desire to be in King with her daughter and father.
Melody had been sad they were leaving so soon, but she also understood.
“I think King’s your home because of Hope,” Melody said. “The way that Ashland is home for me because of Bradley.”
Her mate, Micah, cleared his throat noisily.
She chuckled. “And my mates.”
Honor laughed. “I think so, too. Ashland is great, but it’s just not home.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go, but we’ll get to see you whenever we come to King to visit my fathers-in-law.”
“And we’ll come to Ashland to visit,” Jax said.
“Plus there’s video chatting and texting, too,” Holden said.
Honor made a face. “Hope said I don’t text right. She said I write too much, that texts are for short sentences, not lengthy paragraphs.”
“Our dads text like that,” Tristan said. “No offense, but I think it’s your generation.”
“Hey!” Jax said.
The younger lions laughed.
Saying goodbye to the Ashland pride was bittersweet, but she’d been happily looking forward to finally being in King. She’d promised to host a dinner on their first Sunday night in their new house, with her father and Hope attending. It wasn’t going to be quite like the huge dinners the Ashland pride hosted, but it was really important to her. She’d never cared whether people liked what she cooked, but hearing her father rave over her roast chicken had made her feel like a queen.
When her father and Hope left for home, Honor decided to sit on the back patio for a while. She settled in a plastic lounge chair and stared up at the night sky. Her thoughts roamed between the new happiness she had in King, and the old worry that kept creeping into her mind…whether the females would try to find her.
The chair next to her squeaked as Holden sat down. “You want to be alone?”
She turned to look at him. He looked so sweetly concerned. “No. Just thinking.”
“About anything in particular?”
“The females.”
He hummed. “You’re worried about them coming for you?”
“Yeah, maybe? Part of me thinks that Victoria will come for me eventually, but I’m not sure if I’m just being paranoid. She was pretty pissed.”
“But how would she even know where you were? It’s not as if they have access to King, or even Ashland for that matter. We can continue to be vigilant – such as you never going anywhere alone for the foreseeable future – but I also think that she wouldn’t benefit from finding you anyway. You’re clearly different, and that was causing a rift in the house.”
“True.” She sighed and reached for his hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’m glad we’re here. I want to feel safe here, and not like I’m always looking over my shoulder.”
“I think that will come with time. Jax and I will always do everything in our power to ensure you’re safe. And not just you, but Hope and your dad, too.”
She smiled at him, loving how protective he was. She’d come to think of Holden as a comforter. He always seemed to know just when she needed to be loved on.
“You and Jax are the best things to ever happen to me.”
“We feel the same way.”