Page 28 of Tempest

There was a loaded silence after his snarled response. That woulddefinitelyput an end to things. But then Ore ran his fingers down his back again, comforting him even after his rude answer.

“They don’t live around here?”

Cash ground his teeth together. He took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. He was a grown man. He could talk about his parents without turning into a surly asshole.

“Scoot back, Ore,” he said. The scent of shock and then hurt burned at his nose, but Ore moved without hesitation, murmuring a nearly inaudible apology.

When Cash flipped over onto his other side, he saw the little bird was practically falling off the other edge. He raised his brow and then lifted his arm, gesturing him forward. “Come here, hatchling.”

Ore’s cute little nose wrinkled in annoyance even as he dove forward, burying himself against Cash’s chest. “I’m not a hatchling. You’re just enormous.”

He chuckled, running his rough hand down Ore’s smooth spine, stopping at the small of his back before sliding back up. He used the small movements to soothe Ore until the scent of his pain had faded from the room.

“My parents left when I was eight.”

“They left the pack?” Ore clarified, wiggling even closer so that the tip of his nose was pressed to the hollow of Cash’s throat. He fit with Cash perfectly.

“Yes, they left the pack and me,” Cash said simply, keeping his voice steady by force of will.

Ore’s anger filled his nose. “They leftyou? You didn’t choose to stay or come back later?”

“No,” Cash said, stroking Ore’s back once more to calm him. “One day, they dropped me off here, which was normal. They pawned me off on my grandparents more often than not anyway, but they never came back that night.” He stared at the dark wall behind Ore, remembering that day and the one that followed clearly, even after all the years that had passed. “That wasn’t unusual either, so I stayed the night, and the next morning, Pops drove me back to their house.”

Cash could clearly recall the way his stomach had churned as they’d gotten closer to the dilapidated one-story house they’d lived in near the edge of the pack’s territory. He had known that something was wrong, off. The way his mother had hugged him before leaving the day before had been strange. She usually barely looked at him when he got out of the car before driving off, but she’d held him tightly for a long couple of seconds before sending him inside the house and leaving.

“When we went inside, I could tell something had happened,” Cash said carefully, keeping his voice as even as hecould. “Things were overturned. Other stuff had been emptied. Pops must have realized what had happened before I did because he asked me to go wait out in the car, but I ignored him and went down the hall to my parents’ room.”

“What did you find?” Ore asked quietly when he paused.

“All their shit was gone.”

“Oh, Cash,” Ore said, rubbing his fingers back and forth against Cash’s chest. “I’m so sorry. How could they have just done that?”

“They weren’t good people,” Cash said clearly, an edge to his tone that he couldn’t stop. “Pops and I packed up my stuff, came back here, and never really talked about it after that.”

“He didn’t talk to you about what had happened?”

Cash shook his head. Though, with the way Ore was buried against him, there was no way he could see it. “Not really. Every once in a while, he or Nan would make a comment about their daughter, but they never called her my mom, not after that day.”

“And they never came back?”

“No, Ore, they never came back. Good fucking riddance.”

Ore slipped an arm around Cash and gave him a squeeze. “Goddess, you were just a cub. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

He was too, but it had taught him valuable lessons about how love didn’t necessarily mean sunshine and rainbows. That it could bring pain and anger. Darkness and despair.

In the end, he knew that they had done him a favor, leaving him to be raised by two people who loved him more than anything, but the damage had already been done.

Chapter 9

Ore

“How is your fatigue?” Fern asked, not opening her eyes.

Ore eyed her glowing hands warily, but she just kept moving them over his body without touching him. “Um. It’s basically gone.”

“Good.”

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