Page 2 of Nugget

He quickly scrambled from bed when his stomach rolled with nausea.

Standing naked, Gavin stared out of the bedroom window.

Home. Safe.

The big house was right in front of him. Dark but everyone inside was safely tucked into bed. Safe. His family wouldn’t be taken from him ever again.

The shaking didn’t stop though. Even as Gavin ran his hands roughly down his face, his entire body shook. He needed to get out. Fresh air. Gavin lumbered across the room but paused in front of the laptop that sat open facing his bed. It had become alittle game between him and Stryker. Stryker loved to watch him and Gavin didn’t mind giving the boy a show. He prayed that with the late hour, Stryker was asleep and hadn’t noticed the nightmare or how shaken up Gavin was. No one knew about the terror-filled dreams that had started to plague him the last few months.

He almost closed the lid of the laptop but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, Gavin quickly strolled out of the bedroom and straight to the front door.

Gavin pulled the door open to step outside onto his front deck.

Sucking deep pulls of the night air into his lungs, Gavin pushed the fear from the dream down where it belonged. Anywhere but right there with him. Gavin didn’t think about that time. Ever. Refused to even talk about it. It was long ago. He’d hoped with the years that passed, he would forget, that the memories would fade. They did not. The nightmares had eased but the recent interaction with human hunters and evil mages had brought all those memories back to the surface.

Axel was allowing Gavin to read through the old journals and anything that they came across that dealt with the great hunt.

He snorted. There was nothing great about the humans that had hunted down innocent shifters because they’d been afraid. Entire species had been wiped out. As far as Gavin knew, he was the last of his kind.

Angrily, Gavin shook away his thoughts once again.

He wasn’t going to do this.

Wouldn’t allow those memories to haunt him.

Home. He was home. The only reason he was even reading over everything they could find was to make sure that his new family never faced the fate that had ripped Gavin’s blood relatives from his arms. Looking to the right, Gavin smiled at the cabin beside his. Levi and Mason had moved in as soon as it had been completed. The human was getting more comfortable being surrounded by the non-humans in the family but still struggled with the number of them there was. The solution was to keep them close but give Mason the space he needed. Mason’s old ranger cabin was now being utilized by his twin, Jason, who’d mated with the demon, Tristan.

Gavin had moved into the next cabin finished. He loved his family, but they were all mated. The number of times he stepped into a room to find a couple or two entwined was just too often. He sought out his own space for peace of mind.

He turned his head to the left. More cabins had been completed. To his left, the cabin belonged to Rainier, River, and Anton. They didn’t stay in the human realm often when they could just portal back and forth to the fae realm, but the cabin was there when they wanted it. With the work continuing on the property and River in charge of the construction crews, he often snuck away for an hour or two with his mates during the day.

Two more cabins stood finished. Beside Rainier, River, and Anton’s was Lucifer and his two mates’ place. Dean had taken Cary on as an apprentice learning magic, so the trio was often visiting. It only seemed right to offer them a place to settle when they wanted.

The final cabin remained unclaimed.

Axel and Bryce, Drake and Lawson, Nate, Craig, and Bo, along with Shawn, Sam, Trevor, Ansley, Logan, Dean and Noahall decided to stay in the big house. There was plenty of room for them.

Across the yard on the opposite side of the big house, the construction had already begun for their hell residents. Five more cabins were being worked on. Seb and Ash, Adam, and Mal, even Atom and Ari would all have homes in the human realm. The extra cabins could house Adam’s minions or any other friends that they invited.

Their small little group had grown over the years.

Real friendships, found family, love, and respect had made their pack stronger. That was why Gavin was so obsessed with keeping everyone safe. He’d lost everything once. Never again. He’d never allow anything like that to happen again.

Feeling steadier, Gavin stepped off his deck and onto the thick, lush yard. Still stark naked, he sauntered away from his cabin and out into the clearing behind. Standing in the middle of the clearing, Gavin called for the transformation.

Lightning arced across the black sky before a rumble shook the ground.

Holding his arms up, Gavin tilted his head back as the rain began to softly fall and calmness filled him. He stood like that for several moments then started to run, faster and faster until he leaped into the air.

His shift was fast. Gavin hadn’t even begun falling back to the earth before he transformed into his huge thunderbird.

More lightning streaked through the sky.

He’d spend the rest of the night circling over his home and watching over those he loved.

* * * * *

Stryker

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