Page 118 of Claimed

“Thanks, bro. Okay everybody, thanks to all of you for comin’,” Grey claps his hands, pulling all the focus to the situation at hand. “Me ‘n Stace appreciate you. Now how about if we gear up?”

All faces go serious as spines straighten and I’m once again enthralled to see how this pack works together.

“So, I’m gonna walk the perimeter with all the alphas present as well as Luke, since he knows the lay of the land. Then we’ll come back and talk about a plan.”

He turns to me. “Be back in a few, Blossom. Gus, can you hang back here with the betas and keep your eyes on Stace for me?”

“Absolutely,” Gus steps up and stands directly beside me.

“Okay, babe?” Grey checks.

I moisten my lips and blow out a big exhale. He pauses and looks into my eyes. “Gonna be okay. No matter what’s on the other side of the fence, it’s gonna be okay. Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t I go, too?” I ask. “So I can put people at ease about you guys?”

“Not yet.” He gives me a severe expression. “Let us have a look first.”

I can’t look into Greyson Blackwood’s eyes without feeling things. Big things. Hope. Love. His strength. Our connection that’s growing stronger each day.

I look to the group at large. “Thank you all for coming. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’re all so thoughtful andcaring despite everything my brother and me have put everyone through.”

“Not your fault,” Linc clips like he’s angry. “You hear? Nobody’s blaming you. Get that outta yer head.”

“I’ll try,” I say softly, hoping he sees how much his words move me. His expression warms, so I continue. “Please, everyone… be careful. I don’t know if he set any traps. He would. He’s done it before.”

“Which is one of the reasons why you’re stayin’ here, ‘till I get a good look around. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say softly.

Grey tugs my braid and kisses me again.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Love you, sweetheart.” His response is husky, but also loud and clear.

I love that he doesn’t care who hears it. His thumb skates across my mate mark and he goes.

Half of them get into Grey’s car, the other half into Jase’s truck.

Cat Savage comes over and rubs my arm reassuringly. “We’ll get through this together. That’s what we do.”

“I…” I burst into tears like a weakling. I’m so embarrassed.

But Cat Savage pulls me to her and hugs me, rubbing my back. And it feels so, so nice.

She pulls back and her kind eyes are too much.

“I can’t believe you’re this nice when I’m the one who shot your son right after you got him back,” I blurt.

She comforts me some more as I blurt how my brother made me do it and why I felt I had no choice.

Ten minutes later we’ve had a drink and are in lawn chairs under Jared’s awning. She’s put out some snacks for the group that are waiting and is asking me questions about my pack, about the people, what sorts of medical issues I think we could be looking at.

I explain that a few months back, after several weeks of almost everyone in the pack getting a stomach bug that caused all sorts of gastrointestinal issues, we figured out that another well had gone bad. We started boiling it before drinking it or cooking with it.

I grimly lay the medical facts I know out and tell her there have also been some issues that I think come from vitamin deficiencies as well. Most of the women of prime childbearing years are just not getting pregnant despite being very sexually active. There was a one hundred percent miscarriage rate for the past year with far fewer pregnancies period. We had multiple inexplicable stillborn births the year before and had a two-year zero live birth percentage for our pack. I also told her there often isn’t enough to eat, definitely not enough variety for nutritional needs, and that I don’t know if that got worse after I left.

She asks why that is and I tell her that not only is our soil nearly useless, nobody who’s left works outside the village because my brother has gotten increasingly controlling, so we’ve become a hundred per cent reliant on Wyatt to provide for us.

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