Page 190 of Claimed

“Okay. See you in there.” I kiss her and follow the guys inside.

Bailey comes in from the opposite door that leads to the library. Crossing the space quickly, she catches up to me, saying, “Good, you’re here. Everything okay now?”

“A lot happened,” I tell her. “A lot. Get into it later, yeah? This is about to start.”

“Okay, here you go.” She hands me a sheet of paper.

“What’s this?” I eyeball it.

“Stacy’s family tree. Was waiting in my email this morning from the librarian that runs the archives for the SCC.”

I feel relief that my mate will have her answers. I can see those answers now and feel a second wave of relief. “Thank you, Bailey. I appreciate this.”

“Any time,” she says and quickly walks past Jase with her nose straight up in the air. He frowns and I see him watch her sit beside Aphra Starling, holding out her hand and introducing herself.

Stacy comes in and I watch her smiling face as she waves and greets people before walking straight into my arms and getting up on her tiptoes to kiss me.

“Hey,” she says. “Let’s get this done so we can go for a run.”

“A run, Blossom? Know I wrote some checks on the drive over but think I might be crashin’ when we get home. I haven’t slept since… since I don’t know when the fuck.”

“Oh,” she pouts.

I poke her nose. “But maybe if you do all the work, you can have my knot.”

“Deal,” she whispers, eyes lighting up. “In fact, I have an idea.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“You’ll see,” she teases.

I laugh again. This is when I notice a set of eyes on her so do a double take. The blond guy standing beside Brody looks the other way. Malachi Carswell?

I remember what I’m holding and hand Stacy the piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Read it,” I tell her.

First, her body tightens, but as she looks it over I feel her body sag against me with relief.

Wyatt’s mother and Stacy’s mother are cousins. But neither were blood-relations to John Meadows. Wyatt’s mother was adopted and they were not blood relatives. Stacy’s mother was Wyatt’s mother’s cousin by blood on her birth father’s side of the family, so it appeared , also not blood-related to John Meadows. So, the families retained contact despite the adoption, which wasn’t unusual back then. There wasn’t a national adoption system for shifters until about two decades ago, so adoptions most often happened between folks in the same pack or neighboring packs meaning contact would tend to be more frequent. Wyatt’s mother’s mother was only fourteen when she gave birth to her so adoption tracks.Wyatt and Stacy are technically half-siblings as well

“Good news, Blossom,” I say, pressing my lips to her head.

“Yeah,” she whispers, love shining in her eyes. “Thank you for getting this for me.”

“Thank my sister,” I gesture.

“I’ll do that.” She looks about to move that way, but Brody and the blond guy get on the stage so she changes her mind seeing things are about to start here.

All seven of us council alphas are here. So are four of the previous council, including my dad as well as Jase’s.

Dad looks like he’s only physically here. I think he’s mentally somewhere else. I got Stace to message him to meet me here as we got close and he was in the parking lot when we arrived.

“Where’s Mom?” I had asked.

“At Riley’s. She’s with Erica, Skye, and Cat.”

---