My head spun as I listened to this disembodied voice destroy me, my daughter, and everything we’d created together, in a few short words. He was so grumpy, dislocated from the entire thing, so sure his point of view was right. And in the world he lived in, I was some pretender, one who sought to use whatever connection I had with his sons for gain. My mouth twitched then, not from any real mirth, but because a desperate, hard bark of a laugh kept building and building inside me, wanting to come out.
I had gained nothing. I felt that like a mouthful of ashes settling in my stomach. I’d been OK before this, or at the very least no one was threatening to try to take my daughter away from me. No, Evie had been all mine, without intrusions from anyone.
Grace clicked her thumb on the end call button and then turned her phone off before her mate could call back. Her eyes had changed now, going from grey to silver. The woman’s entire manner shifted, her face almost seeming to thin down, and when she opened her mouth to suck a breath in, she bared a set of small fangs. “Turn your phones off,” she ordered, part growl now, her voice throaty and distorted. “All of you.”
Jasper let go of my hand as he went to do what his mother bid, Ben, Damon and Reed doing the same.
“Mum?” Logan’s voice was a thin thread of dissent in all this compliance.
“I mean it, Logan,” she said. “Don’t you take his call, not until I tell you to. That miserable bloody sod. Lily has… Evie is…” Her brow wrinkled and when she looked down at her hands, they began to curve into claws, hair prickling across the backs.
“Gracie needs to shift,” Tom said, jerking himself to his feet. “Boys, we’ll take her up the back paddock, away from the alpacas and the marsupials.”
He and his sons rose to their feet, and so did my pack, but Barb shook her head.
“My boys can look after your mother,” she assured them. “You need to look after your mate.” Her eyes when they came to settle on me were warm and kind. “I’ll have some food sent over. Rest up, love. You need it.”
“Evie…”I whispered as I was walked over to our cart, dully staring at the ground as we went, then I stopped and resisted the hold these guys had on me, shaking off their hands. “I need to know my daughter’s safe. That bastard of a brother of yours…!”
Was standing right there, watching the four of us with silvery eyes. I watched his jaw flex, heard the grind of his teeth, but he just shook his head and then marched off.
“Logan’s not going to do anything.” Ben’s face swam up in view. “I think…”
“He brought Mum down for a reason,” Damon said grimly. “Fuck, looks like the dickhead might be having second thoughts.”
“I’ll stay here with the cub,” Ben insisted. “I’ll be watching her the whole time.”
But I wanted, needed, to have my eyes on my daughter, because I couldn’t really trust anyone else with her, not really. Usually, all the instability around Ev came from managing her behaviour, but suddenly it was everyone else that was irrational and out of control, and I couldn’t put them to bed with an action figure and a good book. I stared at Ben, not wanting to contradict him, but willing him to understand.
Turns out he did, all too well. He leant over and pressed his lips to my forehead, and it felt like a small explosion sent waves of reassuring peace through me. I wavered a little, Jasper stepping in.
“I’ve got you, beta,” he told me in a low rumble, pulling me into his chest. “We’ve got you.”
“Tell Logan to fuck off,” Reed growled. “Back to the city, back home, I don’t fucking care. Get him away from Lily. She doesn’t need any more shit, and neither does Mum.”
“Will do,” Ben said, and then pulled away.
I shivered then, feeling cold, wrung out and tired, so I didn’t protest when Jasper picked me up and put me into the cart, nor when he walked me into the cabin we were going to share. I just stared numbly as he turned the water on in the huge bathtub, pouring ridiculous amounts of sweet smelling bath salts in until the water was foamy and fragrant.
“What’s with all the baths?” I croaked, snorting, then sobering, searching the alpha’s face.
“Mum always used to hide away in the bathroom when Dad was driving her mad,” he said, working to undo my shirt buttons and then pushing it off my shoulders. “As you might have guessed, she had a lot of them. Got to the point where we all bought her nice smelling things for her birthday and Christmas.”
“And where were you?” I asked, much more gently now.
“Me?”
I stared at him, those big capable hands falling to one side as I saw two Jaspers. One like this version of him, big and strong and so fucking capable on the footy field, and the other? Did a much younger Jasper step in like this, running his mother a bath when she was tired, upset or just at wit’s end with that thug of a mate of hers? Did he watch his mother for signs she’d need this, just like he was watching me?
“Were you the one to run her baths for her? Did you select the scents you knew she liked? Did you feel responsible for making sure she had a safe haven to retreat to?”
His mouth opened. He felt compelled to answer, but could sense the direction I was taking.
“I… I needed to help.”
“And who helps you, Jasper?”
He shook his head then, sharply, and then went back to undressing me until I took his hands in mine.