Daddy’s Mail Order Mate (Twilight Meadows Wolves #3)

Chapter 20 - Gwen

The first thing that I can do when I wake up is groan.

“Gwen!”

My head is heavy and sluggish, so it takes me a few beats to recognize my brother’s voice. I can’t seem to turn my head despite trying, and I realize groggily that my neck is wound in thick bandages and gauze.

“Mmn. What…”

I try to open my eyes even though it aches to do so. The world is blurry at first, but eventually it starts to focus in. I don’t quite recognize where I am, but from the layout it looks like some quaint little medical room set up in a cabin.

“Where?”

“You’re at Elm Wood,” Lucas explains as he scoots his chair closer to my bedside. “In the med bay. We brought you here to get you treated by our doctor and keep you safe.”

“Where’s—”

I try to push myself up, but my arms shake out from under me and my brother helps catch and settle me back onto the bed.

“Where’s Rowan? I need to see him.”

“Don’t worry about him, sis. The Lunas have him. You just need to—”

“Please,” I interject, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

His eyes flit over my face for a few moments before he sighs and squeezes back.

“Alright. Just so long as you promise to stay in bed.”

The knot of anxiety in my chest slackens a bit at the assurance.

“I promise. What happened?”

“Some pricks in the Portsmill Pack were trying to abduct you and Rowan.”

“Yeah,” I wheeze out. My brow furrows as I strain through the blur of violence and distress to search my memories. “They mentioned… Wanting their people back?”

“Huh, well that backs up what Thorn was theorizing. He thinks it must have been some sort of plot for trying to force the council’s hand with Portsmill. Said it might have been to try and force a challenge to go back to their old ways. It makes me so goddamn mad to know that I’d just been all buddy-buddy with those assholes.”

My brother sighs and stares off a bit, mouth twitching.

“Well. I guess they’ve already paid for it.”

“What do you mean?”

He looks back at me and there’s some hesitation evident in his features. Even with how incapacitated I am, one arched brow is enough to get him to cave.

“So uh… Thorn really fucked them up.”

“To the point he couldn’t interrogate any of them about it? You said he guessed why.”

Lucas rubs his hands together before replying. Despite his usual healthy glow, he seems to grow paler and his eyes glaze over for a second as he musters a response.

“Yeah. You can’t exactly interrogate corpses. We couldn’t even recognize some of them just from the bodies alone. It was spooky as all hell; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I recall screams and howls in my last blurry hazes of memory—that sounds about right. But that just reminds me of Rowan’s cries and I focus back on my brother.

“The baby.”

“Right, yeah. You did promise.”

He sighs as he stands before leaving me to my own devices. I use the time to slacken back into the bed and let myself drift until his return. Loose thoughts filter across my consciousness, hardly anything I could call a steady stream of thought. My senses only stir back into focus when the door opens again, and when I see Quinn entering with little Rowan in her arms a few tears slip silently free.

Quinn’s face softens in knowing endearment as she nears me.

“Here you go. I’ll be right here if he gets too heavy, alright?”

I nod distractedly—all that matters to me right now is getting this baby back into my arms. The little boy looks up at me with his big green eyes and I feel the storm of anxiety inside of me dissipate. Here he is, safe and sound, despite how much danger he’d been in. I press my forehead to his and sob, cradling him like he’s the most precious thing in the world.

“I’m so sorry Rowan, I’m so sorry, it’s gonna be alright. I did everything I could to protect you, but it wasn’t enough—I-I’m so sorry honey—”

I get too choked up to continue talking, so I just fall into quiet hitches and sobs as I clutch the boy to me.

“You did everything you could to look after him, Gwen. But I know how hard it is to feel like you’ve failed your children.”

Your children. In such a quiet and simple way, Quinn acknowledged me as being Rowan’s mother. It awakens the feelings I’ve been skirting around in my mind; it’s only been days, but I’m already so deeply attached to this boy. I haven’t dared to think of myself in any sort of relation or permanence to him, not with how limited and unstable my connection with his father is. But I can deny it no longer: I love this darling little boy. The guilt and grief I felt at the thought of losing him or putting him in harm’s way makes it abundantly clear, but the joyful relief that overwhelms me now is the final straw.

“Yeah,” I tearfully mumble. “It’s hard.”

A gentle hand strokes my shoulder and I see the Luna smiling down at us through my tears.

“Thorn insisted that you both stay here for now while the dust settles. He’s currently investigating the conspiracy, but will hopefully be back soon.”

“That’s for the best.”

I notice Lucas and Quinn share a look of wordless relief, but I don’t have the fight in me to make a fuss over it. My brother puffs himself up in a rather proud posture; it would probably look rather intimidating and impressive to anyone else with his stature, but I still just see my baby brother peacocking around.

“And if anyone else tries anything, I’m here to protect you. That guy clearly isn’t a—”

“Don’t, Lucas,” I cut in.

He stops and I hold his gaze with a weary forcefulness. There’s a pride in my heart that refuses to abide him making any sort of sideways remark about Thorn. Perhaps it’s the mate bond. Maybe it’s just me. Either way, it feels right. My brother looks appropriately sheepish, and Quinn laughs lightly beside us.

“It’s a bit funny, honestly. Now there are two badass women I know who can stare their huge brothers into submission.”

I chuckle, though the sound of it is hoarse and thin.

“Paige, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah. She’s the only person I’ve met who can get Thorn to back down.”

I look down to the baby in my arms and feel a nervous tightening of my chest at that. What will happen when Thorn comes back? He might be furious with me for failing to properly protect his son. He entrusted him to me, after all.

“Well,” Quinn softly pipes up, “I think it might be best if we let Gwen rest. Why don’t you have a little snuggle with the baby for a bit, and I’ll take him in a bit. How’s that sound?”

“That sounds… Good. Yeah. Thank you, Luna.”

Quinn chuckles.

“You don’t have to call me that, regardless of if you’re in my pack or not.”

Old habits die hard, and I’m still here on their hospitality. I don’t feel like arguing the point and feeding into my old anxieties, so I just nod and try to settle down with Rowan. He seems quite content to see me; he spends a minute just playing with my curly red hair and drooling all over the shirt I must have been dressed in after being treated. But soon enough the pair of us just cuddle in quiet, and I even drift off for a nap. Quinn is kind and smart enough to know to wake me before she takes Rowan away; if I’d woken up with him gone and no explanation, I would definitely have had a panic attack.

Lucas drifts in and out, though he always assures me he’s not going far. A few hours pass by, and I watch the world go into a golden twilight through the window by my bed. According to the pack doctor, I was lucky to have lived. I suffered from some nasty injuries, most notably the bite on my neck. But thankfully my body had been able to hold out and even start healing them a little bit, even though it’d been years since I’ve shifted and I never displayed too many of the benefits of being one of our kind. It hadn’t been enough to properly heal my wounds, but it had spared me from some less than ideal outcomes.

I’m in the middle of resisting the urge to scratch at the neck dressings for the hundredth time today when I see a tall figure striding along in the distance. Even this far away, he’s unmistakable. My heart skips a hectic beat as I sit further up and watch Thorn make his way through the pack grounds. Each stride is purposeful and sharp; I can tell he’s still pretty wound up. But of course he’d be, with all that happened.

One of his hands lifts and I see another man approach him. This one takes me a bit longer to recognize, but after a few seconds I think I’ve managed to successfully identify him as this pack’s Alpha. I can feel my anxiety winding tighter with each passing second—who knows where things will go from here? Amazingly, despite all the worst fears and vigilant paranoia that tries to bristle up like usual, I feel a sense of hopeful yearning start to drown it out.

For my sake, I really do hope that hope is right. I don’t know if I can ever recover if he breaks my heart again. The two men start to walk off out of my line of sight and I’m forced to sit there fretting for what feels like an age. Lucas left me with my phone, so I suppose I could always call him, but he must be busy if he hasn’t come to see me yet. I have to fend off my worst thoughts the entire time; the wounded parts of my psyche writhe and cry out with each passing second of uncertainty, ready to supply the worst interpretations.

So by the time Thorn actually walks into the room, I feel pretty twitchy beneath the heavy veil of exhaustion. The fresh ache of my clenching ribcage makes it hard to keep my breathing steady. He seems to hesitate a bit at the doorway with how long it takes for him to shut it behind him. Neither of us move or say anything for almost five seconds.

“Welcome back.”

He turns and starts to approach me, and I see his dark eyes quickly scrutinize me before there’s a passage of visible relief across his face.

“Glad you’re awake.”

“Yeah. I am too.”

Thorn huffs under his breath and slowly makes his way towards me. It seems like he considers sitting down in the chair nearby for a second, but he just idles standing near the end of my bed.

“There’s blood on your cuff,” I point out dryly.

He lifts his arm and finally seems to notice the rim of red darkening the white fabric.

“Ah. So there is. Apologies. I should have gone and cleaned up first.”

“No, it’s fine. It makes me feel better to see that you’ve been making those bastards pay for trying to hurt Rowan.”

He smirks just a little at that and sighs with dark amused pride.

“Yeah. That I have.”

After a lingering second more, he finally goes to sit down, though he can’t quite make eye contact with me.

“But it’s not just because of Rowan. It’s also because of you.”

I chew at the inside of my lips to try and fend off my anxiety. We’re already broaching into some of the more uncertain topics from the looks of things.

“... Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Neither of us say anything for nearly a minute. Thorn sits and fidgets by rubbing his thumb on the back of his own hand, and I have to resist the urge to pick at the bedding.

“I’ve been informed that they spoke to you about their intentions. They indicated that they were intending on using you both as leverage to get their incarcerated bigots back?”

The sharpness of his language steals a bitter little laugh out of me.

“Something to that effect.”

Thorn sighs, the sound marked with years of pain and weariness. It provokes my concern enough to properly look at him. There’s a strain to his expression that I’m not used to seeing, and all I want to do is try to relieve it somehow.

“It’s… Not your fault, if that’s what’s on your mind. We both know just how sadistic and awful some of our kind can be. That’s why you went off and joined the council, right? To stop them from hurting others.”

I see his throat move with a dry swallow and his posture shifts with obvious discomfort. Shit, I must have pushed too hard, and now he’s just going to back off—

“That’s one of the reasons.”

There’s a weightiness to how he speaks that implies that there’s more to follow. I adjust myself to sit up more firmly and force my tired body to be as alert as it can manage.

“Gwen, I…”

“Yes?”

He breathes out in a tight controlled way that is clear indication that he’s having to brace his way through this too.

“There’s… A lot that’s happened between us. Not just lately, but when we were young, as you well know. And I know that I owe you so much more than I’ve given. Above all else, I owe you the truth about everything.”

Thorn looks me in the eyes, and despite his strength, I see the glint of vulnerability there. He is as scared as I am. Maybe even more.

“I—... Would like the truth, Thorn.”

“It will not be pretty. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He adjusts his posture, and my stomach flips with anxious suspense. This is a man who carries himself dauntlessly, unphased by anything. I know for a fact now that he’s more than capable of killing, and yet this conversation has him terrified. But we can’t keep going on like this. So I do my best to prepare myself for whatever is to come, and hope that somehow we stand together on the other side.