Page 41 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

“I’ll shift close to the cabin, and I’ll come out and find you in half an hour.” She blinked hard, but one silver tear trailed down her cheek anyway. She smiled at him and brushed it away. She got out of the truck, then helped the boys out.

His braces were in the backseat between them. He reached in and held them, awe seeping through him that someone had made this for him. Made him a miracle. Awe that Prairie Rose arranged it all.

The boys were warm from sleep, still in their jackets. He’d kept it fairly cool in the truck when he drove because blasting heat was uncomfortable, but they’d been under the layers of extra jackets. They both stretched and inhaled like it was good to be out of hibernation.

His sentiment exactly, but it was a different slumber he was waking up from.

Prairie Rose shooed them off and she gathered up their bags. He led, and Blake and Levi trailed after him. The night wasn’t that absolute dark like so many of the nights he’d come out to take shelter amongst the solemn solitude of the trees.

It was different tonight. No, it was him who was different, not the ancient forest. Him and the rest of the world. All of it had changed, but the trees stayed the same. It wasn’t time for them to come awake yet. Spring was still too far off.

An owl hooted in the distance and Blake smiled at Levi. “What kind do you think it is?”

“Sounds like a great horned owl.”

“I think you’re right.”

The only sound after that was the boys breathing behind him and the crunch of snow as they plowed down well-worn trails. Prairie Rose wouldn’t even need to follow her nose to find them. Her wolf would just trail their prints starting from that place she knew he’d go to.

He kept his hands wrapped around the braces, holding onto them like they were his salvation. The wolf howled and howled. He’d have to be careful. It would be a hard trade off. He’d been so consumed with his grief in his human form that he hadn’t given any to the wolf. He’d tried to shut the other half of him, and he’d ignored that crushing pain because he was afraid he just couldn’t handle a single ounce more. That just that fractional extra would break him.

He finally stopped under a tree he knew well. In his mind, he saw Prairie Rose bringing him his jacket that night, a thermos of coffee he refused to drink because he was an asshole. He’d been lost to her and himself and everyone else.

He wasn’t lost now.

He was here, with his boys.

Levi took Blake’s hand and they both watched him quietly. They were always quiet in his presence, but he never noticed just how much until he saw them with Prairie Rose. They needed more from him, and he hadn’t known how to give it. He still had no idea, but now at least he recognized it.

He stripped out of his jacket and his shirt. Kicked off his boots and peeled away his jeans and socks. He let the cold snow crunch underfoot, feeling a part of nature again like he hadn’t when he sat out there with no intention of ever shifting again. Snow to skin. Chill air biting against his body. Earth to earth. Ash to ash. Except he wasn’t ash yet. Hopefully not for a long time yet.

“Will you help me?” He held out a brace to each of the boys. He probably could have done it himself, but he’d never felt prouder of his sons than when they held those braces like they were the most precious thing ever created and he wanted to involve them in this moment. “When I shift, I’ll need you to help the wolf and make sure the braces are in place and fastened properly. When they’re right, you’ll know. He’ll know. I’ll wait for you to undress and come with me. Leave your clothes on top of mine so they won’t be wet when we come back here to get dressed afterwards.”

“Dad?” Blake wasn’t usually the one to hesitate and his voice was cautious, as if he was worried how his question would be taken, “Are you okay?”

Everything in the world faded except for his boys. He hadn’t hugged them nearly enough. He hadn’t been held himself since long before he was taken, and certainly never after—not in friendship nor in love. The only embrace he’d known was one of physical contact wrestling an opponent to the ground in practice or in a real fight. His technique had saved his life many times.

There was no technique when he threw one arm around Blake and one around Levi. He pulled them in tight to his side and their arms went around him. Something strange happened to his eyes. They burned like he’d been looking up into the sky and falling snow gathered in them. He’d been trapped in the darkest cavern, a hole that went all the way down to the darkest pit of the earth, but the earth had turned itself upside down again and had shaken him out and he was back.

“Yes,” he mumbled, his throat on fire. “Yes, I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.”

He let the wolf come that way, with his sons’ arms wrapped around him. He used to throw himself into the shift and the wolf came out like the deadly, wild animal that it was, but it was different. Even after being locked away in the cage of his human body for so long, the spirit of the animal was there. It understood gentleness. The wolf knew his children and he felt their love.

He was huge, so much larger than they were. He stumbled when he hit the ground, his paws all wrong, but the boys propped him up. Levi stuck his little shoulder under one half and Blake took the rest of the weight.

“Hold on. We’ll get you fixed up. Can you sit back?”

The wolf did, following the soothing sound of Blake’s command. He sat on his haunches and turned his face to the sky, taking in the brightness of the stars, of the round disk of the moon. He’d missed it all so much. Missed it as much as his breath, as his body, as the earthy scent of the forest sharp in his lungs, of the cold taste of snow on his tongue, of his boys running beside him.

He felt whole in a way he hadn’t in a very long time.

Probably since he was running with the pack he’d been born into.

Blake fitted the first brace around the wolf’s paw. It wrapped up and around the leg, straightening it and giving a cushioned bottom to land on, kind of like a platform shoe, but made tight for an exact fit. It was amazing that something like this could even be created, let alone in such a short time. The wolf who made them was a master at his craft. He knew the human form. He knew the wolf’s form because he was a wolf himself.

Blake helped Levi with the other brace. It flexed just enough that it didn’t cause pain going on. They arranged it around the paw.

Was it perfect? It wasn’t ever going to be unless he had surgery, and probably multiple times, to correct his physical anatomy, but when he took that first step through the packed down snow, the cold reaching up into his pads and soaking the fur between them, he knew it would hold.

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