Page 10 of Reclaiming Home

There was a weird impasse, as if he was measuring me somehow, but couldn’t decide something. Then he stepped back.

“Come on in.”

“Thanks.” I took the few steps inside, and then suddenly my sister’s form pushed past Brodie and into my arms, and everything was right in my world again.

We collapsed to the floor right there, and Brodie closed the door behind us.

I don’t know how long it took for us to gather ourselves. We sobbed, clutching each other, for what felt like hours.

At one point, Brodie thrust some paper towels between us and then wandered off again. We kind of snickered at that, then wiped our faces and blew our noses. Then I really looked at Carys and tried not to react to her beaten up state.

“I know,” she whispered, giving me a weak smile. Then she took my appearance in more closely, and smiled. “You grew out your hair again.”

We both had black hair. Hers had always been to her shoulder blades and I’d worn mine longer as a kid. But then teen age hit and it wasn’t cool for boys to have long hair so I cut it short.

“Yeah,” I replied quietly. I couldn’t say I’d grown it out to feel closer to her, because it didn’t really make sense.

“I’ll be fine,” she said suddenly, wiping her cheeks again, this time with more determination. “We’ll be fine.”

“So, what exactly happened here? I mean today?” The rest could wait. I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear what she’d been through since she went missing quite yet.

“Let’s go sit somewhere,” she said and got to her feet, then held out a hand.

When I took it, I saw bruises on her arm and did my best not to let her take much of my weight. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know any of the potential injuries she had underneath her clothes.

“You guys want coffee?” Brodie asked when we stepped into what was a kind of disgusting family room.

“Yeah, actually. Let me go make some,” Carys said quickly.

“You don’t need to—”

“No, I do,” she cut him off. “I’ll be right back.”

Meanwhile, I went to sit on one of the three couches. They had blankets over them, so I felt comfortable enough to sit down.

Brodie sat across from me and looked at me with his pale wolf eyes.

He was handsome as fuck. He was tall and tattooed up to his jawline. His hair was short on the sides and had that longer bit on top that I could see he ran his fingers through a lot, or at least had today.

“So, you’re an Alpha?” I asked, just to fill the silence.

He grunted. “I am now. Wasn’t this morning.”

I could feel my eyebrows trying to crawl into my hairline. “How’d that come to be?”

“Let’s wait for Carys. She can fill in whatever she wants.” His tone wasn’t unfriendly per se, more to a point. His phone rang before Carys could come back, and his lips curled into a quick smile before he answered it. “Hey, sweetness. No, I’m fine. She’s fine too. The sheriff was the new guy, he said it seemed pretty straightforward. Yeah. They’re coming tomorrow to do something about the remnants of the meth lab. Yeah.”

My eyebrows never really had a chance to lower.

Carys came in, carrying three mugs of coffee and a bottle of creamer under her arm. “This is all we had,” she explained as she distributed the mugs. She held up the creamer, and I put some into mine, but Brodie declined.

“Okay so, where were we?” I prompted once we were all settled, Carys right next to me, and Brodie had ended his call.

“So, I grew up in this house from age seven onwards. Rusty was my mom’s brother. My older sister Bella grew up here too.Our mom died of an overdose when I was ten and Bella sixteen. I don’t know if it started before that, probably, but Rusty….” Brodie’s jaw clenched as he tried to get the words out.

“I think we can use context clues here,” Carys said dryly, gesturing at herself.

Brodie snorted softly. “My sister ran away before she even turned seventeen and I didn’t hear from her in fifteen years.” He blew into his mug, then sighed. “Our cousins are still part of the pack here. Rusty was the Alpha,” he clarified for my sake.

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