Page 36 of The Buck Stops Hare

“He’s mated to a thunder god. An aspect—Lightning.” I rolled my eyes. “And I’ve got a god of mountains and earth. Bu—”

“Tempest? Buckling Stone?”

What. The Fuck.

“Yes! Mom, you better come clean with some details right the fuck now because how the fuck are three of your kids mated off to gods and you not—”

“Three? Where’s Eve? Who?” Her tone went sharp.

“Grim Dawn.”

The sharp gasp that met my words on the other end made me hesitate. “Your father and I are coming down. Aspects… Hendrick!” I heard her shouts on the other end, rattling off something to what must have been my father. “If Rayne— It’s Louisiana, the pack lands, right? Thunder Acres?”

Once again. What. The. Fuck?“Mom. Seriously?” I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath, ready to fire back and let loose on her. Years of vaguely homophobic comments, half-ass churchy shit, and neglect and she had held back all of it.

“Ma…”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can get a flight.” She hung up before I could say anything else, and I fumed as Buck walked back in, eying me as I called back.

“What?” she answered, her tone put upon.

“No. Don’twhatme. Explain. Explain all this bullshit because you’ve got three kids that are gods and holy shit. Hunter, Lilly, and Ember…”

“You keep them out of it. If there’s even a chance, they’re normal, I want them out of it. I won’t have them feeling like shit because they’re not special and magical and loved by everyone like a non-latent.” Her sharp tones assaulted my ears. “I had a feeling Rayne would manifest in some way but fucking hell. All three of you shacked up with gods!”

“Okay, you better calm your tits, Ma. You think you’re hurt? Imagine all we’ve been through not knowing. Rayne even tried to reach out but you—” I snarled into the phone and met Buck’s wary gaze, sadness flickering across his face as Jacque cluelessly tried to climb his leg and reach the handful of greens he held. “Fine. Come down. Have some answers. Have a good whatever time it is for you. And how you fix this will totally decide what nursing home I shove you in the moment you can’t not piss yourself.”

I hung up at a squawk of protest and fumed until Buck came up behind me and rested a hand atop my head for a brief moment. “I take it there’s more to your birth mother than we thought?”

“I liked her better when she was just a useless airhead.” I sighed heavily and dismissed a call as she tried to call back. “Totally putting her in a shitty home.”

“Mh,” Buck grunted in agreement before finding Jacque’s bowl to give him the greens he so desperately wanted. His munching noises filled the silence before our words did. But still, I waited for him to speak. “Latent?”

“What’s a latent?” Mom had said something about that to me.

“Someone who carries the blood to be a shifter or witch but doesn’t express. A demi is someone who carries little blood but expresses or has the potential to express. You, for instance, like Rayne, would be a demi. You may have manifested into a shifter had the right circumstances occurred, but it was destiny that you attuned to me. Rayne had destiny with Storm, and it looks like Eve has a destiny with Grim. And your mother has a destiny with someone’s foot. If not yours, mine.” Buck ran his fingers through my hair, over my neck until he tilted my head back and kissed me with a soft brush of lips. “Doesn’t matter though. Your family is here, and the sooner you realize it, the better.”

Jacque jumped onto the couch with a clump of dandelions in his mouth. I gave him a quick pat to his head before Buck let me slip from his grasp. My chest heaved once in something that was a mix of a sigh and yawn. I’d not felt so good in years. “Rayne and I are no better, really. We never were super close when we got older, but Rayne could have told me what was going on. Could have called as much as I could have called him.”

“The only reason I knew Storm found Rayne was that he had no clue what he was. He called me to come look at the strange young human he found kissing him on the side of the road.” Buck gave me a cocky grin.

“Like just kissed him first meeting, not even a hello?” I snorted.

“Well, he was a horse at the time.” Buck added no context before walking off to the kitchen and fiddling around with the coffeepot.

I rose from my seat, following after. “Wait, you can’t just tell me Rayne made out with a random horse and walk off.”

“Not a random horse. Storm.” He milled in the cabinets, finding some dubiously old grounds.

“You know what? I don’t want to know.” I sighed and loped off to the bathroom, taking the opportunity to bathe.

By some miracle or god powers, Buck was clean and dressed when I returned, his hat firmly in place as he shot me a half smile. “Ready to go pester Storm?”

“I guess,” I said, stretching out and giving him a covert little sniff as I walked by. Surely he’d have some stank left on him, but no. It made me feel better that we wouldn’t be going off somewhere, stinking of sex. “How did you sleep?”

“It’s weird. I closed my eyes and time disappeared for a bit. I saw old memories; good ones, and I thought a lot about our mother.” He rubbed at the back of his neck in a learned butnervous gesture that endeared me, but at the same time made me acutely aware of how inhuman he was. Little things like that had to be learned and practiced. So, I wasn’t sure if he genuinely did it out of habit or did it for show for me.

“Sometimes it’s bad stuff. Sometimes it’s not memories. Actually, most of the time it’s not memories. Dreams are weird.” I shrugged. “Wake me up if you have a bad one, man. They’re scary sometimes so don’t freak out and go all god-power mode…”

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