Page 48 of Chomp's Challenge

CHOMP

She looks just as I remember with the same long, golden brown hair and eyes the identical shade as mine. She’s lost a little weight since we’ve last met but doesn’t appear unhealthy. It’s her eyes that snare my attention, along with the quiver in her chin. When those brown pools fill with tears, I can’t stand another second of silence.

“Mom.” Her name leaves my lips like a long-awaited, answered prayer. I’m vaguely aware that I drop Ariel’s hand and then I’m rushing up the stairs, scooping up my mother in a tight hug as she begins to wail, clutching at me like she never believed we’d have this moment together the same as I did.

I have so many questions. “How? Why are you here?”

“He’s dead,” my mother whispers with a sniffle.

The bull who mistreated my mother. The gator I’ve hated for what he’s done to my family and congregation. I don’t have it in me to feel sorry.

No! He forced us to leave, Gator bellows. We do not mourn him.

“I’m not sorry he’s gone.” I know I sound belligerent, but his treatment toward me, as well as other male gators in our congregation was horrific, and one of the reasons I tried to hold myself aloof from others. I couldn’t handle losing others I’d grown to care about again; it devastated me.

Club brothers and our mate are different, Gator hisses. They will never leave us.

“Neither am I,” she admits, finally pulling away but keeping her hands on my shoulders. “We’ve all missed you, Chomp.” Her head turns toward the door, and I spot my youngest sibling, no more than fifteen years.

When I see Chewy, I almost lose it. He was a little hatchling when I left, stuck to my mother’s side often, and always chewing on shit because he was teething. The young man before me has the same brown eyes, my mother’s hair color, and my build. He’s smaller, but in a few years, he’ll fill out once he’s grown. “Chewy.”

He makes a youthful bellow and hurtles his way toward me, shifting in his excitement. My mother easily sidesteps the smaller, overexcited gator and I shift to join him, immediately locked in a tussle as we wrestle. I flip him over a few times before we shift back, and I pull him into a hug.

“You’ve gotten fat,” he jokes as I squeeze him.

“Funny,” I laugh.

Behind us, I hear chuckles from Spike, Kodiak, Peanut, and a few of my brothers. They’re happy for me. I can see it in their expressions when I turn to face them. I’ve gotten some of my family back, and it fills that last little empty hole in my heart.

“Your other brothers are mated now and have set up their families in lakes that apparently filter into the one here in Yukon Bluff,” my mom says.

My jaw drops at her words; I was close to my siblings, but as the oldest, the bull’s attention was on me since I was nearly old enough to challenge him. While I did, it wasn’t to take over the congregation, it was to keep him from hurting all the females who were there. To say that his death couldn’t have happened to a nicer male is an understatement. For years I’ve mourned losing my biological family, even though my life here in Yukon Bluff is more than satisfactory. I have a lake that sprawls endlessly, found brothers with the club, and now the most beautiful mate ever.

We need them to stay, Gator bellows. We aren’t like him, we won’t kick our brother out. He needs to learn how to be a good male. Our brothers plus me will help teach him.

“Are you here to stay?” I ask, turning my hopeful gaze to my mother.

“If you’ll have us.”

If? I drag Chewy toward my mother and hug them both against me. “Ariel?” I ask, noting her wide smile. She’s brushing tears from her cheeks, but her joy is unmistakable. She’s thrilled for me. I can feel it.

“Of course! Our home is open to you all.”

My mother blinks before her gaze rests on Ariel’s wrist. “You’re my son’s mate.”

Ariel nods. “Yes.”

Before anyone can react, my mother is rushing toward Ariel, hugging her close as she weeps. “I’ve waited so long for my Chomp to find you.”

Her words bring on fresh tears as they slip down Ariel’s face, but I know it’s because of the acceptance and love she feels. “He saved me when I needed him the most. More than once,” Ariel confides.

“Because you’re true mates. I can see the bond. It’s quite strong already.”

My mother’s words fill me and Gator with pride and exhilaration. “Mother, meet my Ariel. Ariel, this is my mother.”

“And that’s what you call me,” she insists, kissing my cheek. “You call me Mom.”

Ariel begins to sob as my mother holds her tighter. “I lost my mom.”

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