Page 24 of Home: Posy 5

"Reau's wandering around somewhere."

"Prolly hadda pee." His eyes closed again.

"I don't think so. He's been gone a while," I argued and hustled to the door. "Spring went with him, but I'm going to check on him."

" 'kay. 'S good."

I rolled my eyes, but wasn't really surprised. Archer's brain was sharp as concertina wire when he was awake. When he was tired, though, it turned into a mushy mushroom.

Spring, are you with Reau?I linked him.

Yes. We're outside in the backyard.

Is he okay?My heartbeat picked up as I hurried down the hall and took the stairs two at a time.Did he have another nightmare? Is he panicking?

No, not a nightmare.

Okay. That's good.

I hated when our baby had nightmares.

The first time we heard him screaming for "Mommy Daddy" to stop, both mine and Archer's hearts broke into a thousand pieces. I had to get Mom because neither of us knew what to do to help him. We watched as she held him and rocked him and hummed until he went back to sleep. Since then, we took care of him ourselves following her model.

Only once did we have to link Beta Emerson to come over. Thoreau had woken up from a nightmare straight into a panic attack, then couldn't stop hyperventilating no matter what any of us, including Mom and Dad, did to help him.

That night, Archer and I had looked at each other as the beta comforted our baby and vowed we'd kill the alpha and luna of Gray Shadows one day.

Unfortunately, Mase beat us to it, a fact that still galled us.

He's upset, though,Spring told me as I opened the back door.

What's he upset about?I asked, looking around to see where they were.

I don't quite understand. Something about that prank you pulled on Wade tonight. He's in the hammock, by the way.

I smirked as I sprinted over there. No way was Wade going to be able to get all the pink dye out of his hair before school started in a couple of weeks.

As I got closer, I saw Spring in an alert pose under the hammock and nodded at him before I checked on Thoreau. Thankfully, our baby had thought to grab a blanket when he came out. Even though it was August, the air got chilly on a clear night like this, and he was still recovering. He needed to put on about twenty more pounds and have a few more vaccinations he'd missed as a pup, and I was concerned about his immune system.

Without a wolf, he was as fragile as a human, and it drove me crazy with worry sometimes.

Luna can heal him if he gets sick, Ocean reminded me, which helped me calm down.

When I looked at Thoreau's face, I saw he was staring up at the moon, the silvery light turning the tear streaks on his cheeks into glimmering streams. He had his thumb in his mouth, a habit Archer detested because of the germ factor, but I knew it was a comfort for him and left him alone about it.

Like Ocean just said, if he ever got sick, luna could heal him.

"What's wrong, baby?" I whispered as I cupped his face in my hands.

With a quiet sob, he wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me down on top of him. It took a little wiggling, but I managed to get under the blanket with him as he held me tight. Then I wrapped my arms around him as he cried into my neck, blinking back my own tears.

I hated to see him upset like this.

"Thoreau, why are you crying?"

"If Dad Nathan tells Mama Bubba I was being bad, he might get mad at me," he sobbed around his thumb. "If Mama gets mad at me, he'll send me back to Mommy Daddy. I don't want to go back there. I want to stay here. I like it here."

Has this been preying on his mind all these weeks? That he has to be good or he'll get sent back?

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