A Mating Dance (3 page)

Max jumped at the sternness in Graham’s voice. Cameron ran her fingers through his hair, soothing him.

Blaine grunted beside her. “What about their father?”

Sammie set her juice on the coffee table and wrapped her arms around herself and spoke in a hushed, saddened tone. “Daddy is dead.”

Graham was in front of her in an instant, drawing her into his arms. “You sure?”

She leaned into him and nodded against his chest. Cameron’s heart ached all over again. “I can’t feel him,” she said softly. “It’s like I’m alone inside.”

The bond between child and father had broken. Cameron held Max a little closer. Sammie was old enough to understand what the disconnect meant. Her lion was most likely telling her.

But Max…he wouldn’t understand. Now his reluctance to go to any other male besides Graham made a little more sense to her. He missed his dad and didn’t know why. She kissed Max on the top of his head and peered up at Graham. His sorrowful expression made her chest tighten. Then it clicked. The way the kids acted toward him was so comfortable and affectionate, like children were with a parent.

“He was your lover,” she whispered.

Graham’s attention snapped up to her. “Sammie, take Max and see if you can get him to eat some more.”

Sammie wiggled her fingers at Max, and the toddler scooted out of Cameron’s lap and warily walked past Blaine to his sister. Blaine reached out to him as he past, and Max jerked his little arm away. Cameron smacked Blaine. “Stop.”

She returned her attention back to Graham just as the doorbell rang. Dani emerged from the kitchen with a couple of bowls. She set them on the table for the kids and moved toward the door.

The sound of Shayna—Blaine’s adopted sister and one of Cameron’s best friends—brought a smile to Cameron’s lips. She loved Shay as if they were sisters. And it helped that they were about five years apart in age. Shay walked inside, giving Dani a quick hug. Behind her was her stepdaughter, Josie, who smiled wildly at everyone. Once she spotted Sammie and Max at the dining table, she walked over and introduced herself.

No fear, Cameron mused.

“Do you want some cereal, Josie?” Dani asked, and then kissed the four-year-old on the cheek.

Josie beamed and nodded then pulled out a chair and climbed on it. Shay laughed. “Josie, you just ate.”

Dani disappeared into the kitchen and came back a moment later with a bowl and set it in front of Josie. “Oh stop, Shay. I know the only time the poor girl eats is when she comes over.”

“Nah, it’s the extra exercise she gets.” Travis came in, wrapping his arms around Shay and pressing a kiss to her neck. Looking at Dani, he said, “My mom will be by later with some toys and stuff for the kids.”

Dani smiled and leaned in to give him a hug. “Thanks.” She went to close the door and stopped as Keegan appeared in the doorway.

Cameron stifled a laugh when Dani jumped. The leopard Alpha was great at sneaking up on people. Dani shook her head and walked away. With a smirk, Keegan stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He walked to the table where the kids sat eating. Well, all but Josie, who was babbling about school and the nursery.

Blaine stretched an arm out behind Cameron’s head and drew her into him. She went, wanting to feel him close. She’d put too much distance between them lately. She had a feeling of something missing, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Yes, she’d lost a child several years ago. Since then she had refused to be around him during her time of heat. She just couldn’t go through the loss of another child. She couldn’t put him through losing another.

It was the main reason she’d hadn’t wanted to bond with him. Blaine deserved better, like a female that could carry his cubs to term.

Another reason she’d kept him at a distance was the uneasy feeling that something was missing in their lives.

As if sensing her soured thoughts, he squeezed her closer and kissed the top of her head. She sighed and wondered how she’d found a male so complex. He was an alpha male to the core, but also compassionate and frustrating as hell.

Pushing back, she eyed him suspiciously. “What’s with the cuddling?”

“I always cuddle with you.”

Yeah, he did, but it was never in public or even around family or friends. She raised a brow. He took his arm from around her and sat straight. She noticed he cast a glance to Graham, who had sat in an armed chair diagonally to their right watching them.

Narrowing her eyes and pressing her lips together, she held Graham’s stare until the male looked away. She was so not doing this.  She couldn’t do it. Blaine was enough, all she ever wanted and needed.

Wasn’t he? Why in the hell did Graham make her want things that were impossible to have?

She had never really been sure about her future, and entering the mating dance with Blaine at the age of nineteen had only tamed her jaguar a little. She was young and hadn’t wanted to complete the mating bond then. When she went into heat for the first time at twenty-two, she was glad to have him. She got pregnant and was both happy ¬and scared shitless at the same time. Yet, she still hesitated with forming the mating bond with him. Then she lost their child in her fourth month of pregnancy, halting all plans of mating and having a future.

Uncertainty and fear consumed her, making her withdraw from her mate and the new family she’d found in Ashwood. Well, not everyone.  It was hard to push Blaine away too far. The stubborn male didn’t possess the phrase “back off” in his vocabulary. And her two best friends, Dani and Shay, were impossible to stay away from. About two weeks after the miscarriage, they’d shown up at her apartment with a couple of bottles of wine and forced her out of her depression.

Cameron was grateful for her friends. Without them she would have left Ashwood and left the pain behind with it.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped off memory lane and returned to the present. Her gaze landed on Graham. His short blond hair was unruly, as though he ran his hands through it constantly. When his blue eyes lifted to stare into hers, she suppressed a groan as desire threatened to rise. Something about those blues, something in his stare and the way they darkened ever so slightly when he looked at her made her want things she shouldn’t, couldn’t have.

The damned sexy mountain lion tempted her like no one other than Blaine had.

Shit.
She was in trouble.

Shay sat beside her, drawing her from her worries. “Care to share your thoughts?” she purred.

Cameron looked at her and smiled. Her best friend glowed with life like the happy, mated, pregnant female she was. Cam took her hand and leaned her forehead against hers. “Pissing contest.”

Shay’s smile faded as she peered over at her brother then Nevan’s stepbrother. Then amusement lit up her features. “Oh, man.”

“Yep.” Cameron sighed.

Keegan emerged from the kitchen chewing on something and nodded at Graham in greeting. Cameron knew Graham had been in the den for a couple of days now, working with Luna on a new centralized nursery and school. So it wasn’t surprising that Keegan didn’t bother with formalities. Plus, no one came into Ashwood Falls without meeting the Alphas first.

Keegan sat down on a dining room chair he drug in with him and said, “This will be an informal meeting. I’d like for Graham to explain a little about his relationship with the kids. Then we’ll decide what to do next.”

Graham cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable as he began to speak. “Isaac, the children’s father, and I were lovers. I met Isaac a few months before Max was born. He was full of life, happy, and content with a seven-year-old Sammie and his human mate about to give birth to a son. Then everything changed after Max was born. Libby grew depressed and started having doubts about raising puma cubs.”

Graham paused, and Cameron wondered if the pain she felt rolling off him was grief for Libby or Isaac, or maybe the kids.

He sighed and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Isaac found her on the bathroom floor when he got home from work. She’d overdosed on sleeping pills. It nearly destroyed him, and it destroyed me as well to watch the man who had fast become my friend hurt so much.”

“Graham stepped in and helped put the pieces together and made sure the kids had what they needed,” Nevan said grimly.

Graham nodded. “Isaac and I weren’t mates.” He sat back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “It took months for Isaac to start living again. I moved in with him and the kids. Everything seemed to be moving forward. Isaac took a new job paying double what he’d been making, and then, about a year ago, he took the kids and left. No forwarding address and his cell phone was cut off.”

Blaine stretched out his arm across the couch behind Cameron’s head. “And last night we find the kids running from the Onyx goons and mutants.”

Graham met his gaze, and Cameron swore she saw a flicker of anger mixed with hurt pass across his face before it disappeared. Nodding, Graham answered Blaine’s unasked question. “I talked to Sammie briefly last night. She said the rogues came and took them. They stayed in a cell. It was the same thing she told Dani. Sammie said Isaac found them yesterday and freed them, telling her to come to Ashwood to find Nevan.”

Cameron stiffened. “Do you think he was keeping tabs on you?”

“Yes, and the kids.” Graham looked at Keegan. “I want to be a part of finding out what happened to Isaac and why they wanted the kids.”

Keegan gave a sharp nod. “You can work with Blaine and Cameron. We’ve been monitoring an area not far from where the kids were found.”

Cameron felt Blaine stiffen beside her as he stood. With a cool tone, he addressed Graham. “Come by Russell’s Bar this afternoon. I’ll have Hayden and Dane meet us there.”

After he’d left, Shay blew out a breath. “What the hell is his problem?”

Chapter 3

Graham watched Cameron as she helped Max stack some blocks a couple of Den mothers had dropped off shortly after Keegan left. Cam stayed to entertain the kids while Nevan went to the community center to play basketball with an enforcer named Alec and several youth males. As the Pack Empath, Nevan had to spend time with everyone, getting to know them and their emotional layers.

Taking his eyes from the sensual female, he tried to focus back on the plans of the new nursery he’d started. Yet, his mind wouldn’t focus on work. Instead, thoughts of Cameron and Blaine stirred. The couple captivated him and were in his every thought.

Damn.
What was it about those two that drew him?

He had an idea, but he couldn’t let it grow. No, he couldn’t think about the possibility that Blaine and Cameron could both be his mates. There was no way they’d welcome him into their lives.

“Papa?”

He glanced over at Sammie and smiled. She looked better than she had last night. Her blond hair shined and hung past her shoulders, and her blue eyes were clear. They no longer held the wildness they had at the medical center. “What is it, baby?” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, placing a kiss to her forehead.

“I missed you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Chest tightening, he gently squeezed her closer. “I missed you too.” He just held her for several moments before asking the one question that, deep in his soul, he feared to ask, no matter what the answer would be. “Sam, did the bad men…hurt you or Max in any way?”

She lifted her head to hold his stare with her intelligent blue gaze. “No. They gave us food, and a woman came by to care for us. But I sent her away.”

He smiled at her protective tone. “Why?”

She shrugged. “She didn’t help us, didn’t offer any comfort. Max needed to be held, loved. We needed our parents.”

He hugged her again and spoke against her hair. “The Alphas here have offered to let us stay. Would you like to live here in the den?”

Her head bobbed up and down against his chest. “Can I have my own room?”

“Of course. I’ll design it any way you want.”

“That would be great.”

The scent of jasmine grew stronger as Cameron drifted into the dining room. He lifted his gaze to her and sagged in relief. Max was peacefully sleeping with his head on Cameron’s shoulder as she held his small body to her, his arms and legs hanging limp.

Sammie stepped to the side, allowing Graham to stand. He brushed Max’s white-blond hair from his round baby face and smiled. “He needs a haircut.”

Cameron let out a soft laugh. “Maybe a little around his face.”

Graham lifted his gaze to hers and offered a shy smile. It was weird how the Fates worked. He’d never truly looked into a female’s eyes before now and wonder how soft her lips were. Would Cameron welcome his kiss? Most likely not, but he’d take the chance. For her and the sexy male he smelled all over her. Their mingled scents drove Graham insane and made him want to risk embarrassing himself just to see if they’d welcome a third into their lives.

He averted his gaze to watch Max sleep and asked, “Don’t you have to work?”

She shrugged. “I’m off rotation for a couple of days. With about two dozen total enforcers and sentries, Keegan and Luna think it’s good that each of us rest and have ‘playtime’.”

He nodded. It made sense. A Pack needed strong, clear-headed soldiers to protect its members. Graham went to take Max, but Cameron twisted to put the toddler out of his reach. “Let me,” she said quietly.

He studied her for a moment. There was a longing in her golden-brown eyes that made his heart ache. He wasn’t empathic like his stepbrother, but his shifter senses told him she’d suffered a loss. Had she lost a child?

Pushing the thought aside, he motioned her to follow him to the room where he stayed. Inside the bedroom, he felt closed in with Cameron’s scent dominating the space. Damn, how the hell was he going to sleep tonight? She would haunt his dreams for sure. Not to mention Max had her scent all over him.

She doesn’t belong to you.

Yet, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her as she turned down the covers, laid Max on the bed, and tucked him in. “He’s so precious.”