Shea: The Last Hope (2 page)

“Really, I’ll have to tell my mom about it. There seems to quite a lot of new businesses opening up.”

“That’s right; it's been a few weeks since the big showdown with the rogues, and now that the ladies aren’t being confined to the B&B, they’re stretching their wings. Kira, her weasel friend she calls Q; Dalton and Shawn are going to build a gaming facility in the old feed store. Multi-user and single-user, as well as some laser tag or other more physical games, so we don’t all turn in to couch potatoes.” Sid waved to a store down the street with a grin.

“Sounds like fun, I take it, they've hired your firm to complete the renovations?”

“Yes, it looks like work will continue through the summer. Argus is moving his entire pride here so there will be more homes to build as well. Some of them are already nearby and had homes built with their own Pride members." Sid smirked. "Of course, my brothers have been over to try to offer their services after they are done in the compound."

“Well, I better be getting into the office; it doesn’t look good if the boss is late.” They shook hands, and Lev continued on down the street towards the civic building. He paused and called back to Sid, who was about ready to get into his car. "Griff was one of the ones who came from Argus's Pride right?"

"Yeah, great guy, and awesome jeweler, I can't wait to see what he is doing for the rings we ordered." Sid looked at him closer. "Has there been trouble?"

"No, just trying to get to know the new shifters in town.” Lev said hoping he was hiding his interest in the man. He was batting a thousand today, letting his anger show and then asking about Griff. "Talk to you later."

Sid nodded and got into his truck and pulled out. Lev saw one of the wolves he grew up with standing in front of the grocery staring at him intently. Shit, he knew that sooner or later one of those wolves would see him.

I need to get a better handle on my childhood anger issues;
he thought, as he walked away. Instead, he started thinking about Griff. Three weeks ago, he’d come across a speeding car on his way home. The car carried two young ladies and an older woman in need of medical care. A few days later, the police dispatcher, Sandy, had disappeared, and he’d been asked to take over as Chief of Police for Milliken.

After meeting Griff in front of his store that day, it had been all he could think about when he drove by the place. It had been lust at first sight for him, and he got the impression that Griff wasn’t indifferent.

In the two weeks since then, they’d seen each other regularly for lunch or coffee, and it looked like the interest was both ways. And after that, there were the gifts, little pewter animal shapes. He didn’t know about Griff, but he himself was ready to get a little more physical in their relationship. Just as he reached the civic building, his cell phone went off.

“Hello?”

“Hey there Chief, how are you doing on this fine spring morning?”

“I’m doing a lot better now that I’ve heard your voice. How are things in your world?”

Lev smiled as he spoke.

“Busy, very busy, after I made those special wedding bands for Argus, it seems my jewelry is suddenly in greater demand. I’ve got enough custom orders to keep me occupied for three months, only they all want their rings in time for the big mass wedding,” he said with a laugh.

“Does this mean we’re no longer on for lunch?”

“No, I’m not missing lunch with you for anything. In fact, I wanted to ask if you would like to come to dinner tonight too, lunch might be quick. You will come, won’t you?”

“I would love to come,” Lev said and they both started chuckling. By this time, he’d reached his office and sat down at his desk.

“We will talk at lunch; I just wanted to make sure you did not make any other plans?”

Griff asked when he’d stopped chuckling.

“That sounds great and no, I will not make any other plans. And even if I had, for you, I’d break them.” Just then, there was a knock on his door. “Sorry, duty calls. I'll see you at lunch.”

“Okay, bye,” and Griff closed his cell and went to finish opening his storefront. He and his mate, or at least one of them, we're going to have dinner, a long talk, and then hopefully some loving.

***

Quin stood at the head of the table and looked around at his friends. It had been shitty few weeks, and he was more than ready to have some happy news. He held up his hand and said, "Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag so to speak."

The women laughed and Cami stood up and said, “Ladies, I apologize for having to ask Adele to conceal your pregnancies, Lacy and Trinity; we are going to be having a huge party for you. I guess you are all wondering what the hell is going on?"

Everyone nodded and then Blaine stood up and said, "My fault. The day we returned from rescuing Kira, we had a vision. At first, I wasn’t really sure what it meant. It was about when I was supposed to have my mates claim me. I explained that to you know already. But there is more to it. We had to figure the whole thing out before we told you anything because of the nature of the vision. When Lacy returned with Shawn and Sevi, I understood it a little more because the vision involved several people we had not found yet."

Kira smiled and said, "Adele helped us when we explained to her after Lacy announced her pregnancy to us."

"So what
is
the big secret?” Skye asked and looked at the women who were in the room.

She felt a little left out as she looked around the room. Many of the women seemed to know what was going on. There were only a few that seemed confused and had the same look on their faces that she had.

Jo spoke up. "I can feel all of your degrees of pissed-off feelings. I agree; you should feel like that, but when Blaine explains, maybe you will understand."

Blaine nodded and faced the group of people he had become to think of as family.

Hiding things for even one of them had been hard. When each of the Chosen entered the Pack, they pledged their loyalty. He would be pissed too. He cleared his throat and said, "I had a vision; I saw Kira pregnant before we finished claiming her, and two other women pregnant. Not surprising, but the next part is. You were all giving birth with Roarke present. He was joyful that he had the fated Seer, a forthcoming Witch shifter, and a Dragon shifter. Roarke was also happy about the fact his mate, Jordan, was finally going to be pregnant with his child soon."

The women gasped, and each reached for their stomachs. Kira stood and said, “I have hidden the fact that I am pregnant because, technically, it should not have been possible to reproduce until the full bond was made. We are still unsure what it means, Cloe has done some tests; Dalton and Blaine are the fathers of my twins. We aren’t sure how it happened. They will be the first New Council hybrids born. Tests are still being made, and we have had several more visions about what it could mean. Before we reveal those visions, we have to get more pieces to reveal the whole. Right now, they are too fragmented to help and only cause us frustration."

Dalton stood. "The last of the Chosen to be found is the child born to be the liaison with our human neighbors on this planet. This is an important job, probably more significant than many of us could possibly imagine. That person is why we have hidden this. In our vision, until we find the last of the chosen, our children are not bound to the Pack. Yes, they were born into the Pack, which makes them a member. But the Prophecy said that we would find all the Chosen, and we must have a child before the first year of mating, until then our seats on the Council are not fully claimed. Jordan and her mates have searched and searched the archives for the original message from the Seer. I really wish we could have talked to her, but as many of you know, she passed away before we could speak. What we have discovered is that until the final Chosen has had their child, we have still not fulfilled the first part of the prophecy. We’ve decided that now that Braden is dead it’s okay to reveal the pregnancies."

Blaine lowered his head. He felt such guilt about not saving Surya when she needed him. All this time they thought she was back in Europe with the Old Council Pack, but she had been held by Braden in Denver in the warehouse. Obviously, she had not been treated well from the looks of her when she arrived. Being such an old wolf, she had not been able to shift and cure herself when the time came. Braden made sure of that by feeding her small amounts of silver in her food. He felt like he let the Pack down, but at the time, he hadn’t known it would be so important that he talked to her. His mates had tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault, as did the Alphas, but he still felt guilty.

He lifted his head and looked around the room and grimaced, "I know that I am to blame for this, had I taken the time to really speak to her, things would have been so clear. Had I actually sought her out, instead of arrogantly trying to figure things out, we would have known something was wrong."

Dalton snarled. "Blaine, never question the way things are supposed to be; the spirits took her when it was time and not before. She knew she would die when we completed our claiming. She told us what she believed we needed to know and no more. She was happy to be restored to her family at the end. We were destined to go on this quest to fulfill the prophecy for our people and for the humans. Whatever is in store for us, never doubt that we are in this together, each of us holds responsibility for the way things have turned out. Blaming yourself will not help matters."

"So this means what?” Bama said and sat forward to look around the room. "I mean, security is already so tight around here; a gnat could not possibly get in. We have people searching for the last of the Chosen, but no leads have come from it."

Jaden and Devon laughed, "Well, thanks to the Aeries and Parliaments that have taken to patrol the skies, security has been strengthened with keen eyes both day and night.

And don't forget, we are moving back into our homes; they're all complete except for a few, and so we will be starting the moving in process tomorrow," Jaden said and looked around the room. "Not that I don't love you all, but living with you sucks. So we are not doing anything, we are doing what we can right now. We have to make sure that our jobs are being fulfilled until we find the last Chosen." Jaden stopped, and Quin began to speak again.

"Back to the matter at hand, as you know, Roarke escaped the night, we attacked the Rogue compound. In fact, we believe he moved many of the Rogues before we even arrived. We barely met with resistance. And besides, we have not been able to get much out of the ones who were left, they were low level wolves and shifters," Quin said. "Until we are complete, we are vulnerable. The prophecy may say that we will reveal ourselves to the humans, but we can't do that on a whim, chaos would ensue. We have to have the backing of the magical community; to get that we have to be united and show them that we are a Council."

The group nodded; they knew that night, even though they lost Oliver in the fight, that they had been lucky. The Rogues had higher numbers than they had seen. Right now, they were gathering together more shifters to make sure, if and when they were attacked again, that they would be ready.

"The major point I am trying to make is that we had to hide the fact the women were pregnant. I am sorry for all the mess that we have created, but it was for the good of the Council," Blaine said and then Skye spoke up again.

"Well I don’t consider it a mess. You made a decision to protect us. I just feel that you should have trusted us with the truth. We all know how to keep a secret when lives are at stake. We are all the council.” And then she grew a little embarrassed for speaking up to Quin “So, Um, is the danger passed then?" Argus seeing his mates blush pulled her onto his lap.

"No," Blaine said and shook his head. "Jordan has found something though."

Jordan smiled at the group; she looked so much better after the children had healed her.

Cassandra and Christen were like mini miracle workers. Jo refused to let knowledge of their powers leak out. Also, each of the other children showed signs of having powers too. They had yet to figure them all out. Hope seemed to be their center or their ringleader depending on how you looked at it. Cami had been proud of that, until she refused to behave earlier in the day. Now it seemed their little princess had a stubborn streak.

"Well, Oliver left all the papers from the Old Council and the Seer, plus with what Trinity and Spencer brought, we think we have pieced together the entire vision the Seer had back then. We’re also going through the files taken from the rogue base; it seems Braden made notes on visions Surya had. However, we have to be careful with those, as Surya knew Braden was her enemy; she may not have given him true knowledge of what she saw during her captivity. And there are large gaps throughout the files, so we’re concerned that Roarke may have managed to take some important papers away with him.

Surya’s prophetic vision said there would be children born on the first of the month in certain years; they would be the only special shifter or magical child born on those twelve days. That is how we would know we were Chosen ones. Also, Kira has been given the ability to see the Auras of the Chosen. It was written that the Chosen who received the power of sight would have a battle. If Blaine’s mates claimed him, too soon, the future would change and the prophecy would not come to pass. Kira had to become pregnant without the claiming in place because her children were from such a powerful magical background. The children would never be able to handle the magic, of a Sidhe, a wolf and a bear/Fae multiplied by the power surge of a claiming. It would have corrupted them or driven them insane. By not claiming her, the children will receive separate powers. Kira’s Fae half allowed her to become pregnant with her mates without the claiming being complete.” She gave Kira a wink, “that’s how you got knocked up honey.”

Then she went on to say, “Now for the rest of the prophecy it says that we must accept our places as the New Council, and find our mate, and then we have to have a child. We knew that, the rest of the writing is what we didn't know, it says when we fulfill the first part of the prophecy, then there will be a time of unsettledness, trials, and preparation.