Actually, it dawns that she was there while Cat was pulling the splinters out of my hands and knees with tweezers, disinfecting them, crying – no, sobbing – as she passed supplies to Cat and I just sat there bawling while Tyson paced the room and Riley tried to calm him. Cat and Bailey both cried with me during that thing that happened.
Bailey left while Cat bandaged me up, and others came into the room and that was when Tyson insisted on holding me again. He made me stay with him while he purred and I slipped under, in and out of some weird dream-like state.
I look around, feeling panicked that I’m about to be stopped.
“Are you taking off?” she asks, a plume of smoke floating out of her mouth.
She says this so calmly. Like she won’t stop me.
“Are you gonna stop me? Or tell him?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t blame you a bit. You need a ride?”
I’m shocked. I stand there and stare, jaw slack.
“You look wrecked, Ivy. Like that totally, completely shattered all your hopes and dreams.”
I shiver and my chin trembles. I didn’t have those hopes and dreams, because I hadn’t let them surface, but maybe they had been bubbling just below the surface.
Bailey pushes off the wall and steps forward before she reaches out and squeezes my hand.
“I’m so sorry, Ivy. I’ve… I’ve never seen something like that happen. I – come on.”
She puts her cigarette out in the terra cotta flowerpot beside the door and gestures toward the driveway.
We get into a black SUV near the gate; the keys are still in the ignition.
She presses something on her cell phone, making the gate open, then hauls ass outta there.
“Where to?” she asks as we pull out of the still open gates.
“To his place, so I can look for my car keys and grab my stuff. Thank you, Bailey.” I’ve cried so much; my dry eyes burn. I stare ahead at the dark road and wonder if I’ll ever be the same person I was a week ago.
I really doubt it.
***
Bailey climbed in the open window in the bedroom and let me in through the front door. And now it’s not even five minutes later and she’s already found my keys. She found them as if she sniffed them out after she walked around my car for a minute and then she went back inside. A few minutes later, while I packed up all my stuff, she produced them.
I was astounded.
“I’m part shifter even if I can’t shift,” she says. “I have a lot of the same senses, otherwise.” She taps the side of her nose.
“Lucky me,” I say, looking at my keys, which she found inside of a box of crackers that I didn’t like. Tyson knew I didn’t like them when we had a big bed buffet spread the other day.
“I have to tell you, though, Ivy,” she says, biting her thumb nail. “He’s gonna chase you down and bring you back.”
I shake my head.
She keeps talking. “He’s fucked up from stuff. And he’s so full of hormones, girl. He’s here taking it all in and feeling all sorts of emotions and all that? Something’s definitely wrong with Mason. Mason is a good guy. The best. He and I are very close friends and he told me that he doesn’t think you’re his mate but that you’ve got something in your scent that’s fucking him up. Making him spin.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “Not that I can make sense out of any of this. A week ago I didn’t know this even existed.”
“I know. I’m sorry for what you went through. You should know that when you two make up, no one in this pack will look negatively at you. That was all a thing with two pack council alphas, and you were caught in that crossfire as Tyson’s mate. Nobody but nobody will hold it against you or judge you for that. If anything, it’ll endear you to them more. We’re very protective of the non-shifters in our pack and any woman or man who has earned her way into the pack after pairing up or mating with one of us has become loved and protected by us. A few have had bad things happen that brought them here, and we’re protective and nurturing, and – at times couples have gone into a frenzy and fucked in front of the pack before. Heat or hate sex or whatever, and… it’s usually consensual, and I know it wasn’t normal for you, but it isn’t completely out there in terms of what many of them have seen, especially shifters who joined from other less functional packs.”
“Thanks, Bailey, but it doesn’t matter. They saw that happen. They saw my naked-”
“Naked isn’t a big deal around these parts.”