He stepped inside and started following the hallway. He turned a couple of corners until he came to a set of stairs leading up and a hallway leading away from the house. He started to suspect that this was the way that his father had gotten into the house. But up or out, which way had his father gone?
Knowing his father’s obsession with the earring in his ear, and the fact that the house was on fire, Jesse decided to take the stairs. He didn’t want to be caught between the walls if the house burned down to the ground. The stairs wound up in a circular fashion like a spiral staircase until they came to a landing with a door. More stairs led further up.
Jesse decided on the door. The smoke was getting thicker and breathing was becoming harder and harder. If he didn’t find his father soon, he’d have to leave him to his own chances and get out. He didn’t want to, but he had a family to protect and he couldn’t do that if he was dead.
Jesse pushed the door open, somehow unsurprised when he found himself inside his mother’s closet. This had been where his father was headed when he tried to escape with the earring. He was sure of it.
Jesse pushed open the double closet doors and barely kept from dropping to his knees when he felt something hard smack him upside the head. He grunted as pain exploded in his head. His claws extended, and he swung around to slash at his father.
Andrew was ready for him, though, and blocked his strike with one arm as he shoved his other arm forward. Jesse’s eyes widened as he felt the cold, hard blade in his father’s hand sink into his stomach.
When his father pushed him back, Jesse couldn’t keep himself from falling backward and hitting the floor. He clutched at his stomach, horrified that his father had stabbed him. He knew his father had problems but he had somehow thought there was a thread of sanity left in him. Now, he knew there wasn’t.
Andrew started going through boxes again. He was obviously searching for the little black box again. Andrew roared as he tossed a box across the room. “Where is it?” he shouted as he looked over at Jesse. “What did you do with it?”
Jesse’s heart thundered with fear as he pushed himself back against the wall as his father advanced on him. The knife in his hand gleamed in the dim light in the room, Jesse’s blood dripping off of the blade.
“Where is it?” Andrew shouted again. “I know you did something with it.”
“I don’t kn—” Jesse started coughing as smoke filled his lungs. Pain racked his body as each rough cough pulled at the muscles that had been sliced by the sharp blade. Jesse pressed his hand against the wound and tried to draw in enough breath to shift. It was the only way he could see escaping the burning house and his father.
Fur started to sprout along Jesse’s arm, but his shift wasn’t fast enough to stop Andrew from reaching Jesse and taking another strike at him with the knife. Jesse screamed as the knife came down and embedded in the arm he held up to ward his father off. His entire arm felt like it was on fire, and not from the burning house.
Andrew yanked on the knife, sending more agony shooting up Jesse’s arm. Jesse tried to yank his arm away, knife and all. When the knife slipped from Andrew’s grasp, the man screamed in rage.
Jesse couldn’t finish shifting with the knife in his arm, but he wasn’t about to sit there and let his father finish him off. The second Andrew bent over him, Jesse kicked out at him. His foot landed in the middle of Andrew’s chest.
The air rushed out of Jesse’s chest as he used all of his strength to propel his father away. Andrew crashed into a bookcase on the other side of the room and dropped to the floor. The bookshelf teetered for a moment and then crashed down on top of his father.
Jesse’s jaw dropped. The bookcase had been hiding a small shelf carved right into the wall. A large black box, much like the smaller one Jesse had found the earring in, sat on the shelf.
Jesse struggled to his feet and hurried across the room as fast as he could considering his condition and the rubble on the floor. He grabbed the box and tucked it under his good arm and then staggered toward the doorway.
Just as Jesse reached the door, Cort appeared, looking anxious and worried. Jesse nodded toward the floor. “Father,” he said before he started choking on the smoky air. Cort nodded and stepped into the room. Jesse leaned against the doorframe, covered his mouth and nose again, and tried to stay conscious. Cort was back a moment later, putting an arm around Jesse’s waist.
“Wait,” Jesse said as he tried to turn back toward the room, “Father.”
“He’s gone, Jesse,” Cort said.
“Gone?” Jesse turned toward Cort. He had killed his father? “He’s dead?”
“No, he’s gone. He’s not there.”
Jesse pushed Cort away and turned to look. Sure enough, the spot on the floor where Andrew had fallen was empty. He started back into the room only to be stopped by Cort. “We have to find him!”
“We have to go, Jesse,” Cort shouted. “The house is about to come down. If we don’t leave now, we’ll never get out of here.”
Jesse stared over the room until he saw flames starting to lick the walls. Knowing there was nothing else he could do for his father, he turned back around and allowed Cort to help him out of the room and down the stairs to the first floor. Jesse was barely walking by the time they crashed through the front door.
Nate ran over and swung Jesse up into his arms, carrying him several yards away from the house before laying him down on the ground. Sam was instantly at his side, tears streaming down his face.
“Jesse, wha—”
“I’m okay, sunshine.”
“You have a knife in your arm, Jesse,” Sam snapped. “How is that okay?”
Jesse grimaced as he lifted his arm and looked at the bloodied blade in his arm. “This old thing?” he whispered right before his eyes rolled back into his head and everything faded away, Sam’s screams echoing in his ears.
Sam turned away from the window the moment he heard Jesse moan. He hurried across the room as fast as his increased bulk would allow and climbed up onto the high bed where Jesse had been sleeping for the last two days.
“Jesse?”
Jesse’s eyelids flickered and started to slowly rise until Sam could see smoky gray eyes staring back at him. “Sam?”
“Hi, how are you feeling?” Sam’s eyes darted to the bandages wrapped around Jesse’s arm and stomach. He hated them. They reminded him of the worst ten minutes in his life. It had been agonizing standing outside the house while it burned to the ground with Jesse trapped inside. He never wanted to go through something like that again.
“Where are we?”
“My father’s court.” When Jesse’s eyes widened, Sam shrugged. “The ranch house and all of the outbuildings burnt to the ground. I didn’t know where else to take you. At least here they know you’re Lycan and I don’t have to worry about someone trying to experiment on you.”
“Are you and the baby okay?” Jesse asked as his eyes strayed to Sam’s stomach.
Sam smirked. “We’re fine. You, not so much.”
Jesse tried to push himself up into a sitting position but winced when he put pressure on his arm. Sam rolled his eyes and stood to help pull Jesse up, stacking pillows behind his back before sitting down on the bed again.
“You need to not do that until you heal.”
“Why didn’t I heal?”
“Because they had to take the knife out of your arm and you couldn’t shift while you were unconscious.”
“Knife?” Jesse whispered.
Sam knew the moment Jesse’s memories returned. All of the blood drained from his face. “Here’s what I know. First off, we’re all fine. Everyone got out safely, and the others are just down the hall.”
“And my father?”
Sam shook his head. “We don’t know. We never saw him.”
“Did he—”
“Cort searched the rubble, but there was no sign of him. Either he escaped, or he died in the fire.” Sam drew in a deep breath, afraid of how Jesse would react to his news. “Cort believes he was able to escape the house before it burned up.”
“I’m not sure if I’m glad about that or not.”
“Well, that’s one of the other reasons we are here. Cort didn’t think it was safe for us to stay at the ranch. He thinks your father set the fire that burned the house down, and if he was willing to go to that extreme to get what he wanted, there’s no telling what he might do. Until you woke up, Cort felt it would be safer for us to be somewhere secure.”
“No, no, that’s a good idea. Your safety comes before anything else.” Jesse’s eyes flickered back up to meet Sam’s. “How does your father feel about us being here?”
“Surprisingly well, actually.” Sam grinned as he remembered how welcoming his father had been when they popped up in his throne room. The man hadn’t even blinked an eye at their disheveled appearance, just ordered rooms prepared for them all. “He invited us to stay.”
“Stay?”
“He said we could have our own wing here and all of the pack members were welcome to stay.”
Jesse blew out a deep breath. “Wow, your mother really must have been working on him.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah, that was kind of what I was thinking. It doesn’t hurt that I’m the crown prince of the Light Court and you’re the crown prince of the Dark Court.” Sam rubbed his belly as he stared down at the bump. “And, according to my father, this is the heir to both thrones. So, I guess that earns us a little leeway.”
“Sam, I’m a rancher.” Jesse frowned, glancing away as if trying to form his thoughts into words. “It’s what I’m good at. I’m not prince material.”
“And you think I am?” Sam snorted. “I’m not even a rancher, Jesse.”
“Maybe not but you make a great rancher’s mate.”
Sam started to lean forward so he could curl into Jesse’s side, but his eyes fell on the bandages wrapped around Jesse’s waist and arm. He hated the sight of them. He gestured to them with his hand.
“Do you think you could shift so we can get rid of those bandages?”
“You want me to shift?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Jesse, we both know you need to shift to heal, so just do it already.”
Sam sat back on the edge of the bed and watched Jesse shift. He was kind of awed as he watched his muscles and bones stretch and reshape themselves until a beautiful gray wolf lay before him. Sam smiled and leaned forward, sinking his fingers into Jesse’s soft fur. Having a huge four-legged wolf in his bed was a bit different than the third form that Jesse had taken before, the two-legged, furry one.
“This is a bit different than your other form, isn’t it?”
“This is my wolf, Sam, not my beast.”
Sam’s jaw dropped. “Did you just speak to me?”
“I have the ability to talk to you in all my forms. You are my mate.”
Sam was astounded. “Can you talk to anyone else like this?”
“I can talk to the others in our pack in my different forms, but only you are able to talk back to me clearly. The rest of the pack just send me impressions, images. They can’t actually speak to me. That’s reserved for mates.”
“Just me?” For some reason, that thought thrilled Sam. “I think I like that.”
Sam interpreted the soft bark that came from Jesse as laughter, if a wolf could laugh. He could feel his own laughter joining in. After everything he had been through, Jesse’s Lycan was more of a protection than something to fear.
“Okay, shift back. I want skin.”
Sam grinned as Jesse shifted back and every inch of his gloriously naked body was put on display for his hungry eyes. He scooted up the bed and snuggled into the arms Jesse held out to him. He shivered a little as he stroked his hand down Jesse’s smooth chest.
“So, what do you want to do?” Sam asked. “We can stay here, or we can try and go back and rebuild the ranch.”
“I need to go back and see what’s left of the ranch, see if there is anything left to build on,” Jesse replied. Sam could hear the sadness in his voice and knew that the loss of the ranch was hard on him. “But whatever happens, I think we need to stay here until after the baby is born, however long that will be.”
Sam chuckled. “About four more weeks according to my father.”
Jesse lifted his head and stared down at Sam. “What did he say?”
“Basically, you need to learn a lot more about being Lycan.”
Jesse frowned. “This is a Lycan thing?”
“It’s an omega thing.”
“Huh.” Jesse’s head fell back down to the pillow. “I thought it was a Fey thing.”
“Nope, it’s all Lycan.” Sam grinned. “According to my father, when your Lycan genetics mixed with mine, it kicked my recessive omega gene into action, and that led me to getting knocked up by a Lycan.”
“Can Jake get knocked up?”
“Yep.” Sam bubbled with laughter. “And he’s pissed about it, too.”
“But, if you’re not Lycan, then how did you end up an omega?”
“No one knows.” Sam shrugged. “Father says fate decides who is omega and who is not just like it decides who is going to be an alpha and who is not. It’s not something someone chooses. It’s something they are born with.”
“I never knew anything about any of this.”
“I know, which is why my father has said you can use his very extensive library to research anything about Lycan that you want. He doesn’t know everything, but his records go back several hundred years. It holds a lot of information about Lycan, Fey, and humans. And if you can’t find what you need there, he can introduce you to some Lycans.”