Chapter 5: Future Mate, Former Husband

Dane POV

"What was that last night?" Dane Cresta confronted Jude.

If he didn't know better, he'd swear that one of his best friends and his mother-in-law had been mating. The shouts. The posturing. The disheveled way they looked.

Jude stood tall and straight, his eyes glittering wolf gold, smelling defiant. "It was nothing."

Dane leapt up from his coffee. "I don't believe that."

Jude stiffened. His honor as Alpha had been insulted, clearly. "What do you think happened last night?"

"You tell me. Alpha to Alpha."

Dane didn't tiptoe around Jude. They'd fought together, suffered together, rejoiced together, and cried together–especially after Jude brought the slain body of his mate home, along with the head of the monster that ended her life. In his human form, Although muscular, Jude was tall and elegant, like Jiro, and no shifter with half a brain would cross either man. The monster's fellows had departed Silverpaw territory and gone into hiding.

The man could answer a simple question!

"I had a nightmare. You know I've been sleepwalking."

Dane smelled something more at work. "So, you ended up in Ravyn's bed?"

Jude raked his hand through his hair, looking more roguish and disreputable. It did nothing to calm Dane's protective instincts. "Nothing improper happened."

"Oh, first it was 'nothing happened,' now it's 'nothing improper happened.' And then you have the shouting. JUDE. Ally or not, my patience is wearing thin."

Jude blurted, "I need a mate. Not Ravyn, of course. There's nothing wrong with her, but ... I need a mate. For a business arrangement. No fated mates, none of that. My son ... he couldn't handle me falling in love."

At first, Dane felt relief that it wasn't Ravyn. She had never really gotten over Daxius, and as much as Dane and his mate Lilia liked Jude, Lilia didn't want Ravyn to be hurt again.

But he felt appalled.

Take a mate out of pure convenience, and not even a fated mate? No love allowed? Dane would rather eat wolfsbane.

But he wasn't in Jude's skin. He still had his Lilia. Who was he to judge Jude, another Alpha, harshly for doing what he thought was best for his pack? His brothers might not agree–well, except for Jiro, who, even though he was completely in love with his mate, understood the pressures of ruling.

"Ravyn's going to find me a mate," Jude said. "That's what all the shouting was about ... she didn't like the idea of me going against shifter nature."

If Dane knew Ravyn, she probably planned to do more than find Jude a marriage of convenience! His beloved mother-in-law could have been a shifter. Fierce, clever, spiritual, heart-centered, loyal. She wouldn't let Jude settle for less than he deserved.

Jude continued. "What do you think? You don't approve, I gather."

Dane forced a smile as he looked at his friend's earnest face. He chose his words carefully. "I make it a policy never to criticize another Alpha's decisions unless he's invading my territory or making trouble for my family. I know your son has put you in an impossible position. No doubt you're doing what you think is in the best interests of the pack."

And he knew Jude wasn't telling him the whole truth.

"And they say Jiro is the one with the politician's tongue."

Dane grinned affectionately. "He is, and he'd tell you the same thing."

Red-haired Crimsontail Alpha Jiro darted out from cleaning up in the kitchen and plopped down beside Jude for a coffee break. "I am, sadly, a politician thanks to Dane. But I'm telling you the truth when I say we will back you, all the way, from the first time we howl together to our last hunt together. Shifter family forever."

Dane pulled him aside when Jude went to the kitchen to get some coffee. "You heard all that."

"Yes."

"Is he lying?"

Jiro's words chilled Dane. "Yes. He's lying about what happened with Ravyn last night. I don't think he did anything horrible, but he's hiding something."

* * * * *

Ravyn POV

With black-haired bright-eyed Bentley and Tau nursing at her breasts, Lilia stared at Ravyn. "What was that, last night?"

"Helping Jude through a nightmare," Ravyn said.

Lilia's eyes narrowed. "By shouting at him? Inviting him into your bedroom?"

Ravyn felt flustered. "He didn't do anything that would cause a pack war."

"MOTHER." Lilia clearly wasn't reassured.

"I caught him sleepwalking--"

"And what were you doing up so late?" Lilia asked.

Ravyn shivered, and found herself back in the nightmare. Rainbow of crystal shards scattered on the floor. Daxius in front of her, and behind her, her double that the Dark Goddess conjured solely to mock her. And mainly Daxius demanding that she talk to him. That she welcome him back into her world …

"Mother! What is it?"

Lilia's voice snapped her out of the dark vision. "I saw your father." Hastily, she added, "In a nightmare. It's what alerted me to Jude's plight, the poor man–"

Her daughter's purple eyes became like those crystal spears in her dream. "Yes, yes, but I don't care about that right now! You had a nightmare about my father and didn't tell me first thing this morning?"

"You were too busy interrogating me about Jude."

Lilia blushed. "What did Father want in the dream?"

Bracing herself for Lilia's fiery reaction, Ravyn repeated Daxius' words blaming her for the disaster, and hinting that she had him to think for her blessings now.

"You know dreams don't always make sense." Lilia's eyes softened. "I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine the night you had."

"Alpha Jude and me." She kept the blush from flooding her cheeks.

"At least he has happy memories that torture him right now but hopefully will comfort him sooner rather than later–and I'm sure you guided him along that path." Lilia seemed relieved to change the subject.

That scarlet blush felt like a storm cloud she wanted to avoid. "I encouraged him to think about the future and his good memories, yes–his son, being an adult and stubborn, is not exactly making that easy."

Lilia's lips quirked. "Has he talked to Cyran?"

"According to Jude, his son sat through one of Cyran's lectures."

"Hmmm. Not the same as a more personal encounter."

"Goddess, that's brilliant. I'll have to tell Jude–I'm already encouraging him to find a mate because he needs a Luna, by his own admission … and his Wise Woman told him to seek the help of a senior witch."

"Not just any old senior witch! I'm happy that he has you to assist–it's not the same hurt, but it's similar. Most of us can't understand."

Lilia kept her voice low so as not to disturb her sons while they nursed. Honestly, in such a passionate and boisterous family, most of the children were used to their parents' big reactions. Some of them, like Jiro's and Cyran's children, seemed more sensitive, but they quickly learned, through lots of cuddling and teaching, that their parents weren't raising their voices in anger at them.

But something more lurked beneath Lilia's subdued response. Ravyn reached out for a dozing Bentley, who had his fill of his mother's milk, and cuddled the sweet-smelling child. "But you're troubled by it nonetheless."

Lilia sighed. "I won't be a hypocrite and keep this from you, but it's news I'd rather not share."

Her instincts aroused as well as her curiosity, Ravyn encouraged, "Tell me."

Lilia hesitated. "Patch's spy network encountered a man in the Moonsilver Mountains far to the east who was asking about you. A wizard who looked, in their words, like he'd gone twenty rounds with a dragon and barely survived."

Ravyn could barely get the words out. "Did he give a name?"

"Not a first name." Lilia's eyes flashed, and she rocked the now sleeping Tau harder. "He just gave his last name. Houdini."

"Maybe a family member? He had precious few kin, but they were a wandering bunch."

Lilia gently kissed Tau's head. "No, Mother. He used your name. And he had a lucky sea serpent's tail charm that he said you gave him."

She'd laughed at Daxius for being superstitious when he'd wished for one. Yet she bought him a charm with a piece of a sea serpent's tail from the merfolk in the Harmonia Sea through her oldest friend, the gnome merchant Duffy Kruspodin.

"What color was the tail?"

"Coral."

Ravyn clutched Bentley so hard he yipped in his sleep, and she gently rocked him, rubbing his little back with a light dusting of hair on it.

"Either that or orange," Lilia added, her forehead creased with worry. "It was foggy. And the description they gave is unreliable too. I barely remember him … I'm not even sure what color the charm was. Only you would know him if you saw him."

"Tell them to find out for sure if it was coral." Ravyn reminded herself to breathe. "The merfolk wizard who made that charm said coral sea serpents are rare. If the answer is right, your father has come back. And he owes us answers."

Which meant she didn't have to think about Jude's kisses...