The Lost Lycan Princes: A Journey Home

Shadow

Jameson POV

I could think of no better way to spend an afternoon than to spend it getting to know my beautiful mate better. If anyone had told me six months ago that I’d be sharing a woman with my brother and be perfectly fine with it, I’d have told them they were crazy. Then again, if anyone had told me six months ago that I wasn’t a human, I’d have driven them to the loony bin myself.

I have to admit, I actually liked Chrissy’s brothers. They had seemed suspicious of us at first, and honestly, I couldn’t blame them. If someone had shown up out of the blue claiming that Sarah was his and he would be taking her with him, I’d have had a lot of questions and doubts too.

As Chrissy was regaling us with stories of her growing up years with her brothers, I could definitely see that she was not only beautiful, she was funny and very intelligent as well. As far as I could see, she was the total package.

I had been nervous enough about meeting her brothers. But when she mentioned that she wanted us to meet her parents that night, I felt a bout of nerves hit me that put the last bout to shame. As important as it was that her brothers approve of us, it was so much more important that her parents did. And I was also a little nervous about meeting the alpha that she kept talking about. From the way that she talked about him, I knew that he meant a lot to her and that his opinion would also weigh in on whether or not she chose to accept the bond.

“I can’t wait for you guys to meet Shadow,” she told us. “He’s not like any other alpha I’ve ever met. I’ve met several when they’ve come to visit for one reason or another, and most of them have been hotheaded and seem to think that humans are inferior to them. But not Shadow. He’s very easygoing, and he puts everyone else before himself. Ever since he saved me in the woods that day, he’s become like an uncle to me, and to my brothers. I really think you guys will like him, and I’m hoping that he likes you.”

“Just out of curiosity, I’ve noticed that you, Daya, and your brothers just refer to him by his name,” I commented. “Most of the time, I’ve heard alphas referred to as Alpha Whatever their name is. Why doesn’t everyone call him Alpha Shadow?”

She laughed. “Shadow says that the only people that have to refer to him as Alpha are other alphas and people he doesn’t like. And there’s very few people that he doesn’t like.”

I nodded. “Understandable. He does sound like a good man, and a great leader. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Jonathan checked the time on his phone. “Speaking of that, it’s 3:15. We should probably get ready to head towards the packhouse. I’m assuming that’s where we’re meeting him, right?”

Chrissy nodded. “He told Daya he’ll meet us in his office. It’s huge, so there will be plenty of room for us all to sit.”

“Awesome,” Jonathan replied. “How long does it take to get there?”

“About twenty minutes, unless you drive like Daya,” she replied with a chuckle. “She can get there in about fifteen.”

We both laughed.

“Well, since I don’t plan to drive like a bat out of h**l, and we need to get gas in the SUV, we should probably leave,” I told them. “You guys ready?”

They were, so we all grabbed our stuff and headed out. Chrissy sat up front with me, since she would be giving me directions. There was a gas station just down the street, so I stopped there to fill up. Then I followed Chrissy’s directions, eventually finding myself on a dirt road that led into the forest. Eventually, we came to a small guard shack, with a beam beside it blocking the road. As we came to a stop, a tall werewolf with short black hair and blue eyes stepped out of the shack.

Chrissy leaned down to wave at him. “Hey, Jack! We have a meeting with Shadow in a few minutes.”

He leaned down and peered into the window, smiling when he realized who was talking to him. “Oh, hey, Chris! Yeah, Shadow told me you’d be coming by today. Go ahead. You know the way.”

He pushed a button inside the shack, lifting the beam so we could get through. He waved us through, and Chrissy waved at him as we pulled away.

“Sorry, I should have introduced you guys,” she apologized. “I didn’t think about it.”

I waved it off. “It’s fine. We don’t expect you to introduce us to everyone we come across.”

“If he’s still there when we leave, I’ll introduce you,” she told us. “Anyway, that’s Jack. We used to play together sometimes when we were growing up. He found his mate, Natalie a few months ago, and they’re already expecting their first baby.”

I secretly breathed a sigh of relief when she said that he had a mate. For a minute there I wondered if he looked at Chrissy as more than a friend. The fact that he had a mate was reassuring to me.

Chrissy directed me down a winding path until we finally came to a large three story house, with a parking area off to the side. The house was made to look like a large log cabin. There were a few other smaller buildings scattered around it that I assumed were storage buildings and whatnot.

I pulled into the parking area, and Chrissy pointed to the area reserved for visitors. After parking the SUV, we all climbed out, with Jonathan and I taking in the view around us. Chrissy, on the other hand, was practically dancing with excitement. She grabbed each of us by the hand and started dragging us toward the front door. I could feel the sparks shooting up my arm from the contact, and I’m sure Jonathan felt it too.

“Come on, slowpokes!” she exclaimed, practically running to the door. “I haven’t been here in awhile, and I’m ready to see everybody and introduce you guys.”

The front door opened right about then, and a muscular Native American man with long, flowing black hair stepped out. He had an aura about him that immediately told me he was an alpha. He threw his arms open, and Chrissy dropped our hands and ran into his arms.

“There’s my girl!” he said, swinging her around in a circle before setting her back on her feet. “Where have you been?”

She laughed. “Working, as always, Shadow,” she told him. Then she turned back and held her hands out to us, beckoning us to come forward. “And I’m sure Daya already told you, I apparently have not one but two mates, and I’ve found them. Or, should I say, they’ve found me. Shadow, I would like for you to meet Jameson and Jonathan Canton. Jameson, Jonathan, I’d like for you to meet Shadow Kiim, Alpha of the Shawanoe Pack.”

She pronounced his last name like it rhymed with “seem.”

We walked up to them with our hands held out to shake his. He shook Jonathan’s hand first, then mine. Despite the smile on his face, I could sense that he was sizing us up, much as Chrissy’s brothers had done. I was glad to know that she had so many people in her life that loved her and were protective of her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Alpha Shadow,” Jonathan told him. I knew why he’d addressed him as Alpha. Even though Chrissy had told us that he preferred not to be addressed by his title, it was a matter of respect to address him that way until he himself told us not to.

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Alpha,” I echoed.

He smiled at us. “It’s nice to meet you boys, too. And, it’s just Shadow. ‘Alpha’ is only for other alphas and people I don’t like, and so far, since Chrissy likes you, I like you.”

We laughed, and he beckoned all of us to follow him inside.

“Nadie, my mate, has been out running errands today but she’ll be here in a few minutes,” he told us, leading us through a sitting room with a couple couches and chairs and a huge TV and up a set of stairs. When we reached the second floor, he turned right and opened the first door we came to. Inside was one of the roomiest offices I’d ever seen. There was an oak desk on the far side of the room with typical office type stuff on it – computer, phone, etc. On this side of the room was two couches, a loveseat, 3 big armchairs, and a couple of leather office chairs like the one behind the desk. Shadow settled himself behind the desk, while the three of us all sat together on one of the couches.

“So, Daya tells me you boys didn’t even know you were Lycans until recently,” Shadow began. “How did that come about?”

Chrissy, sitting between the two of us, seemed to instinctively sense what we were thinking. “You can trust him,” she said quietly, but I knew that with werewolf hearing, Shadow could hear her. “He won’t tell a soul until you tell him it’s OK.”

Shadow looked at us curiously, but stayed silent.

I glanced over at Jonathan. ‘It seems that a lot of people are joining the ‘need to know’ list,’ I told him over mind link. ‘What do you think? Do we tell him?’

‘Our mate says we can trust him, and Damien isn’t picking up any bad vibes from him,’ he replied. ‘I think it’s fine.’

Donovan assured me that he wasn’t getting any bad vibes either, so I took a deep breath and began our story, starting with us being kidnapped at the age of three.

Shadow listened in silence while I talked, with Jonathan occasionally breaking in to add a detail or two I left out. When we were done talking, Shadow was quiet for a few more moments, seeming to soak in everything we’d told him. Finally, he spoke in a tone that told me he was truly trying to understand it all. “So your human family had no idea that you were anything more than human boys?” he asked.

We shook our heads. “No,” Jonathan replied. “Only our dad had any idea that werewolves or Lycans even existed, and he had never told our mom. If he did suspect anything, he kept it to himself.”

“And they didn’t see anything about two missing toddlers? Even though it was more heavily reported in the supernatural media, the human media did cover it as well,” he told us. “They may not know that the DeLyons aren’t human, but they do believe that they are a rich, prominent family in the state of Maine, so I remember that it was covered on human news channels as well.”

I was a little surprised to hear that. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that the normal news casts might have mentioned our kidnapping. And from the look on Jonathan’s face, I’m assuming that it didn’t occur to him either. But I could easily understand why our parents wouldn’t have seen those reports.

“Our parents don’t watch the news much,” I explained. “Mom says that all it is is bad news most of the time and it just depresses her, so they choose not to watch it. Dad does occasionally read the paper, but I would guess that adjusting to having two more toddlers in the house didn’t leave him much time to do that.”

Shadow nodded, seeming to understand that reasoning. “But still, it seems like a neighbor would have recognized you, or someone at a store, something. No one figured it out?”

I shook my head. “No, no one ever did, to my knowledge. Then again, that was before social media was as popular as it is now, and California is about as far as you can get from Maine and still be in the mainland United States. So I guess no one thought those two little boys in California could be missing from Maine.”

He nodded again. “I suppose the Moon Goddess wanted you to be there at that point in time, so she took an act of evil and brought something good out of it. After all, if you hadn’t been taken, you would’ve likely never gotten to know the human world in the way that you do, which I’m sure will be invaluable when you take the throne. And you may have not met our Chrissy so soon, although I have no doubt that you would’ve eventually met. The Moon Goddess has a way of bringing fated mates together, sometimes in the most unlikely of circumstances.”

Just then, the door opened, and a pretty, petite Native American woman came in, her face already covered with a beautiful smile. Like Shadow, she had long, black hair that flowed all the way down to her waist, and her rich brown eyes shown with happiness when she spotted Chrissy. Chrissy jumped up and ran to hug her, and even though she was a full five inches shorter than Chrissy, she still managed to pull Chrissy’s face down to hers and give her a resounding kiss on each cheek.

“Oh, my baby girl, there you are!” she exclaimed when she’d pulled back from the hug. Then, her face changing into a playful scowl, she jabbed a finger into Chrissy’s stomach. “Don’t you ever stay away that long again, you hear me? I need your help keeping these wolves in line around here!”

Chrissy laughed. “Yes, ma’am!” Then she turned back towards us and pulled the woman over in our direction. “Nadie, I don’t know if Shadow or Daya told you, but it turns out that, even though I’m human, I do have a mate after all. Two of them, actually. I’d like you to meet my mates, Jameson and Jonathan Canton. Jameson, Jonathan, I’d like you to meet Nadie Kiim, Shadow’s mate and my second mom.”

We stood up to shake hands with her, and immediately, I felt like a giant standing next to her. We were both well over a foot taller than she was. But when we reached out to shake hands, she shook her head. “No, no, no. If you’re mated to our Chrissy, you’re family. And around here, family gets hugs, not handshakes.” She threw her arms open, and, with a laugh, we both bent over to envelope her into a group hug.

When we stood up, I saw Shadow standing beside his desk, grinning at her. He practically had hearts dancing in his eyes. They had been together for about 17 years, from Chrissy had told us, and he was obviously still besotted with her. “So your mate doesn’t even get a greeting?” he teased her.

“Oh, you,” she chided him, walking over to him and into his open arms. “You know I love you, but it isn’t every day our girl brings her mates to meet us!”

He laughed. “Fair enough,” he told her. “I’ll let you slide on this one.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but I could see the amusement and the love shining out of her eyes at the same time. It seemed that she was still besotted with him too. I know we had just met them, but a blind person could’ve easily seen the love between the two of them.

The three of us settled ourselves back down on the couch, and Nadie and Shadow both came over and sat down on another couch beside us.

Nadie asked us what our story was, and even though we’d just gone through it for Shadow, we retold it. Honestly, it didn’t bother me. It showed me that they were interested in knowing about the men that Chrissy was mated to. It showed me that they truly cared about her, and that made them important to me.

“I can only imagine how both of your mothers must have felt,” Nadie responded when we were done. “We have three kids, and I couldn’t imagine any of them being taken and not being able to find them. And I can’t imagine how your adoptive mother must have felt, finding out that the boys she truly thought she had legally adopted were actually stolen from their biological parents.”

Jonathan nodded. “It’s a mess, for sure,” he replied. “But thankfully, we’re in the process of getting it all straightened out now. Now, we just need to make sure that Arthur and whoever may have helped him are brought to justice.”

Shadow nodded, a grave expression on his face. “Yes, they definitely do need to be caught. If they could do this to their king and queen, who knows how many other families they may have already destroyed. There have been pups – werewolf and Lycan – stolen here and there over the years, and some of us have long suspected that there may be some sort of child trafficking ring. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that Arthur is involved in something like that. I’ve met him a couple of times, and he is not the type of person that I care to spend any amount of time around.”

I was a little surprised to hear that. It had honestly not occurred to me that there could have been other kidnappings involved. I figured it was just Jonathan and me, because we stood in the way of Arthur usurping the throne from Sebastien. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Now I was more determined than ever to find out who exactly was helping Arthur.

“Does Sebastien know about this?” I asked.

Shadow nodded. “He and Havannah have been working a long time to try and find this ring and break it up, but Arthur has always managed to stay one step ahead. Maybe, just maybe, you boys being found and returning home will be the missing piece that they’ve needed to find out who exactly is involved.”

Jonathan raised a brow. “What makes you say that?”

Shadow smiled. “Because it will make them nervous, and when people are nervous, they make mistakes. All we need is for one of them to slip up, and we should be able to get them all.”

A thought occurred to me suddenly, and I decided to ask Shadow about it. “Do you know, or have you heard anything about a cousin of Havannah’s named Lyle Jenkins?”

“Yes, I’ve met Lyle a time or two, before the king and queen cut off contact with him,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he’s currently sitting in a jail cell at the Whispering Pines Pack in Colorado, for leading a rogue attack on them in an effort to take Jonathan and I with him,” I replied. “Do you think he could be involved?”

He looked thoughtful. “Well, if memory serves, Lyle was likely not old enough to have been a part of your kidnapping, but I suppose there could be a chance that he’s been involved in others. I’ll mention it to Sebastien when I talk to him next.” He paused for a second. “Wait, do you happen to know about how old Lyle is now?”

Jonathan nodded. “I happened to see it on his intake papers when we visited the cells one time. He’s 28.”

“So that would’ve made him about 13 when you boys were kidnapped. And the two of you would have known and trusted him, since he spent some time at the castle,” Shadow mused. “Hmmm. I wonder if there’s a chance he could’ve been involved after all. Maybe I should give Alpha Terrance a call, see if he can get some information out of good old Lyle.”

The thought that Arthur might have used another child to sneak us out of the castle was despicable to me, but from what I’d heard of him, I wouldn’t put it past him. It looked like our case had just gotten a lot more interesting.