The Pixie's Warrior Wolf (Completed)

Surrounded by Family

Henry woke up in the morning with a headache.

Nostradamus had calmed him down, but it was Katherine rushing into his arms that grounded him. Holding him tight as his head fell into the crook of her neck, she thanked their friend before standing there holding him still. He didn’t know how or when he fell asleep.

Just knew if he felt her move an inch away, he didn’t like it and it had been a restless sleep. Now he felt raw and tired still as he blinked sitting up in his bed. Katherine still asleep, Henry sighed as she immediately held his hand even as she slept. She looked tired too and he felt awful he’d kept her up with his anxiety.

Feeling crummy as he went into the shower, Henry finally did something he’d avoided for so long. Staring in the mirror and not recognizing the man staring back.

Younger than what he could connect too, his long black hair with it’s braids and beads were still him, but the five o clock shadow was new.

Eyes glowing as the small scar from his childhood made him smile, he looked at the others. From his training and early years before he’d conquered his beast, it had all happened to a human child. Scarring only occurring now if he was extensively hurt, Henry only had one since being an adult.

The huge ass machete blade dipped in a pure wolfsbane strand. It had gone across his stomach in a clean slice and it should have killed him.

Only…

“This is gonna suck.” The man had come out of the flurry that appeared to be burying the village.

He put the weird patchy grass clumps on Henry’s stomach making the wolf want to howl and roar. But the man’s daunting hollow eyes terrified him silent as the creepy voice warned, “Silence. If they find us, you’re on your own.”

So, he’d endured his pain in silence and excruciating agony as the cure for the poison seeped into his bloodstream. Allowing him to shift and run…escape. Survive.

Shuddering, feeling the chill on his skin as if he was still laying on the ice, Henry started to run into his bed and be warmed by his mate. Only she wasn’t in their bed anymore. Rushing downstairs before he knew it, Henry’s senses started to go berserk. But before he could lose it, Katherine came in from out front and breezily greeted, “Good morning handsome.” She kissed him and then handed him the coffee she carried, “Sorry I stepped out to establish my own wards. I did the same at my mama and daddy’s house. So…no more unauthorized visitors.”

Henry grinned a little knowing she’d done that for him and kissed her again. Katherine nodded into the kitchen, “Wanna smoke?”

Nodding, Henry watched as she rolled a joint expertly and he accepted it as she started the dishes making him sigh as he asked, “You’re not going to ask?” Seeing him blowing smoke rings, Katherine knew the tricks were learned on the cold air for the Alaskan wolf.

Grinning imagining him there, Katherine was devastated that what peace he had was ripped from him. Cruelly.

“I know things haven’t been easy Henry. This new wave of assholes coming to cause this pain have been more demented and cruel. They took your home, your baby sister. People you knew and love.” Katherine’s stomach swooped, “I have lost people, but not like that. I know this isn’t an overnight wound that will heal.” She held a hand over his heart, “But I am with you through every night you feel the pain. And I will bear it with you…because if no one else has been there for me since I’ve met them. It’s you Henry Foy. You’re that person for me…”

And she’d be that person for him. An anchor in their hard times and keep him docked when it felt like a storm was coming in.

As he tried not to cry at how much she moved him, Henry was sure he would have done something obscene to her if the back door hadn’t opened. “Oh geez, now he’s crying.” Laughing as he looked up at Nostradamus, Cerberus playing with Zeus already, Henry grinned as Camille, Elijah, Dorian, Evan, and Maxine started setting up on the back deck.

“Well wipe ya snot man, we got grits and they always make things better.” Evan promised before explaining, “And better yet we have Mama Vanessa’s shrimp, cheese, and other goodness grits. And if they don’t make you feel better, nothing will.” Katherine giggled as she teased, “Why that’s quite a praise. I might need to put out my buffalo sliders and see if I can’t get some street cred going.”

Encouraging this food off, Nostradamus promised, “I don’t know how that woman does it, but I want the recipe before I die. But she’s so stingy.” Elijah hearing that yelled back, “Ohhhhh I’m going to tell my mama and you’re gonna get in trouble. I’ll bet it’ll be a few months before she cooks for you again.”

Frowning as he looked horrified at the idea of it and went to bribe Elijah into silence, made Henry laugh. Watching them joke about Vanessa Smoak beating Nostradamus with her rolling pin, Katherine was watching Maxine and Evan cooed at a five-month-old Aiden, the violet eyes were bright with delight as Aiden held the red head’s face. Obsessed with her like she was with him, both babbled away.

Watching Evan staring at the two in love, Henry knew the feeling as Katherine asked unsure, “Is this okay?” Grinning as he was given a mimosa by Dorian, Henry promised, “It’s perfect.”

So was dinner later that night with Kaiser, Ina, and Jack.

Close to her due date and happy to have a helping hand, the ladies had been in the kitchen chatting, giggling, and gossiping as their men talked it all. War, food, booze, and fishing, they covered the basics and were getting into sports when they called for dinner.

Sitting on the Jole’s back deck, theirs overlooked the cliff side of Heart Cove. On the edge of the woods, they were secure as the families of Narcisa all occupied odd homes.

Narcisa being the name of the land by the rocky edges of the water where they all inhabited. All families and not assigned to any one coven, the witches that flowed through all were on different scopes. Some were hippies with homes underground, only staying in them during the summer and when the weather was nice.

Some were like Jole’s and didn’t like coven hierarchy and the blatant disrespect they delivered and chose to drift. But they all had a story, and it was surprising that it was the same for Ina and Kaiser. Being transparent when asked about herself, Ina was honest about her upbringing and lack of parents.

“My dad was a human, married to another human, and my mom…well she spiraled because of him.” And because of him she hadn’t raised her daughter properly, which is what led to Ina’s trauma. “I was fourteen when it first happened,” Ina began rocking Jack, her white, blonde hair floating in the wind as she recalled, “I was approached by the elders of the coven. They said they’d had a vision, and I was chosen to be a wife. They wanted me to agree to marry a man three times my age and bore his son before my sixteen birthday.”

Horrified, Katherine whispered, “Please tell me your mama interfered in that.” Shaking her head, Ina hated to dash the hope because she remembered her mother doing nothing but what she probably had died doing. Drugs.

“I was on my own.” When both looked at her with their full attention, she continued, “And because my mom was an addict, and my dad was a stranger, I had no one to help me.” Both Henry and Katherine looked at how strong she was as Ina concluded, “So you can probably guess when the time came for decisions on my behalf to be made, I didn’t have what people would call a stable parental figure. I had an empty space for a man who never showed up and a mother who only once every other three days remembered she even had a child. So, I was f****d in being protected.”

Ina hummed as she shook her head remembering when she was first asked, “And of course me saying no didn’t go over very well.”