Page 15 of Reclaiming Home (Build-A-Pack #1)

Brodie

I woke up energized on Monday morning. Normally, I liked to get seven hours of sleep every night, but the barely five I got on this full moon seemed fine.

The mate bond anchored me to Kye, and the moon run to the pack lands. I felt… settled.

Carys woke up at the same time with me, and I let her use the bathroom first. While she was in there, I watched her brother sleep.

We needed to change the bandage on his wrist, and I wanted to take a look at the cut on his head. I knew it had healed well, I’d checked it every night, but he was still human and humans got infections much too easily for my liking.

“You watchin’ me sleep?” he mumbled without opening his eyes.

I smiled. “I am.”

“Weirdo.”

“I am.”

That made him crack open one eye. “What time is it?”

“Time for me to go make breakfast!” Carys said brightly as she walked past us.

“No need to be so chipper,” Kye groused and burrowed back into the bedding.

“You can sleep. The breakfast won’t go anywhere and there’s really not much for us to do until I get the Keller crew started. I’ll start on the indoors stuff after.”

“M’kay,” he replied, and I could tell he was falling asleep again.

I kissed his forehead and went to the bathroom to start my day. I couldn’t stop smiling.

M r. Keller was a no-nonsense kind of man. He was efficient, spoke with a slight German accent, and organized the job and his crew like a General.

His daughter Lina gave my house longing glances that told me exactly how much she wanted to work on it.

Once everyone but Mr. Keller himself had started on the demolition, I sidled up to him.

“So, would you happen to have anyone to spare for a few months? Paid job, of course.”

“Renovations?” He made an educated guess and took a pull from his eCig.

“Yeah. I’ve worked construction, electrics and plumbing for years, so I can do most of that myself. I have Kye helping me where he can, but he doesn’t have experience. I would love to have someone who has basic knowledge at least. I can teach them whatever they’d need if something new comes up.” I kept my tone neutral throughout. “It would speed things up if Kye had someone to work with when he starts to paint and do the wallpapers and such, but I need help with some things, too.”

He looked at the house and chuckled. “I can see that.”

“I grew up here, like I told you when we talked on the phone. I’d love to make this a home for a healthy pack once again.”

Being local, Mr. Keller knew about Rusty and what kind of man he’d been.

“If you don’t mind taking someone on an apprentice level, my daughter would love to work on a house like this. She’s been apprenticing for me, but I have almost pure construction lined up for the winter months and then starting in spring it’ll be decks and such again. I think she wants to do renovation. She sees more value in repairing the old than building new.”

I hummed. “I can understand that.”

“Lina!” he bellowed suddenly, making me jolt.

The girl with the thick blonde braid walked out of the barn, her whole being swallowed by different safety equipment from overalls to respirator, protective glasses, and a hard hat.

“Yeah?” she asked, holding onto a good-sized sledgehammer like it weighed nothing.

“Alpha McRae had a question for you,” Mr. Keller said evenly, taking a pull of his sweet aerosol.

She turned to me, still a bit intimidated like she’d been when they arrived, but relaxed enough that I knew she’d get over it soon.

“I need someone to help me with the house renovations. Everything that goes with it, really. I can teach you a lot, I’ve worked in the business for fifteen years. Your father said you might be interested?”

Trying to hold back her excitement which I could see even with the gear covering her, she tilted her head a bit. “For how long?”

“A few months, at least. If your father won’t need you and we get along well, then I’m sure there’s enough work here for until the summer.”

“Paid or not?”

“Paid, absolutely. We can figure out what your hourly rate will be, but I will pay fairly and teach you everything I can.”

As if she wasn’t vibrating with sudden joy, she nodded. “Okay. I can work with that.” Then she looked at her father. “Dad, you sure you can spare me?”

I liked that she would check with him. It showed her character.

“I reckon you’ll be happier here than doing the hotel and everything else with us.” He glanced at me. “There’s this old hotel about forty-five minutes from here. Someone bought it and needs changes and renovations made during the winter months. Lots of tedious stuff with no personality at all, which is a shame.”

“Ah.” I understood his point.

“You’re really sure?” Lina asked him.

“When do I ever say things I don’t mean?” He raised a brow at her, then oomphed at the impact when she flung herself at him for a hug.

“When can I start?” She looked expectantly at me and her dad both.

I shrugged. “I’m going to work on the house today, so whenever you want is fine by me.”

She turned her baby blue eyes at her father who was helpless and shooed her off toward the house.

“Yay!” She took off her coveralls there and then, tossing them into one of the trucks they’d arrived in.

Holding onto the rest of her gear, she walked up to me. “So hi, I’m Lina, and it seems like I’m gonna be working for you now.” She held out her hand, beaming at me.

I chuckled as I shook with her. “I’m Brodie, the Alpha of this pack.”

We’d said hi casually when they arrived, but this felt like a proper greeting. Her dad wandered to the barn to oversee his workers, and Lina followed me inside the house.

“I’ll grab the iPad and I’ll show you our plans while we tour the house first,” I told her as we got inside.

She took off her thicker fleece jacket she had on and rubbed her hands together. “Can’t wait!”

She came with me into the kitchen where Carys was doing something on Kye’s computer while Kye had his breakfast.

“Oh hi,” Kye said brightly. “I see you’ve been roped into the indoor work?”

“Hi! Yeah, apparently you guys need help for the winter and my dad said it was okay, so here I am!” Lina grinned widely.

Carys’ whole body had tensed minutely, but she tore her gaze off the laptop and gave Lina a nervous little smile. “Hi, I’m Carys.”

“I’m Lina, nice to meet you,” she replied, then both of them blushed lightly.

Oh.

I grabbed the iPad and found the right file, then gestured for Lina to come with me. We had plans to talk over.

H aving Lina on the team proved to speed our immediate renovations up by a half. She was so damn efficient and always great to be around. She had great ideas that impressed us all, and by the time her dad’s team was done with the barn, she was fully integrated with our tiny pack, whether any of us realized that or not. She joked around with Kye, listened carefully to everything I said and asked questions if she had them, and always insisted on clearing the lunch table since Carys had cooked for us.

The two of them started to befriend each other, and after a few weeks, they were thick as thieves. None of us mentioned the clear attraction between them, because it was, well, between them and none of our business.

Rian started to do better with regular sessions with Moses, and was wrapping up his things in Seattle in preparation for the guys getting out of rehab. They had thrown themselves into recovery, and suddenly we got word that they’d be ready to leave the rehab place in two more weeks. That put a bit of a fire under the rest of us, because now we needed three rooms to be ready, in addition to the one bathroom and the family room.

It was fine, though. Everyone pitched in. Holden arrived one weekend with pizzas from town and asked to be put to work.

Kye had music on whichever floor he was working on. He didn’t like to wear headphones, so all of us ended up curating a joined playlist that ended up being wildly hilarious.

We went from eighties rock ballads and emo bands to random pieces of classical music and heavy metal to modern pop songs and even some country with surprisingly queer and dirty lyrics.

The third time the shuffle function gave us Dixon Dallas right after Mozart, the laughter coming from all corners of the house felt like it wouldn’t end.

Kye and the girls figured out individual pieces of needed furniture and all the colors and themes for each room. They asked my opinion on Rian’s style and then messaged him when I said I didn’t really know.

Now, had they asked what flogger Rian preferred or if he liked human or werewolf blood better, I would’ve had all the answers.

About a week before Rian and the guys were to arrive, we were sitting on the new U-shaped couch in the family room, having popcorn as Encanto played on the big TV.

“Oh by the way, we ordered the beds today. They should be here in a couple of days,” Kye said as he reached for more popcorn.

“Did you get a new one for us?”

“Nah, I figured it was still good enough. Unless you want one?”

“It’s fine by me. But if you want to do something more for the bedroom, be my guest.”

He shrugged. “I think the new wallpaper is fine with the rugs and everything.” He snuggled closer to me. “I ordered a king-sized bed for the guys, by the way.”

I froze. “You did?”

He looked up to see my expression. “Yeah? I thought they were close enough to share one?” He frowned. “Shouldn’t I have?”

I stared at him for a few beats, then asked, “You’re okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I get that they’re Very Close”—I could hear the capitalization in his voice—“but I also know that wolves are different from humans. I don’t think anyone has any right to say how others live as long as nobody is hurting anyone.” He smirked. “Without consent, at least.”

Rolling my eyes, I kissed him, tasting the buttery popcorn and salt on his lips.

“Can you guys stop talking? We need to concentrate; Luisa’s song starts soon.”

Kye picked a couple of pieces of popcorn that weren’t drenched in butter and tossed them at his sister who had taken one corner while we were in the other.

“Very mature, baby,” I told him, so he chucked a few at me, too.

O ur relationship kept developing slowly, exactly like we both needed it to.

There’d been a few joint showers and a couple of nights when Carys had very pointedly told us that she was going upstairs to read and wouldn’t be down again that evening. I loved her for giving us the space to be a couple together.

On those nights, we made out on the couch, not-watching a movie or a show, and soaking in the connection.

Slowly but surely, Kye’s confidence grew in all aspects of our life. Not that he hadn’t been self-assured to begin with, but there was just something more about him now that made me feel good.

One evening, after he’d supported Carys through the aftermath of a particularly brutal therapy session, he took a cup of tea for her upstairs where she’d holed up for the night. He came back to the living room where I’d been reading, and wordlessly knelt by my feet for the first time.

I pushed my fingers into his hair and began to pet him.

“How about you sit there until you need cuddles, and then you tell me what you need if there’s something more?” I murmured.

He nodded and leaned to my calf, then put his head on my knee and relaxed gradually.

An hour later, he climbed onto my lap and stayed there until bedtime, never speaking a word, staying close as I kept reading and touching him to center him.

It humbled me, knowing that I could be this person for my mate.

T he first two nights after we got Carys’s room ready, she still ended up sleeping in our bed anyway. None of us mentioned it in the morning.

Then, on the third day, Rian, Ben, and Max were set to arrive.

The house was ready for them, but the renovations would continue for months. This was the first step in getting our pack under one roof and I couldn’t wait for them to get there.

Carys had been flitting around the house all day, trying to make sure everything was exactly like it was supposed to be, while Kye went to get more groceries. Lina and I had started on the temporary fixes of the sunroom.

“We could put some long boards down and then put some particle board on top of those,” she mused as she looked down from her ladder.

She was fixing the new, heavy duty tarps to the fortified framework we’d built for the outer wall. She could see through the gaps where the windowed ceiling had once been, and was staring at the hole Kye had made falling through the floor.

“That’s true,” I said and handed her another large screw she’d wanted to put in to be extra sure the tarp would hold.

“I was thinking that if something happens and someone needs to go into the room, it would be at least a bit safer.”

“We can do that next week? Once we have the tarps in place, we can start taking apart the ceiling of my mom’s old room. At this pace, with the guys helping, I’m sure we can fix the roof, too.”

I held onto the ladder while Lina came down after deciding we were done.

“Yeah. Oh, and I asked Dad who he uses for windows, and I gave the company a heads up that you’ll be calling soon.” She beamed at me.

I knew what she was doing. Her name-dropping her dad who was a regular customer would make the windows cheaper for us just because of the referral.

“Thanks. I’ll call them after the weekend.”

We attached the tarps on the bottom so they wouldn’t flap around in the wind, and then we deemed that task done.

“If it rips, it rips,” I told her when she assessed our handiwork. “This is to keep most of the snow and water out, but we’ll have to gut the whole sunroom in the spring anyway. I won’t trust that floor, and the walls have water damage. There’s probably mold.”

Frowning, she sighed. “Okay. It annoys me to leave anything unfinished, but it is what it is.”

The leaves were falling already, and we’d get snow soon, I was pretty sure. It wouldn’t stick yet, but there’d be a lot of cold icky stuff.

Which reminded me. “Oh hey, the fireplace guy will be coming over on Wednesday. We’ll have them all checked and swept, and fixed where needed.”

“That’s awesome!” She grabbed the ladder before I could, folding it and then began to lug it toward the front yard.

Rolling my eyes, I took our toolbox and the trash that was left behind, and followed her more sedately. She was strong for a human woman her size and liked to remind me of that regularly. It was kind of endearing, and watching her carry the ladder like it didn’t bother her at all while she wasn’t very tall was funny. Sure, it might not have felt heavy, but it was just long enough to make it a bit comical.

I’d learned to know her by now, so I didn’t comment on anything, instead followed her to the front porch where we set down our equipment for the next day.

“You sure you want me to come tomorrow?” she asked as she pushed the ladder with her foot, making it settle just so against the railing. Her organizational skills were out of this world even for me.

“You can, but you don’t need to.” I shrugged. “We could start later, maybe? I don’t think the guys have energy to stay up very late after traveling, but in case we do end up going to bed late….”

“That sounds good to me. How about I come by around midday? I’ll take my mom to lunch at the diner in town and then head over?”

“Midday is fine. Don’t rush on our account, have fun with your mom.” I smiled, briefly wondering how my life would’ve been if my mom hadn’t passed away so young.

“Okay! I’ll start driving home right now so I don’t meet the guys on the driveway.”

“Hey can you ask your dad about the equipment for widening the road in a few spots? I keep forgetting.”

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow!” She walked to her truck and waved at Carys who was peering out of the kitchen window.

A bout an hour later, I heard a vehicle rolling into the yard. My wolf was on the move before I made a conscious decision, and I shot out of the front door like a cannonball.

Rian got out of the driver’s seat, and braced for impact, laughing his fool head off.

Wrapping my arms around his slighter, shorter form felt like coming home. I’d missed him so fucking much.

He squeezed me back equally as hard, and his laughter turned into tears in my embrace.

“You’re here now, sweetness,” I whispered. “I missed you so goddamn much, but you’re here now.”

I turned us so that I could lean against the rental SUV and just held onto him. I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time as something inside me settled.

The wolf felt content in a whole new way. I understood that it had been settled by the mate bond, but that underneath, it had craved more pack.

I vaguely heard Ben and Max talking to Kye and Carys, but I tuned them out in favor of being there for my best friend.

Ben and Max joined us a while later, appearing around the vehicle almost tentatively.

I held out one arm and they walked into the hug, folding into it in a way that told me they were relieved to be back home as well.

“You guys look good,” I said when they stepped back. Rian was still burrowed against me, so I reached my hand to wrap around Ben’s neck first and squeezed. “Well done,” I told him, then repeated the touch with Max. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Kye cleared his throat on the porch. “If you guys want to come check out your room?”

Wiping their eyes, they nodded and went with him.

I carded my fingers through Rian’s curls as much as I could. He hadn’t dyed them in a while, the red was paler now.

He liked to keep it shaved on the sides and the most vibrant red on top, and the state of it told me how he’d been feeling lately.

“I love you so much,” I whispered to him. “I’m so thankful for you and especially for the fact that you’re here now.”

Finally, he pulled away enough to look at me. “I love you too, Brodie.”

I squeezed him once more, then watched as he blew his nose and wiped his face, trying to make himself more presentable again.

“Now introduce me to your mate, Alpha,” he said, a hint of amusement mixing with the pride in his eyes.

“Brat.”

He grinned. “Always.”