Legacy (Blackwater Pack Book 3) Read online

  “Okay,” Mom said, determination lacing that single word. I could hear things shuffling. “I’m going to drive up to the house and take my phone to Remy. He can talk to her as soon as he’s done. It should only take me ten minutes to get there, tops.”

  My heart soared, relief sweeping through me. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon, Skye,” Mallory called over the speakerphone. “Stay safe, sweetheart. Call if you need anything.”

  I could hear Mom moving, her breaths deepening as she hurried.

  “Mom, how is Gabe really?” I asked softly.

  “He’s stable right now,” she replied. The noise levels changed and a second later I heard the engine of her car start.

  “But he’s in a coma? Like me?” I pressed.

  She sighed. “It’s not looking good, honey. It’s why Remy had to step up and become the Alpha. With Norwood on the warpath—”

  “What do you mean?” I cut her off, my eyes narrowed into slits. “What is Norwood doing?”

  Dimitri and Nikolai both looked at me, their expressions fierce.

  “What about Norwood?” Dimitri asked me.

  I gave him a shrug and lowered the phone. “Mom, I’m putting the phone on speaker. Nikolai and Dimitri are here, too.”

  “Who’s Dimitri?” she asked, part-curious and part-Mama Bear.

  I looked at him. “The guy who saved me. And he’s kind of my … brother, I think.”

  Dimitri grinned at me.

  “Your brother?” she echoed in surprise.

  Clearly Nikolai hadn’t told her he had a son when they bonded. Then again, I wasn’t sure how much time they had spent having conversations since they knew each other for hours before Mom broke their bond.

  I snuck a look at Nikolai. His expression had turned glacial when he heard Mom’s voice.

  “Oh,” she murmured. “I didn’t … I didn’t know Nik had any other children.”

  “You didn’t give me much time to tell you about my family,” Nikolai replied coldly, glaring at the phone.

  Mom seemed to hesitate before finding her voice. “Hi, Nik.”

  “Adalynne,” he answered brusquely. “What do you know about Norwood?”

  Mom sighed deeply. “We know that they’re responsible for the bombing at the Summit. Without Alphas leading most of the packs, they’re going in and taking them over. They’re spread across most of the east coast now.”

  Nikolai and Dimitri exchanged a glance that sent shivers down my spine.

  “How’s Remy?” I asked her.

  “He’s worried as hell about you. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was on the first plane out tonight to bring you home. I might come with him just to see you with my own eyes.”

  “You won’t make it,” Nikolai informed her, his tone clipped. “A storm came in just after Dimitri and Skye made it here. It will take days before we can get an aircraft in or out of the region.”

  Mom gasped audibly. “How long is days? I want my daughter home, Nik.”

  He stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “Our daughter is safer here than she is there with you and your brewing pack wars. Although, I heard you’re no stranger to pack warfare. Started one yourself when you were her age.”

  I scowled at him on her behalf.

  “How dare you,” Mom hissed. “You don’t know a damn thing about what happened back then.”

  “And who’s fault is that?” he roared.

  The sudden flash of his temper made me jump. His voice echoed off the walls.

  “You stole my heir!”

  “I’m not your heir,” I retorted, pulling the phone to my chest like I could somehow shield Mom from him. “And I’m going back as soon as the weather clears.”

  “You’re safer here,” he insisted. “I can protect you.”

  “I can protect myself,” I shot back, getting to my feet. “I’m going home, and if you want me to ever come back here or have a relationship of any kind with me, you’ll accept that. My family and my pack are in Washington.”

  “Brave words, little wolf.” His gray eyes glittered at the implied challenge to his authority.

  I lifted my chin as Dimitri stepped between us, his hands up. He looked warily back and forth at us.

  “Can we table this conversation until tomorrow? No one in this room has slept and we’re all on edge.” He looked at his father. “Let’s let Skye talk to Remy, and then we can figure this out.”

  Nikolai glared at Dimitri for several beats. “Fine.” His gaze cut to me. “Finish your talk. I’ll be back in a bit to take you to our home.”

  I ignored the ‘our home’ comment as he and then Dimitri left the room.

  “Is he gone?” Mom asked a second later.

  I sank back onto the couch. “Yeah.” I rubbed my temples. “Mom … why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s a really long story, baby,” she answered woodenly. “What happened between Nikolai and I, and then the aftermath … Those are some of the best and worst memories of my life. I know I owe you answers, and you’ll get them.”

  “I feel like you’re always saying that,” I admitted, still sort of bitter over all her secrets.

  “Well,” she said quietly, “I can stay here and tell you about it, or I can hand this phone to Remy, who is currently coming this way.”

  “He’s there?” It was like an emotional tsunami was cresting over my head. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or scared, relieved or terrified.

  “Yeah.”

  I heard the door open.

  “Addie!”

  I pulled my knees to my chest, shoving down a sob as I heard his voice.

  “Is it Dad? Did something happen?”

  “No,” Mom answered. “It’s Skye. She’s on the phone.”

  He breathed sharply, and then that voice I loved filled the air.

  “Skye?”

  10

  Remy

  Seeing Addie as we headed around the front of the house was enough to send a bolt of fear spiking through me. I broke into a run as she started to get out of her car, breaking away from my friends as they were mid-conversation.

  “Addie!” I yelled, hearing Katy and the others start running behind me.

  I slid to a stop, my shoes catching on the gravel in front of her. My heart slammed painfully against my ribs as my brain spiraled to come up with a reason for why she was here and not with Mom. “Is it Dad? Did something happen?”

  Guilt and fear churned in my gut. If something had happened to him while I was dealing with Lodge …

  “No,” Addie replied, tears in her eyes as she thrust her phone at me. A tremulous smile curved her lips. “It’s Skye. She’s on the phone.”

  The world stopped turning so abruptly that I wondered if I would fall off. Everything went still for one moment as time suspended.

  I grabbed the phone, nearly ripping it from Addie’s fingers as I pressed it to my ear. “Skye?”

  The only sound I heard was a tiny, hiccuping sob that absolutely gutted me. But I knew that sound all too well.

  “Babe, hey.” I swallowed hard, even if I could have broken down and started crying with her. “Talk to me.”

  “Sorry.” She whispered the apology as I turned away from Addie and my friends.

  That didn’t matter. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, her voice stronger. I could picture her straightening her shoulders and pulling herself together. She was a master at smothering her emotions. “I’m fine. I’m just … God, I tried calling you and you didn’t answer, and I thought the worst.”

  Fucking hell.

  I winced, kicking myself. “I left my phone in the car.”

  Which was probably the stupidest thing I could have done when I had no idea where she was. But what were the odds she would call in the fourteen minutes I had been away from my phone? I had been heading back to the car now to get it.

  “Mom told me about the challenge and your dad. I’m so sorry, Rem.” She sniffled again. “I
s Gabe okay? Are you okay?”

  “Dad’s hanging in there, and I’m fine. Where are you? I’ll leave now to come get you.” The plane would be taking off to head back to Brooks Ridge any minute, but maybe I could stop it. Hell, I would charter a private plane if I had to.

  A strangled sound escaped her. “You can’t.”

  “The hell I can’t,” I replied, practically growling the words as my hand tightened around the phone.

  “Remy,” she sighed, sounding defeated, “I’m not anywhere near you right now.”

  “That’s what airplanes are for,” I clipped out, turning and looking at Rhodes.

  He was already on his phone. He covered the mouthpiece and told me, “I stopped the plane. Find out where Skye is, and we’ll go get her.”

  We’ll go get her.

  My friends looked at me with determination and hope. They would follow me into the devil’s house to bring her back because they loved her, too.

  “There’s a storm coming in, and Dimitri said we’ll be stuck here for days,” Skye said bitterly into the phone. “You wouldn’t make it.”

  “Who the fuck is Dimitri?” I snarled, wondering where she was and who the hell she was with.

  Whatever adrenaline I had spent taking down Lodge was roaring back to the surface now. I had no idea if Dimitri was a friend or keeping her there against her will. Maybe he was someone else from Long Mesa.

  “Daniel,” she corrected. “It’s Daniel. From the Summit? He was with Elias.”

  “Wait, you’re with Daniel?” I asked, frowning as I tried to keep up.

  “We were looking for you when the bomb went off,” she explained. “The blast knocked me out—”

  “What?” I demanded, fear flashing through my body.

  “I’m okay, I swear,” she assured me. “He got Tate and I out of there and brought us to his pack.”

  “Daniel didn’t have a pack,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I looked at Dante and Ryder. “But Tate’s with you?”

  “Yes,” Skye said quickly. “Tell Dante she’s fine.”

  I gave him a tight smile. “Skye said that Tate’s okay. They’re together.”

  “Thank fuck,” Dante muttered as Ryder sighed heavily, leaning his forehead against Dante’s shoulder. “Can we talk to her?”

  “She’s not with me right now,” Skye informed me, clearly hearing Dante’s request. “She’s … sleeping. I’ll have her call him as soon as she wakes up.”

  “Skye’s not with her. She’s sleeping or something” I told him, but that didn’t sound right. I had known Tate for years; she wasn’t the type to sleep through a crisis.

  Dante frowned, clearly thinking the same thing I was.

  “Skye, where are you?” I pressed. “Daniel’s pack was from Arizona, right? We can be there in a few hours.”

  She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “God, I wish. Daniel isn’t Daniel, Rem. His name is Dimitri, and he’s … Jesus, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s my brother. Kind of. It’s a long story. We have the same father.”

  Wait.

  What the actual fuck?

  My hands started to shake. “Babe, where the hell are you?”

  The heavy pause between us sent my senses into high alert. I wasn’t going to like her answer.

  “Russia,” she finally murmured.

  I couldn’t keep the fury out of my voice even if I tried. “What the fuck do you mean you’re in Russia?” The question exploded out of my chest with a growl.

  “She’s where?” Katy demanded, coming close to me.

  “And Tate’s with her?” Ryder exclaimed, stunned by the news.

  I waved them off and moved away from them as they started talking.

  “Explain,” I ground out, barely able to breathe the word around my clenched teeth. Every muscle in my body was locked tight, ready to physically attack the distance between us and smash through it.

  “It’s a long story, Remy,” she said softly, her voice soothing the jagged edges of my nerves.

  “I’ve got time.”

  “Dimitri came to the Summit to watch Elias,” she started slowly.

  “Why?”

  “Did you know Elias came from Norwood?”

  I jerked in surprise. “No. I had no idea.” I tried to remember if I had ever bothered to ask where Elias was from. He had been at the school before I started. Probably since Dad was my age and the Council recognized that the birth rate was declining.

  Elias had been convinced that the younger generations held the answer to the death of our species. He had come to the school to watch younger generations and foster connections between packs. He had spent most of his life moving through packs, studying them and observing. No one had ever questioned his origins since he claimed no official allegiance to any one pack.

  Most considered him a lone wolf.

  “Elias had been working with the Alpha here. Nikolai.” She paused. “That’s my … dad.”

  “So, your dad is working with Norwood?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Nikolai has been working on the population issue for the last few years, I think. I don’t know exactly how it works, but the population here is doing better than in America. Elias wanted to use what Nikolai was doing back home.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “I’m not seeing why that’s a problem or why that means you’re currently an ocean away from me.”

  “What Nikolai has done here, they use volunteers. Elias has been working with Norwood on the same type of program. But they’re doubling down to make sure their pack doesn’t lose numbers.”

  “They kidnapped the women.” Not that the proof would do us much good now; there wasn’t a Council to take our findings to.

  “And the girls from school,” she confirmed. “Dimitri isn’t sure why, but he plans to ask Elias when he wakes up.”

  “Elias is with you?”

  “Yeah.” Another heavy pause. “So is my uncle.”

  I scowled into the phone. It was a miracle I hadn’t cracked it in half with how tight I was holding onto it. “Explains why we didn’t find his body. I thought … I thought he took you.”

  “More like Dimitri took him,” she corrected with a weak laugh.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she replied. “But I don’t think it’s because he had extra room on the plane. Dimitri used some kind of drug to knock him out. He did the same thing to Elias.”

  At least they were unconscious. That was something.

  “And Tate,” she mumbled under her breath at the last second.

  “What the—”

  “Shh,” she hissed. “The last thing Dante or Ryder need to know is that Tate is currently drugged.”

  I wiped a hand down my face and lowered my voice. “And why are so many people currently unconscious?”

  “The blast knocked me out. Tate was awake. It was the only way Dimitri could get her to come, too. He knew Norwood was behind the explosion—he came to the cabin looking for you and Gabe to tell you he thought Norwood was planning something. He overheard Elias on the phone with Damien. We were on our way to find you and Tate ran into us. The explosion happened minutes later. I guess Dimitri thought he was protecting us.”

  By taking my mate to the other side of the fucking world.

  I definitely owed him a big thank you.

  “Tate’s fine, Remy, I swear. She’s sleeping off the last of the drugs.” Skye released a shaky breath. “Mom told me about Luke. I don’t know how I’m going to tell her that her dad is gone.”

  “We’ll delay the funeral until she gets back,” I told her quietly. “Until you’re both back.”

  “They think the storm will clear in a few days, a week tops.”

  An entire fucking week with Skye gone.

  It sounded like my own personal circle of hell.

  “It’s barely been two days since I’ve seen you, and I can’t stand it,” I told her. “A week is going to be torture.”

 
“I’ll talk to Nikolai and Dimitri. I can probably get my own phone and we can video chat. That’s something, right?”

  I sighed, ducking my head at the hope and sadness in her voice. “Yeah, baby. We’ll make it work.”

  “I miss you,” she added so softly I almost didn’t hear.

  “I miss you more. Are you sure you’re okay?” Storm or not, if I sensed in any way that she wasn’t perfect, I would fly into the closest airport, shift, and run across Russia to find her.

  “I’m okay,” she replied softly. “Maybe me being here is a good thing. I can find out what Elias knows. Mom said Norwood is causing problems? If I can figure out what they’re planning, it might help.”

  The phone in my hand beeped and I glanced down at the low battery warning with a hiss. “Babe, your mom’s phone is dying.”

  “It’s all right. I need to go see if Tate is awake yet. I don’t want her waking up with me not there. I’ll call you when I can, okay?”

  “At least once a day,” I corrected firmly. “If I don’t hear from you, I’m coming to get you.”

  “Deal,” she agreed, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I love you, Remy.”

  I closed my eyes, bracing myself against the wall of emotion threatening to bury me alive. “I love you, too, baby. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  I waited until she hung up before turning around. I ignored all the questions from my friends as I stared at Addie.

  “Tell me everything you know about Skye’s dad.”

  11

  Skye

  It felt like I had run a hundred miles through sand by the time I hung up with Remy. My hands were shaking as I dropped the phone onto the couch cushion beside me. Weariness settled into my bones, frigid and numbing my nerve endings until I was mindless.

  I sank back against the couch, letting it cradle my body as my eyes slid shut. I just needed to rest for a minute now that I could breathe.

  I barely lifted my head when the door opened and Dimitri stepped in.

  “How’s Remy?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against the door jamb.