Page 22 of Glass
“Come here,” I murmur, wrapping my arms tightly around him to hold him even closer. The three kids at the table stare at me like I’m completely foreign. “Is everything okay?” I ask while Felix is distracted still with Corey.
The three of them look at each other until Jacob caves. “Lane doesn’t normally like anyone except Doc,” Jacob stage whispers. Lane only clings harder.
“I’m not just anyone,” I tell them as my heart warms. “I’m family.”
* * *
“Can’t you tell your friend to stop sulking?” I ask Doc as we stand side-by-side watching the kids eat mid-day s’mores. Doc tried to protest since no one has eaten a real meal yet today, but Felix overruled him.
Doc sighs. “Felix is our Alpha, Poppy. He does what he wants.”
“Rogues don’t have Alphas,” I blurt out automatically. I can’t help myself; I don’t understand the dynamic here. The whole pack seems to treat him as a true Alpha—Corey especially seems to worship at the altar of Felix—but The Lost are a collective of rogues. There isn’t a family line to delineate an Alpha.
“Maybe where you come from,” a young voice grumbles from behind me. I startle as Corey takes the place on my opposite side from Doc. “Shifters get Lost because the way things usually work doesn’tworkfor them.”
I itch to put my arm around him, but I’m not sure it would be welcome yet. Lane’s warm welcome of me seemed to thaw some of the ice, but Corey is obviously still leery of me. He crosses his arms over his chest and semi-glares at me as he waits for me to banter with him.
“You’re right.” His face softens slightly so that he looks more his age. “I know how it works out there. I shouldn’t assume it’s the same here.” Nothing in Acadia is like I expected it to be.
Doc pats my shoulder and excuses himself, giving Corey and I a chance to speak privately. I hold my breath waiting to see what Corey might say. I’m sure there are a million things he wants to ask or say to me, and I try to steel myself to face whatever it is. I know what it’s like to have questions; I still have so many myself.
“Our parents?” His question is flat, like he’s already expecting the worst.
He catches me by surprise—I didn’t anticipate him diving right into the deep end. But they were his parents too, and he has every right to ask. I just hate that I have to be the one to tell him.
“Our parents weren’t good people.” Understatement of the century.
He nods with understanding. Of course he isn’t surprised, he ended up here without them, after all.
“I don’t know all the details. I was still young, too, when it happened.” I take a deep breath and let memories of the past take over my mind. “We were born into a cult.”
Corey sucks in a sharp breath.
“Our parents cultivated quite the following, and they believed that more kids meant more power. We were basically their own little personal army. So they had thirteen of us initially.”
Corey furrows his brows, and I know what his next question will be. I mentioned yesterday that there were only ten other siblings besides me. He wasn’t around to know what happened to Greg or Brian, the latter of whom we all miss dearly. The former…good riddanceto that abusive asshole who bought into our parents’ bullshit.
“Two of our brothers didn’t make it. One of them tried to take over when our parents decided to run after being confronted by the Luna Sovereign and the Sovereign Pack. He had… an accident.” Which is exactly how all the Glass kids tell the story despite knowing his mate Leah killed him to save herself—and in the process, freeing several of my siblings and I from his reign. “Brian didn’t make it, either. Also an accident.” A legitimate one for him.
My heart throbs for the little boy as he stoically takes in this information. Good riddance to Greg, he would have kept us all under our parents’ regime given the choice, but I’m sad that Corey will never know Brian.
I have to make sure these kids get the chance to get to know the rest of our siblings as soon as possible. I don’t want them to miss out on anything—or anyone—else.
Felix, who’s been sulking off at the side of camp for the past hour, finally turns around and notices Corey and I standing closely together. His shoulders stiffen, and I swallow a lump of anger in my throat. The Lost might see him as their Alpha, but I don’t. And mate or not, he won’t micromanage me getting to know my siblings.
My anger only multiplies as he jolts forward, trodding toward us.
“I saw your mate mark,” Corey says quietly, raising an eyebrow at me. He’s a perceptive kid, I’ll give him that.
“Yeah.” I don’t know what else to say, and an awkward laugh bursts out of me. “This trip has been full of surprises,” I mutter.
My heart stops as Corey slides his hand into mine and squeezes. Part of me is worried that if I so much as breathe too hard I might scare him off. “Felix takes good care of the pack.” Corey’s gaze moves to track Felix’s approach. “Our parents weren’t good, but he is. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
“What makes you think I—”
“Poppy,” Felix interrupts. “Take a walk with me?” He phrases it as a question, not a command—and Corey squeezes my hand tighter in encouragement before releasing me. For those reasons alone, I agree.
“Okay.” I spare another look at Corey, who seems to sense things I’d rather not talk to him about. I’m not sure how he reached the conclusion that I was alone before coming here, but in a lot of ways, I was. Even when I had company—David and his pack or Paxton and Tasha—there was a sense of isolation and not-quite-belonging I could never shake.