Buried and Shadowed (Branded Packs #3)(11)

He probably looked like a homeless person who needed a hot meal. No wonder Gibson had shown up with coffee.

“I felt you, you know,” Gibson said finally, and Oliver set down his now empty coffee cup.

“What do you mean?” he asked roughly.

Gibson set down his cup, as well. “I felt your pain, the angst of your dream. Or was it a vision?” He shook his head, his hair brushing the tops of his shoulders. “I don’t know exactly how, but I felt it.” He looked into Oliver’s face. “I’m not supposed to feel a bear, am I? Or maybe we’re all one Pack now that we’re so close and forming bonds within the den.” He paused. “But Oliver, I felt it. If that’s what you feel in each vision, then I don’t know how you can make it through each day.” His body shuddered. “That was…it was a lot.”

Oliver sat, stunned. No one had ever felt even an inkling of what it meant to be him, to experience a vision. He’d never met another Foreseer. Unlike those of his past, he hadn’t been trained alongside those who held his abilities. Instead, he had to feel his way around his role in the Pack—much like Gibson would have to do now.

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

Gibson met Oliver’s gaze. “I didn’t know I could either.” He swallowed hard, and Oliver watched the way his throat worked, trying not to feel like a lech. The fact that he was a year younger than the other man didn’t matter. “I’m still getting the hang of this. It’s only been a few days, and it’s not like I know what I’m doing, but I’m trying. I can’t figure out which emotion goes to which person yet unless I’m alone with them. And I can at least block those far away from me.” He sighed. “Thankfully, I don’t live by a lot of people.”

“Just the Tracker and the Foreseer, who need to be alone for reasons of their own.” He and Cole lived near each other on the edge of the den because of their roles within their Packs. Gibson had been there first, however, because Oliver figured he felt responsible for marking each member of the Pack around their brand, and needing to be alone was a result of that responsibility.

“What I felt wasn’t Cole,” Gibson said softly. “I don’t know how I know that, I just know.” He stood then, running a hand through his hair. “I’m apparently going to be able to heal not only emotional wounds but physical ones as well eventually. But I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”

Oliver leaned back against the stairs. “Welcome to the club.”

Gibson sighed and met Oliver’s gaze. “Do you need to talk about what you saw?”

Oliver shook his head. “Not now.”

“Okay, then.”

There was an awkward silence as the two stared at one another. Oliver didn’t know why Gibson had come, other than that he’d felt he had to. But had that been because he was the Omega…or for another more personal reason?

Oliver opened his mouth to speak as a warm and sweet scent filled his nose. He turned as Mandy came through the same grouping of trees Gibson had earlier, her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head and a frown on her face.

Oliver scrambled to his feet even as Gibson ran toward her.

“What’s wrong?” Gibson asked, taking her in his arms.

While Oliver had felt jealousy when he’d seen Theo hold her, seeing Gibson with his arms around her gave him a completely different—and perhaps welcome—feeling.

Mandy wrapped her arms around Gibson’s waist and sighed. When she looked over at Oliver, she held out a hand, and he went straight to her. When his hand touched hers, his bear relaxed, surprising him.

He’d known Mandy was a submissive wolf, but he’d never felt the full effect of that until just now. Even when he’d leaned on her a couple of days before, it hadn’t been the same because his bear had just gotten out of a vision and Theo had been too near for him to think reasonably.

“I had a nightmare,” she said with a laugh. She pulled away then, but kept her hand in Oliver’s while taking Gibson’s with her other. “It sounds silly now but…” she trailed off. “It was about the two of you and I needed to be here. I don’t know why, but I needed to. I’ve never had a nightmare like that and yet I knew it was important that I did.”

Oliver frowned. Was it just a coincidence that the first time he had a vision about the two of them, Gibson had felt the emotional tug between them and Mandy had had a nightmare that brought her to their sides? He believed in fate and the fact that he could change it if events occurred in the right way, but as for something like this…he wasn’t sure. Yet he couldn’t deny the fact that the three of them were alone, holding one another as if they had always done so in the past. Something had shifted.

From the way Gibson and Mandy looked at each other and him, they’d felt that shift, as well. They weren’t humans; they were shifters. The subtle nuances to how they reacted to one another wouldn’t go unnoticed. And once they made a decision about certain things… things he knew that they needed to discuss, things would forever be altered.

He let out a breath. He was getting ahead of himself. First things first.

“Come inside,” he said to both of them. “I’ll make coffee.” He looked at Gibson. “More coffee. And I think I have some form of food somewhere that we can scrounge up. Then we can talk about Mandy’s nightmare, the fact that Gibson came here and why…and other things.”