Buried and Shadowed (Branded Packs #3)(20)

Chapter 6


Oliver rested his head in his hands; his forearms steady on his thighs as he sat in his large oak chair. His body ached from lack of sleep, and frankly, lack of release, and yet he couldn’t think about that now. What he should be doing is trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with his visions and why he couldn’t see beyond the misty tendrils of death and into what would actually come to be.

He hadn’t seen Gibson’s injury.

He hadn’t seen Claire’s death.

And he sure as hell hadn’t seen Gibson and Mandy in his life.

He could still see the wide, vacant eyes of Claire as she stared blankly at the sky; her body cold and covered in cuts and bruises. There wasn’t a single claw mark on her, worrying him more than it should. If a shifter had been angry enough with Claire for what she’d done to the den or for another reason, he would have thought they’d have used claws and teeth to kill her.

Instead, someone had used a knife to slowly bleed away her life. He might not have liked Claire, nor the decisions she’d made in the heat of the moment, but she hadn’t deserved to die the way she had. The fact that Holden, Soren, and Gibson hadn’t felt her die along Pack bonds told Oliver that there was something going on far beyond a grudge against a woman who had made a terrible mistake.

Yes, it could have been the SAU that had taken her life and even hurt Gibson, yet Oliver wasn’t sure. That wouldn’t explain the hidden severed bonds and shifter scent on the body. The fact that it was a muted scent so no one could tell what kind of shifter it was, let alone who it was, meant this went far deeper than a guard with a knife.

Only he couldn’t figure it out, and his body hurt from vision after vision. Visions that didn’t seem to be helping anyone. All they did was take a little bit more out of him and keep him up at night.

Usually, he couldn’t see the deaths of those he loved, those in his family. He’d never seen Anya or the cubs fully in his dreams before. Yes, when the cubs had been kidnapped he’d known something was wrong, but it was more of what would have happened after that had brought on the visions of fear and death. The fact that he’d seen the cubs clear as day in a vision along with Cole worried him.

Add in the fact that he’d then seen Gibson and Mandy, and he just wasn’t sure anymore.

“If you keep thinking so hard, you’re going to break something,” Gibson said softly as he slowly made his way into the room.

Oliver looked up at the other man and held back a curse. “You look like hell.”

“I feel like hell,” the wolf said simply.

“I told him to go to sleep, but he won’t listen to me,” Mandy said as she walked in with two mugs of tea. “These are for you and me, Oliver. Gibson will get some after he sleeps off the weight of emotions he just felt.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, he smiled. “She told you.”

Gibson let out a little growl. “Fine, I was going to head to my place anyway. I need to hide away for a bit and just sleep it off.” He looked between them. “Stay here, will you?” he asked Mandy. “Just…be together, or I don’t know… You guys need time alone to see who you are as a couple.” Oliver’s brows rose. “We’ll each have time as couples and then later as…well, as a triad, but I think the two of you should at least talk or something.” He ran a hand over his face. “And now that I’ve mucked that up because I’m too tired to think, I’m headed over.”

“Are you sure you’re okay walking by yourself?” Oliver asked, aware that Mandy had gone quiet beside him.

“I’ll be okay,” Gibson answered. He leaned forward and kissed Mandy softly, then Oliver. Oliver’s bear stretched at the sensation, loving the taste of this wolf. “Just…be, okay?”

He left them then, his hands in his pockets but a resolve about him that Oliver liked.

“Did he just tell us to have sex?” Mandy blurted once Gibson was out of earshot.

Oliver laughed then, his whole body shaking. He reached out and gripped her hand, pulling her close. Thankfully, she’d already set down the tea or that would have burned. When she tumbled into his lap, he kissed her temple, relieved she laughed with him.

“Yeah, I think he did.”

Mandy blushed, her cheeks pink and very, very alluring. “I assumed we’d uh…you know, between the three of us first.”

“We can wait to do that,” Oliver said, his voice serious. “Or you and Gibson can find each other first.” He paused. “I don’t know if it’s a vision or just what I feel, but I think it has to be you with one of us first. Not just me and Gibson. You’re the glue,” he repeated from before.

“You say that, and yet I don’t know if I quite believe it.” She ran a hand through his beard, and he did his best to memorize every plane of her face, every scar, every bit of her that made her Mandy.

Her wolf might crave the man near her, but that didn’t mean the human fully knew him. Yes, she might want him as a woman wanted a man, but she needed to know him, needed to see how she fit against him—literally and figuratively.

He slid his hand up her thigh to rest on her hip and stared down at her. “Gibson is part of this, yet, without him, I don’t think our beasts would be as…intent as they are. But the same could be said of me I would think. But without you? Without you, there wouldn’t be a glimmer. Your inner strength is what brought us here, and I know without you, I’d still be sitting in my room, trying not to pass out from the weight on my shoulders. And Gibson? Well, I don’t think he’d have been over here at all without you.”