Before Dellan could reply, Horvan was in there. “How about we give him a chance to get used to walking on two feet again before we grill him?”
Dellan stretched out his hand and took Horvan’s. “Hey, it’s fine. And believe me, I want to know what I’ve been missing.” He straightened. “Okay. The last thing I remember was going to my office right after New Year’s—that would be New Year’s, 2019.” He closed his eyes, visualizing the room, his desk. It was harder than he’d imagined.
“You okay?” That came from Hashtag.
Dellan opened his eyes. “Yeah. It’s just that everything’s still a bit hazy in here.” He tapped his temple. “Speech is coming back, but the memories?”
“Lemme help you,” Crank said suddenly. “Your fuckwit half brother came to see you, and he wasn’t alone.”
Dellan blinked. “How did you…?” Then it came to him. He met Rael’s gaze. “You saw it inside my head.” Rael nodded, and Dellan took a sip of coffee before continuing. “Anson had asked for a meeting. Said it was important.”
“Do you know why your stepdad left the company to you rather than Anson?” Roadkill asked, his expression thoughtful. “Was it his age, or was there something else?”
Dellan smiled, then turned to Horvan, who’d taken the chair next to his. “I like him. Astute man.” He returned his attention to Roadkill. “Tom always told me the company would be Anson’s one day. That was fine by me. I was only Tom’s stepson, right?”
“But something changed his mind,” Rael concluded.
Dellan nodded. “Anson was twenty when Tom showed the first signs of cancer. He’d been working for Tom for two years at that point. I’d been with the company since I was eighteen, and by then I was a manager. Anyhow, one day Tom said he’d been making plans. That was when he sprang it on me. He wanted me to run the company. I assumed it was because of Anson’s age, and I said as much.” Dellan paused, his throat tightening.
“That was a long speech. You don’t have to talk about this now, you know?” Horvan said in a low voice.
“Yeah, I do. Because I think this lies at the heart of what happened to me.” Dellan took a deep breath, framing his thoughts before uttering them. “Tom said it wasn’t Anson’s age and inexperience that bothered him—it was his attitude toward people. His… overbearing stance. His inflexibility. The fact that he could be very… opinionated. Tom said I was quite the opposite. He said I made up my mind based on facts, not emotion. That though I was firm, my mind could be changed by a decent argument. He liked the fact that I was logical.” He drank a little more, then shrugged. “He felt the company would do better with me at the helm, rather than Anson.” Dellan smiled at Hashtag and held up his coffee. “I think you’re right about my brain and caffeine.”
“What happened when Anson discovered his father’s plans?” Horvan asked.
“Tom had left him with a more than generous allowance, as well as what he earned with the company, and a position on the board. I think it’s fair to say Anson resented me from then on. And he wasn’t quiet about it or his dislike for the situation.” Dellan sagged into his chair. “I never dreamed he’d go to these lengths to gain control of the company.”
“Did you tell him you were a shifter?” Doc inquired.
And there it was, the question that had been nagging Dellan ever since he’d been freed.
“No, I did not,” he said slowly. “I told no one at the company.”
“Well, someone did. How else could he turn up with that guy who drugged you, forcing you into a shift?” Rael demanded. “He had to know.”
“He did know.” Quickly, Dellan shared with them the fragment of memory from his dreams the previous night. “He was planning on keeping me as a tiger.”
“And what about the rest of it?” Crank coughed. “Are you aware of times when you weren’t… alone in your cage?” He glared at Horvan. “And in case you missed it, that was me being tactful.”
Horvan snickered. “I’m amazed. I didn’t know you possessed any.”
“Okay, what is Crank hinting at so delicately?” Dellan said, puzzled.
Rael covered Dellan’s hand with his. “We saw men putting female shifters into your cage. In one case, they forced a shift by drugging her.”
“Shifters… in the cage with me?” Dellan was completely baffled. “Why would they do…?” He stilled. “Oh.”
“Do you remember any of those times?” Rael asked.
Dellan closed his eyes, suddenly weary. “Apart from that one memory of Anson, I can’t remember a whole lot in any great detail.” He tried to work out how far back his memories went. “Do you think I find it easier to remember your names because once you got me out of there, I wasn’t being drugged anymore?” It had to be a possibility.
“I think part of you remembered the shifters,” Rael commented. “Your dive into the river as soon as we got here?”
Okay, that part he remembered. But he was drawn back to that cage. Why the hell would they put shifters in there with him? To calm him when he got stressed out?
“Do you remember me coming to the office that first time?”
Dellan opened his eyes and stared at Rael. “No.”
Rael swallowed. “You spoke to me, inside my head. You asked me to help you.”
Dellan had reached his breaking point. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and he couldn’t stop them. “Oh, thank God you came. I could still be there if not for you. For all of you.”
Horvan’s arms were around him, and Rael knelt beside his chair. Dellan clung to his mates, his sobs gradually dying away.
Dellan was aware of Horvan’s voice, gentle yet firm. “I think that’s all for now. He’s had enough.”
“There is one last question I think we all want to ask.” Doc’s voice was quiet. “Did you know the man who shot you?”
“I’d never seen him before.” Dellan couldn’t suppress the shudder that rippled through him. “And I never want to see him again.” Every instinct he possessed told him that the man was not only cruel, but dangerous.
“Then let’s hope he doesn’t want to see you either,” Roadkill remarked. All heads turned his way, and he nodded. “That’s what we’re all thinking, isn’t it? That someone is going to come looking for Dellan?” He shivered. “This isn’t over.”
Chapter Nineteen
DELLAN WATCHED as across the room, Rael and Horvan were making dinner. Their preparations involved a good deal of laughter, and the sound lightened Dellan’s spirits.
My mates.
Rael glanced at him and smiled. Yours. Then he returned to his task of slicing eggplants, and Dellan had to smile at how… normal it felt. Two men had walked into his life and turned it upside down. Two men he was destined to be with.
It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It felt right.
He should have fought the notion that someone was directing his life, but he hadn’t. Because it felt…