Part 3
Grigory watched the woman he loved walk out into the cool air of the early evening with her coat around her shoulders. She had been inside meeting the children. Anya had gone with her to the basement and spent time letting her get to know them. Grigory had gone outside with the males of the pack. They'd shifted and run into the woods. It had felt good to be in his own form, to be calm, free, and it strengthened the bond between them as they did it. And as they ran, they spoke to each other the whole time. He voiced his anguish and concern about Hannah, that was foremost in his mind, and he was struggling with the fact that there was so little that they could do to find her. The devil had been around for so long, he needed no assistance in hiding the child from them, and few would dare go against him who might be close enough to view where he had taken her. The reports that they'd gotten over the last few weeks were no more than a "she's alive, he has not harmed her," no one dared say more.
Hannah's disappearance tormented the pack. Just because there were a lot of children here, it didn't mean that her absence was unnoticed. The pack loved their children, her being taken tore them up, and it had destroyed Anya's ability to handle things for weeks, Grigory had been showed that instantly, and with force, when the bond had come back over him. She had been despondent, crying, unable to eat, unable to sleep, clinging to the pack males. They'd had to keep her in her bedroom, away from the children, more than once. It had been very difficult to get her back to some semblance of sanity, and she was still very perilously close to losing it all the time.
His leaving had been hard on the pack, but it was clear from what they said, that they had understood why he had left. Why the situation with Vesper had proved to be so difficult for him. But he had been wrong, Sergei had stressed, Anya had not chosen to ask him to claim Vesper, or to fuck her ass that first meeting, because she hadn't loved him as much as she loved the rest of the pack. She had chosen him because she'd known that despite the claim, he was strong enough to still love her back. She had chosen him because she knew he would not forget about their bond.
They'd run for a while before coming back to the house and finding that Anya was in the kitchen starting supper. BiBi had left her to herself there and had been sitting on a couch in the living room staring out a window for a while before their return. Yegor, Aidan, and Yakov went immediately to the kitchen to help with supper while Sergei had gone downstairs, the children had called to him for something. Grigory had stayed outside, standing near the eastern side of the yard, staring absently at the tract of land they'd cultivated last year as a vegetable garden. It would be about time to do that again this year. He'd almost missed BiBi coming outside, but had looked up at the shift in the air, a tepid growl coming from his throat as he looked in her direction.
She must have seen him outside because she walked over to him slowly, her eyes moving to his face, meeting his gaze, and she smiled at him softly.
"I think I like your family, Grigory." She said, nodding as she stood in front of him.
He cocked his eyebrow up at her, not quite able to believe she could after what they'd all put her through.
"Now I said I think I like them. I didn't say I did, and I certainly didn't say how much." BiBi gave him a little frown, "Your children are kind, Grigory. It's obvious that they are well loved."
"My pack brothers like you, BiBi. It would never be about whether they like or don't like you." He told her, allowing him to bond with a female had to do with pack dynamics usually, but this, the situation with Anya was different than a regular werewolf pack.
She nodded and slipped her hand into his. Moving closer, she put her forehead on his chest and he felt the sigh that worked through her body.
"I've never been the type of woman who would have been able to do what I did earlier in the bedroom with you and Yakov. That sort of thing, it goes against everything I was raised to believe, Grigory. It's so strange to me." When she finished speaking, her beautiful big eyes were peering up at him and he shifted his neck and kissed her forehead, much as Yakov had done earlier.
"So telling you that both Aidan and Yegor are a little anxious to get the opportunity to taste you is probably something you don't want to hear?" He chuckled deeply as she looked up at him with a gasp, her eyes widening a little.
"Not today, Grigory. I can't handle any more today." Grigory sighed as he watched her shake her head, he'd relayed that to the two males immediately, and they'd pouted a little, but understood.
"Not today." He nodded at her.
"Is there really not a lot of hope of finding Hannah?" The subject change made him stiffen, but he moved to wrap her in his arms anyways.
"The devil is tricky, BiBi. If he doesn't want to be found, then he won't be. We just have to hope he tires of playing this game and gives Hannah back." Grigory sighed, dropping his hands a little lower to grasp her ass. He could see Aidan walking out the back door and sighed again, they were not allowed to be alone together, not until the decision was made and the deed was done...or not done.
"I can't imagine being Anya, being a mother and knowing who, who took my child. I feel horrible for her." BiBi looked towards the house and he could tell she was watching Aidan make his way over to them.
"We will get through this as a pack, this is what packs do." Aidan said, stopping to stand a little back from them, his hands in his pockets, "All of us, except Anya, who's never been in a pack before, have been through losing a pu-child. It's not uncommon in our species to lose a child. Diseases hit us hard, and a hunter mistaking us for a wolf or coyote. I'm not saying it's something we're used to, but it happens. It hurts, but it happens. We will get through it together."
Grigory knew that BiBi didn't quite like Aidan's explanation as she stayed pressed up against Grigory, her arms around him tightly. He met Aidan's gaze and frowned a little. BiBi had never had a child, she couldn't imagine what it would be like, getting used to it was not something that she could wrap her mind around. He didn't want her to, either, he didn't want her to have that fear that if she ever had his litter, that she would need to worry about losing one of their pups. He felt his voice growl up a bit from his throat as he cautioned his pack about putting that in her head. They hadn't lost any from their litters with Anya yet, and they were going to get Hannah back.
"Dinner should be done soon, BiBi. Can I take your bags up to the room you slept in earlier?" Aidan asked as he frowned up at the moody werewolf. Grigory knew the man was confused, Grigory was being somewhat edgy, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable pack behavior concerning a possible claim, but he knew things were a little different with this pack, and he was new enough in the pack that he wasn't going to question it.
Grigory knew that Sergei was giving him a little leeway when it came to BiBi, but he knew that leeway was short, and wouldn't last long if the decision didn't go the way he wanted. BiBi would have to leave, and he would either have to deal with that, or leave the pack. Finding another pack was not something Grigory could even consider, however, but he couldn't imagine not having BiBi, either. The way he was torn inside about this made him tense, irritated, and he didn't like having his pack mates cautioning him about his behavior.
"Yes, I'll go with you. Not everything is going to need to be unpacked." BiBi nodded her head and turned towards Aidan.
Grigory took her hand in his and they walked beside the other wolf into the house and through to the garage. He watched as she waited for Aidan to open her car, and then she pointed to a few bags in the trunk. While Aidan disappeared upstairs with the bags, Grigory walked into the dining room with BiBi and showed her where she could sit at the table as they waited for the evening meal to be prepared. This meal was the one where they all sat as a family, with the children eating around them. Some sat at the large dining room table, while others sat in the booth table in the nook, and others sat in a small kids table in the corner of the dining room.
