Mated

Ride Home

Chapter Twenty-Eight "Ride Home"

Two days later, Lyric was sitting in the backseat of a sedan with Kieran, and Max was driving them home. The rest of the stay had been far from enjoyable. The Gallagher Pack had some sharp words with Kieran for the loss of their Beta and he had spent the rest of the time grumpy and irritable. Lyric had busied herself with packing up and trying to read that Rarity book, but most of it was written in Latin and she wasn't about to bother her grumpy mate to get help reading it. She sighed and sank back into her seat.

"What's wrong, hon?" Max asked from the front. "Is the sourpuss there making life as unbearable for you as he is for me?"

"Go to hell, Max," Kieran muttered, staring out the window. "You didn't get someone banished from another Pack."

"From how I hear it," he drawled, "neither did you. His own actions did that. Now, help that mate of yours with that book she's been fiddling with the last fifty miles." Lyric went to say something but held her tongue.

"What book?" he asked, looking at her for the first time all day. "Oh, that one. What's wrong with it?"

"I think it's in Latin or something," she muttered. "I can't read hardly any of what's in it." She handed it over to him when he held out his hand.

"I think it's actually just super old cursive font," he said with a smirk. "And some Latin. Let's see . . . The contents here within are all that is known about the wolves known amongst others as Rarities, but known to ourselves only as wolves and the eight different Packs amongst us."

"Wait," she said. "Did that say there are eight Packs of my kind?"

"Sure did," he smiled. "Let me keep reading," he paused, green eyes scanning over the pages. "'The locations of the Packs will not be written here for their safety'. Makes sense, I guess," he said. "You wouldn't want it getting out about a bunch of werewolf Packs and their whereabouts. Especially with them being so rare."

"Do you think . . ." she started, feeling her face warm up. "Do you think my parents are in this book? I saw several family trees but couldn't read the writing."

"Well, let's see," he purred, flipping pages until he found the first family tree. "'The lineage of O'Leary'," he read. "I'll just skip to the last entries. Uhh . . .unless you were born in the late 60s this isn't it. Next," he said, flipping more pages. "'The lineage of O'Connor'. Let's just see here," he drawled, his eyes scanning down the elegant tree branches drawn on the page. Looks like," he paused, swallowing thickly.

"What?" she demanded.

"Well, before you were a Winter, you were an O'Connor," he said, pointing to the page. "See that last name there, under Thane and Shyla?"

"Yes," she said, having to squint to make out the names. "Oh my god, Kieran, does that say Lyric?!"

"Yup, and the time line is right." He beamed at her. "It must be an outdated version cuz it doesn't have the umm. . . date of passing for your parents."

She felt her stomach and heart do several flips. She had to swallow before speaking, "When is my birthday?"

"January . . ." he paused, bringing the book to his face. "The 27th."

"I have a birthday," she whispered, feeling tears fill her eyes.

00000000000000000

Kieran set the book aside as his mate began crying at first then it turned into full blown sobbing. He could understand why. Getting this book had been amazing, but finding out about her actual Pack? That was priceless. He pulled her to him, unfastening his seat belt so he could scoot closer to her, and kissed the top of her head. She sobbed into him for several long minutes before slowly calming down.

"We will be sure to celebrate your birthday with all the style we can muster, darlin'," Max said from the driver's seat. She nodded and then started laughing.

"I have an actual birthday. Wait. What does that make me in astrology?"

"An Aquarius," Kieran answered; he was always a bit of an astrology freak. "The water bearer."

"I'm an Aquarius," she muttered, then smiled up at him. "What are you?"

"I am a Scorpio," he said proudly, sitting up straight. "The scorpion. I was born on October 31st."

"Are we compatible?"

"Does that really matter," he chuckled, kissing her cheek. "We seem to get along just fine."

"I guess it doesn't," she giggled, giving him a soft kiss. "I was just curious."

"Well, now I'm curious," Max whined. "Someone look it up."

Kieran sighed and dug out his cell phone, pulling up the zodiac compatibility on a search engine, and read off what were several votes for compatible and several that were not.

"See?" he laughed. "No one really knows. But I think we are just as compatible as can be." He smiled and gave his mate a loving kiss, feeling happier than he had the last couple of days.

"So it really doesn't say anything in there about where the O'Connor Pack would be hidden at?" Lyric asked after a few moments.

"Nope," he sighed.

"Eager to be home?" Max asked, setting the cruise control once they were on the highway.

"No," he exhaled. He gave Max a quick rundown on the Meteer Pack and what had happened. "There will surely be police and detectives wanting to talk to my parents. Maybe even me." Lyric shot him a look. "I went to court with them. That's all. Don't worry, Lyric. All I did was show those trail-cam photos and explain that they weren't drunken friends of mine trespassing. If you're worried about them questioning you all you have to do is explain that you hadn't moved in with us yet when this was all starting. You knew nothing about it."

"Isn't that the truth though?" she asked him.

"Well, yeah."

"Then why make it seem like I need to get a story straight," she laughed a little uneasily. "I can just tell them the truth."

"Right," he said, blushing.

For the rest of the ride, Max played some actually decent rock and roll stations on the radio and Kieran and Lyric both napped on and off. When they pulled into the driveway, several hours later, there were several police cars in the driveway and he sighed.

Let the fun begin, he thought as he slowly climbed from the sedan.