Irish Melody (7 page)

His dad’s face went pale. “What do you mean by
when you get done with me?”

Ippy saw Samson’s shoulders lift in a small shrug. “Everyone in the pack has been told about what you did to your son. I also sent them a mental picture of what he looks like right now. You think I’m upset? Wait until my sister gets hold of you. Or her men. Or anyone else in this pack that cares about Phillip. He’s the weakest of us. He’s an autistic boy who, until tonight, has never spoken to anyone but Hannah and their friend, Caelum. He may not be beloved by all, but he is under our protection, and he is the pack’s son in a way all of the children are. You hurt one of them and you hurt them all. So, in short, you’d better start running, because I can hear them coming for you, and my sister is out for your blood.”

Ippy was still shaking when the door slammed behind his father. But, as his father’s footsteps could be heard going away from the house, his wolf backed away, letting him come forward. Shifting hurt this time, like really hurt, and he grabbed the blanket as he dashed upstairs to the bathroom and wrapped it around himself. He made it just as the little he’d had to eat that day flew out of his mouth. He washed out his mouth the best that he could before he made sure the blanket was covering him and went downstairs to be with them all.

Hannah was the first to move toward him, quickly wrapping him in her arms and adjusting the blanket around him even though he was a good three inches taller than her. She gave him a smile and he returned it, although his face felt like it didn’t want to smile at all. And he was shaking really badly still.

Samson was the first to speak. “Phillip, have a seat, you look even paler than usual.”

Sitting felt good and he found a place in a corner on the floor. Having walls on either side and Hannah beside him helped. He held his hand palm up to her, offering it to her. She took his hand instantly and gave him a squeeze. “Your wolf rocked, by the way. Why didn’t you tell me you could shift?”

Ippy shrugged.
Only just able to tonight.

He looked at the men in the room, hoping that they would have been able to hear him speak. But they looked like they hadn’t heard him anymore than they could have yesterday. Only Hannah nodded.

I guess I still can’t talk to them.

She frowned and rubbed the back of his hand with the one not wrapped around his fingers. “I’m sorry. It’ll be okay, Ippy. Somehow. I promise.”

Don’t lie,
he chided her.

Hannah snorted and shook her head. “I’m the daughter of the third in a pack of werewolves. And Evangeline says if I had fur I’d be an alpha. So if I say it’ll be okay, it’s gonna be okay. You got that?”

He gave her a watery smile.
Guess there isn’t anything you can’t do. Best friend to a werewolf and a selkie.

“More than friends,” she whispered to him before placing a quick kiss on his cheek.

Ippy looked up at Samson, Travis, and Liam, wondering what they were talking about over in the corner away from them. Even with his hearing, he couldn’t hear them, and that bothered him. But he could hear the howling of the wolves outside. They were getting closer.

Samson lifted his head and glanced outside before looking back at him. “Hannah, Phillip, get upstairs. Now.”

Ippy refused to budge.
Is it about my dad?

Hannah moved onto her knees beside him. “Ippy wants to know if it’s about his dad first.”

Samson gave them a hard glare and Ippy got unsteadily to his feet. Even exhausted, he still had to obey Samson when he gave an order like that. He might have been able to ignore the words, though he had wanted to obey him instantly, but coupled with the glare, Ippy had no choice but to obey him, as much as he didn’t want to in that moment. He wanted to know what was happening, what would be happening, to both him and his family.

Tell them not to kill him,
he told Hannah as he got shakily to his feet.

“Ippy says don’t kill his dad,” Hannah said as she got to her feet beside him and started to help him up the stairs.

Liam and Samson were looking at him, both of them wearing sad expressions. He didn’t have to ask what that meant. He slowly nodded and worked his way upstairs with Hannah’s help.

“I can’t promise that, Phillip. I am sorry,” Samson was saying as Hannah closed the door behind them and Ippy went to her bed. He lay down on his side, taking the place he liked most—on the side of the bed that was closest to the window.

Hannah went to her dresser and pulled out a pair of shorts from the top drawer. She threw them to him before turning around and sitting on the edge of the bed. For a long moment he didn’t move, but finally realizing that she wasn’t going to turn back around to face him until he had some clothes on, he put them on.

“Good?” she asked him when he’d stopped moving.

Yes.

He reached for her and played with a strand of her still damp hair as it fell against his fingertips. She lay down next to him, facing him on her bed. “This sucks,” she mumbled into her pillow.

He put his hand between them and she covered it with her own.
Yeah.

“I’m sorry your dad did that to you. Can I do a bit of first aid on you? Shane has been teaching me. He’s a decent nurse. Says I’ve got some talent. Too bad I don’t have the patience to deal with people all day like he does.” She smirked and Ippy slowly nodded.

She slowly got up from the bed, went into her bathroom and returned with a clear plastic box. She sat down cross legged on the bed beside him and he held still, waiting patiently for the tears to come as she started bandaging him up. She spoke quietly, reassuring him as different cold liquids stung, but he wasn’t paying too much attention to her.

Had his dad ever really loved him? Had his mom? He liked to think that they had. But thinking about how they treated him and how Hannah’s dads treated her, he knew that there was no contest. They were still his parents though, for all their faults. And he should have been sad about them being in trouble. He knew that he was supposed to. But he couldn’t make the tears come. Or the words. He should tell Samson to stop, to spare them, even if his alpha wouldn’t listen. A good son would have tried to get his parents spared. But he didn’t even try to get up. Because he wasn’t a good son. And because he didn’t love them.

“You’re really quiet,” Hannah told him as she dabbed something wet against his temple before putting it into a neat little trash pile she was building on the comforter beside her. At least she’d put a plastic bag down this time, unlike when they ate popcorn up here and she got crumbs everywhere.

He shrugged, not knowing what he was supposed to say.
I should care that they want to hurt my dad. But I can’t.

She stopped messing with him and pushed everything off the bed before lying down next to him and putting a warm hand on his shoulder. “Why should you? Aside from that he’s your dad, why? Are you upset by what might happen to him? Because I’m sorry, Ippy, I know he’s your dad and all, but he hurt you. And that’s not okay. If I could turn into a wolf like you I wouldn’t have been able to stop down there when he was yelling at you. No one messes with my friends, and since I’ve really only got you and Caelum, you’re stuck with me.”

Ippy gave her a weak smile and then looked up to find her dads in the doorway with Samson behind them. Hannah put her arm around him, but he got up anyway, knowing that they were likely there to see him by the way Liam and Samson were watching him. He was standing next to the bed by the time Liam waved him over.

“Ippy?” Hannah called to him from the bed.

He turned to see what she wanted to say. She’d sat up too, and her hair was in front of her eyes. He wanted to fix that for her, which was new for him, but he decided not to. Not when her dads were right there, anyway. And not until he knew how much trouble he was in.

“It’ll be okay,” she told him, offering him a smile which he tried to return, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. So instead of forcing a smile he gave her a little nod and went to Liam and Samson while Travis came into Hannah’s room. He heard them talking quietly as he followed the men downstairs and outside onto the back deck.

Liam turned to him first and sighed as he closed the back door behind them. “Phillip, are you strong enough to shift again so that we can all talk?”

Ippy shrugged and found the wolf in his mind. It was there waiting for him, he could feel it like Hannah’s old dogs had been waiting for her to get home from school before they’d passed a few years back. The wolf leapt at the chance to be out again and Ippy lay down on his side, figuring it would be easier for the wolf that way.

Samson and Liam surprised him by kneeling next to him, Liam in front of his chest and Samson behind him. He felt something warm come over him, comforting him, as the men leaned together. When he looked up at Liam he saw the man’s wolf looking back at him. No longer a shivering haze around his face, the wolf was clearer than the man as it looked down at him with the icy blue eyes of their kind. He turned onto his back and sure enough there was Samson’s wolf staring at him as well. Though the men were both in their skin, somehow the wolves had come forward. As one, the wolves above him tilted back their heads in a silent howl.

His wolf snapped into place on their cry and his own voice filled the air as paws took over where his hands had been and fur covered his face and neck. Becoming the wolf was easier this time and his legs didn’t shake as he stood up and shook his fur. The wolves around him regressed back into a thick haze around the faces of the men that kept them inside and when Ippy looked up at them through the eyes of a wolf they were only men again.

“Phillip, can you hear me?” Samson asked him, sitting down with his legs extended in front of him on the deck.

Ippy nodded. Samson was as clear as he ever was.

Liam got to his feet and touched Samson on the shoulder. “I’ll be inside if you need me.”

“Thank you for the help,” Samson said, giving his hand a brief touch before Liam went back inside. Ippy watched him go upstairs to Hannah’s room through the window in the back door before he gave his attention back to Samson who was staring at him.

“He’ll be back soon, but I wanted to talk to you now. I thought the two of us being here would help you with your shift. But it seems you did just fine on your own. You’re old enough to be able to shift on your own just fine, but there’s a reason that you don’t often do it by yourself. It’s hard for kids your age to get it right the first time and having older, more experienced, shifters there to help you through it is usually the only way to get it done correctly. And yet by my count you’ve shifted twice tonight already.”

Three times,
Ippy corrected him as he sat down on his haunches.

Samson lifted his black eyebrows and his eyes widened. His mouth opened a little before he seemed to catch himself and stopped looking so surprised. “When you shift, do you feel the wolf and yourself, or is it just yourself and almost like you’re putting on a jacket?”

Ippy tilted his head to the side, wondering why there would be such a difference between shifting.
My wolf is different than me. Did I do it wrong?

Samson shook his head and leaned forward as he put his arms on his knees. “No, that’s alright for your first time. I’m honestly just extremely surprised that you were able to do even that much. It’s rare, not unheard of, but rare, for someone your age to have that kind of grasp on shifting.”

Ippy was instantly pleased with himself and preened a little under the compliment.
I don’t want to change it.

Samson’s mouth tightened. “That’s not how we shift though, Phillip. Our wolves aren’t separate from us. They’re extensions of us. Like putting on a piece of clothing.”

Mine isn’t,
Ippy replied, bristling.

Samson released a loud sigh. “Fine. Tonight, you can have that. You’ve been through a lot and I won’t push you. But if you decide that you want to shift correctly—”

My way is my correct for me.
Hannah would have said he was being stubborn, or maybe she would have jumped to his defense too. Either way, he knew that this was what he had to do. He’d just found his wolf and he knew that this was correct. His wolf was part of him and he wasn’t going anywhere. Samson couldn’t change that. He quickly shut his mouth before the wolf could growl at their alpha. Ippy realized that his wolf had been upset by the idea of having to leave as well. He felt like hugging the creature.

Samson shrugged and ran a hand over his shortly cropped hair. “Fine. That’s not the point that I wanted to talk to you about anyway. I need to know what happened tonight, in as much detail as you can remember, so that I can understand. Then we’ll decide what to do with your father.”

Ippy perked up.
Then he’s not dead?

Shaking his head, Samson met his gaze. “No. He’s not. He’s badly hurt and being kept under guard at my house, but he’s not dead. How does that make you feel?”

Ippy dropped his head, unsure of the right answer to give. He didn’t really know how he felt. On one hand, that was his dad. And he was supposed to love his dad. On the other…
He was my dad, but I didn’t like him, not as a person,
Ippy finally said after a few minutes of silent thought.

“Tell me what happened please, Phillip. If you need to stop I’ll understand, but I do need to know the details,” Samson told him, his voice soft on the night time breeze.

Ippy stared at the wood at his feet. This was going to be easier if he just focused on those grains of wood between his paws. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and then began.
What Hannah said about me, how I’m bi, I think she’s right. Caelum can come into our dreams. Hasn’t been doing it long for me. Not as long as with Hannah. But when he comes, we’re together like we would be if we were on the beach in Ireland that he shows me. It feels real to me. We hold hands. We kiss. I like the kissing. I like kissing Hannah, too. So I guess that’s what I am. That I’m bi. My dad heard me whining in my sleep and he came into my room and woke me up. He looked through my phone and saw all the messages between Hannah and me about Caelum . He just started hitting me and I ran. I didn’t fight back. Not then. But then he caught up to me again and it hurt so much and then my wolf came forward. And he stopped my dad from hurting me anymore. I didn’t look but I heard and I didn’t like it, but I didn’t stop my wolf either. I wanted my dad to hurt. I wanted him to stop hurting me. My parents, they aren’t like Hannah’s. Her dads love her. I can tell all the time. It’s how they look at her, how they smile with her. My parents don’t do that with me. My wolf gave me back control and I ran here.