It was one of those moments where someone says something you thought moments ago could never be an option, but that dream became true in a single sentence. I was more shocked that he had been the one to suggest it more than anything. He just got me back, and now he was considering adding to our family in a single day! It was almost too much to wish for.

"Please tell me you're not kidding," I breathed, afraid he was going to take it back at any moment.

He grinned. "I'm serious, April. From the second you flung yourself to her hospital bed last night after I revealed she was here and safe in the infirmary, I starting thinking a little. I asked Isadora-"

"Hold up." I stopped him. "Please tell me who Isadora is."

He looked baffled. "The only other girl that's in the infirmary right now. . ."

"Iris?"

"Iris?" He repeated, and now we were just confusing each other.

Then I thought about it. They didn't call me April there, they called me Aralia, a plant name. Iris was a plant. Kalmia was a plant; Tulip, Maple, Ivy, Sage, all of them. And that meant all of them also had their birth names out there somewhere for them to remember sometime. Kallie hadn't mentioned anything, but neither had Iris-er-Isadora. I wondered if the others had remembered their names and that's how they were able to be returned to their packs.

"What were the other girls names that you found?"

He was definitely confused why I was veering from the adoption topic, but I was too curious to let this go right away. "Um, there was a Tiffany. She was tiny like Kallie with skin as dark as the night."

Tulip.

"And then I met a Mya. She was older than Tiffany and Kallie, but not by much."

"What did she look like?"

"Um," he was definitely lost, but that was okay. "She was petite, but I guess that's everyone, huh? She had long blonde hair, and very bright eyes. Green, I think. But they could've been blue."

"Maple." I whispered.

"What?"

"Never mind. Anyone else?"

He thought for a moment, "Samantha, I think. Also blonde, but a little older and her eyes were dark." Sage. "And then there was another African-American girl with dark hair curlier than Kallie's- " Ivy "I think her name was Isabelle."

I tallied the names in my head. One more missing: Rue. "Was that it?"

"Those are the only ones I met or saw or heard about," he said. "What was that all about?"

I waved him off, "never mind. Just something on my mind."

His hands sought mine out, "please tell me what's bothering you. I don't like when you shut me out."

"I know, I'm sorry. But there's a lot that you don't know about what we went through there. You saw some of it," he flinched at the memory of my horrors displayed across my body, "but there's more. And part of it was that they tried to brainwash us, and made us forget." I gave up my hold on the door and sank into him, turning my head on his shoulder so I was talking to his neck. "There were some days I couldn't even remember your name. Some I couldn't remember mine. Our captors called me Aralia."

"Aralia? Isn't that a plant?"

"Yes. And so is Kalmia."

"You mean. . ."

I nodded, my nose brushing the flesh of his neck. He went rigid, and I could tell he was fighting it, so I pulled back, muttering an apology. "Isadora I knew as Iris, Tiffany as Tulip, Isabelle as Ivy and so on. That's why I was confused."

"Wow." He whispered. But beneath the surface was anger. And hatred. And I knew he was imaging everything he would do should he ever see his former Beta again.

"Kallie hasn't mentioned her birth name. I'm not sure if it will ever come back to her, she was so young when she was taken."

"Her parents died, right?" He asked and I nodded to confirm. "I asked the doctors and also Isadora what they knew about her and that's about all I got."

Suddenly I remembered the exchange during our escape. "When she told me her parents died, it broke my heart. But even more so when she told me she never wanted to leave me, that she had no intention of returning to her birth pack without her parents there."

"That was when you first started hoping, wasn't it?"

Heat flushed my cheeks; he knew me more than I thought he did. I let myself whisper, "yes."

"I see how you are with her. You treat her like she's already yours, and the relief on your face that she was here, safe in the infirmary was a way more intense reaction than the one Isadora had about it. And she told me she had been in those cells the longest.

"It's obvious you have a bond, and I don't think anything is going to be able to tear you two apart." His cheeks tinted, the most I had ever seen him blush. I touched my hand to his cheek and he smiled, "Besides, in the time I've known her, the kid has already been growing on me too."

"She seems to like you well enough." I pointed out and that stretched his smile wider.

"I hope so. She seems nervous around me."

I squeezed my eyes shut, hating that this was something all the girls would be going through. "It's not you, I promise."

His smile dropped, and his body became stony beneath my hands. "It's men, isn't it."

I nodded, worried I would cry again if I spoke out loud. "Xavier-"

His hands cupped my face to force me to meet his eyes. "Tell me it's not what I think you mean by that."

I pinned my lips into a line, my eyes welling up as I tried to shove the haunting memories from my head. "I can't."

Letting go, he turned around his fists clenching and the muscles in his back rippling against the tight shirt he wore.

"Xavier-"

Quick as lightning he spun ninety degrees and slammed his hand down on the counter, the corner of the marble chipping off and clattering to the floor. I jumped, pressing my back against the door as the tears spilled over for the hundredth time that day.

"I'm sorry!" I cried as my back slid down the length of the door until I was curled on the floor. Instantly he was in front of me, reaching out to touch me, but stopped when I winced.

When he finally picked me up, his body had softened immensely and all his actions were slow and gentle like I was a child. "April, don't ever say your sorry for that." His voice matched his touch. "That will never be your fault, and I'm sorry I snapped. I'm not ever mad at you, I'm mad at the assholes who took you from me. I'm sorry I scared you."

I hadn't even realized we had left the bathroom until I calmed down enough to sit up out of his embrace. We were lying on the bed, his arms cradling me until I came out of whatever state his episode had put me in.

He took a deep breath, "Kallie, too?"

My own breath was shaky. "She's never said, but she's only five. I'm just assuming everyone endured some days of that."

His arms were like stone beneath my back, hard as rock. The rising and falling of his chest against mine became more rapid again, but the jaggedness of his breathing told me he was fighting the anger. "I can't-"

"Shh," I put a finger to his lips and he zeroed in on me, those blue eyes focusing on my finger as I slowly took it back. It calmed him down, though, and his breathing eased and his muscles slackened. "I'm safe now," I told him.

"I saw you." He blurted suddenly and I jerked away in surprise. "I didn't realize it was you right away, but my wolf did. I blame the darkness and horrible pungent smell the dungeon was under."

I froze as that sentence sunk into my brain. He'd been there, he'd seen it. When? "What are you talking about?"

Rolling away from me, he placed his hands over his eyes in distress. "If I had realized this sooner, I would've had you back a week earlier. I could've saved you, if I had only fought harder down there."

"Wh-" the word evaporated into a gasp, the image flooding my mind. The hallway door flinging open, a wolf as black as the midnight sky taking in the scene of eight girls starved to the bone sulking behind bars. "That was you!" The memory from only last week kept coming. The wolf's battle with my padlock before an enemy wolf attacked it until ultimately their fighting bent the bars of my cell enough I could leave.

"That was you!" I reiterated, louder this time. I giggled. "Xavier, it was your pack that initiated the battle?" Slowly, I climbed on top of him, straddling his waist. He tensed, but didn't remove his hands.

So, I removed them for him. "Xavier."

His eyes — blue as the ocean, matching his wolf's — finally settled on me, but it was still several long moments before he responded with his voice. "We got a lead, the first real lead since we started searching. It led us to the middle of absolutely nowhere, the only notice of civilization in a ten mile radius was that house.

"It looked normal, large enough to be a pack house but not so big it was the first thing we thought of. Except for the smell," his nose wrinkled in disgust. "It stank of wolves, but there was a special disorganization to it, yet not enough to be labeled as pure rogues."

"You investigated," I finished for him, "and you found us."

He nodded, his eyes still on me, but his hands had shifted to my hips. I sucked in a breath as the sparks ignited where his thumb sat beneath the hem of my shirt, but it didn't deter him from the story. I knew he wouldn't do anything, even with how I was sitting, simply because of the conversation we just had. I was in charge in that department, and we both knew it.

"It was all wrong right away. We simply knocked on the door and they just full on attacked us! The place turned into a frenzy immediately. I fought my way into the house, and it took me a while to find the basement and get down to it. When I did," he cleared his throat, seeming to choke a little. "It was horrible. I couldn't smell you, but I could smell enough to know I needed to find whatever hid down there."

"You opened the door and saw us."

"I didn't even recognize you, Ape," I shied at the old nickname, but I secretly loved hearing it again. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes as he kept talking. "After that wolf attacked me from behind" — I didn't want to tell him I was ninety percent sure that was Jacob — "I got lost in the battle and when we won, I went back to the cellar and everyone was gone. I wasn't sure if that meant I had saved everyone or lost everyone down there."

"Did you figure out it was me by then?"

His hands went back to his eyes and I instantly yearned for them to be touching me again. "That's the problem: I didn't realize it was you until just now, while I was thinking and you were already here in my arms. I think my wolf did though, that information just never reached me."

Grabbing his wrists, I pulled his hands off his face for the second time. "Xavier, that's okay. It was dark and chaotic in there." I sighed in admittance, "I didn't know that was your wolf either."

"I'd never shown you my wolf." He pointed out.

"I'd never shown you my fox."

"Fair enough."

I giggled, but to be honest I couldn't be sure why. "Xavier, you need to know that you did save us. When that wolf fought you, the bars of my cell bent enough that I could squeeze through and find the keys to our padlocks. I freed everyone else and then we made a run for the woods. We didn't know what was going on or who had found us and saved us, but it was you all along."

The wheels turned in his head as he thought over my words. "I saved you?"

Now I laughed, "yes!"

In a flash, he flipped our positions so he hovered above me. Barely hesitating, he kissed my lips, softly and slowly, as if he were afraid I'd shatter into pieces beneath him. The fireworks I had missed so much ignited where we touched, and all my worries and haunts were swept under the rug.

When we stopped for air, he rested his forehead against mine. "I still wish I could've taken you home the day we found that house."

My hands reached up to stroke the light stubble that had grown across his chin. "I know, so do I. But it's okay; I'm here now, it worked out."

"It's still working out," he told me, pecking my lips once before climbing off and standing up. He offered a hand and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet.

"What do you mean?"

"I think we have some details to work out with a very special red-headed little girl."