Pact of the Pack

by Deidre Huesmann

  Shaking her head in disgust, Lacey stomped up the stairs and back to her room.

  Holden sat on the floor across from the others, assessing them slowly. Carly he remembered vividly, as she really did look a lot like Rachael’s dead best friend. During his time at Olivia’s compound, looking at her had brought back uncomfortable memories of how Vera’s neck had crunched in his hands; her eyes going from confused to startled and then just... vacant. Carly even shared the dead teen’s crooked teeth, though hers were on her lower jaw instead.

  Maryanne he also recalled. They had spoken some about her past. In fact, her privately admitting Etan had slaughtered her parents had both made Holden sympathetic to her as well as solidifying his need to get Nadine out of their clutches. And then there was Owen, the somewhat rude, exuberant kid who had barely reached the age of 17 before his infection. Holden wasn’t certain to his story. He knew only that Owen loved to fish as a human, to hunt as a lycan, and what excited him most were bears—the gay kind, not the beast.

  With a tight smile, Holden said, “So, what’s the deal?”

  Carly looked to her packmates. When they were of no help, she sighed and said, “Like I said, we want to defect. Olivia’s... she’s, uh....”

  “Cra-a-a-azy,” sang Owen. Despite the disgusted face he’d made earlier, he snagged a fry from Laelia’s hand. When she glared at him, he sneered and bit into it with deliberation.

  “No kidding,” said Holden dryly.

  Maryanne shrugged. Her voice was quiet but intense, commanding attention in a strange way. “We always kind of knew, but she didn’t really lose it until after Etan. Then that guy rejected her and she went bonkers.”

  “She got us all together,” explained Carly. “Said Aaron was the one who killed Etan and made Rudy an orphan. But—”

  “The dumb bitch forgot that she already told us you killed him,” cut in Owen. His green eyes glittered.

  Carly reddened. “Owen, shut up. I’m trying to talk!”

  Surprisingly, he appeared chastened. Owen sat back and rested his weight on his hands.

  After taking a deep breath, Carly continued in calmer tones. “Like he said, she already told us what you did. Some believed her anyway—she’s the alpha, after all—but the rest of us didn’t. So when she declared war, we decided to find you instead.”

  “Most of us who left did,” said Maryanne softly. “Nobody knows where Seritta and the baby went.”

  Holden tensed at hearing Nadine’s child was missing. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of that now. As much as he missed Nadine, and would normally be willing to honor her memory by seeking her son, he already had plans in motion. Silently he asked for her forgiveness and to watch over her baby. Then he returned his attention to Carly. “What about the other kids?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Olivia had Avery watching them. We couldn’t get them away—and anyway, they’re treated pretty well.”

  Yes. Olivia and Etan seemed to have had a nasty habit of treating children well, but the adults in their pack as disposable. Holden sighed and leaned forward, his elbow on one knee and chin cradled in the palm of his hand. “Why me?” he asked mildly. “I know my former alpha was with you recently.”

  To his delight, all three made faces.

  “I thought he was too weird,” admitted Carly.

  “Didn’t trust him for a second,” said Owen. “Olivia may be nutso, but that dude just gave me a bad feeling.”

  Maryanne was the last to weigh in. “I thought about it at first, but... well, part of the reason Olivia went crazy was because of him. Once she found out he was sleeping with that human they rescue—uh....”

  Holden nodded. “They told you they rescued her from me. It’s fine. Continue.”

  Looking mildly relieved, Maryanne said, “Anyway, once Olivia found out, that set her off. Before they went to ‘rescue’ that girl—” Holden appreciated the quotation marks with her fingers. “—that guy had been all over her. Not in a gross, obvious way, but he was into her. And if not, he was pretending hard.” She shrugged. “As far as I could see, he either led her on or used and tossed her. Not much better than Etan.”

  “Looks a lot like him, though,” pointed out Owen.

  Carly shook her head. “Etan was huge. That guy was scrawny.” Then, when Owen snorted, she glanced at Holden and covered her mouth. Her cheeks turned pink. “I—not that skinny is bad—muscles are great like that—just, compared to Etan—”

  Holden was glad he’d questioned his misgivings before. Though Carly looked like Vera, she behaved very differently. And he certainly appreciated their mutual assessment of his former alpha.

  “It’s cool,” he said with a grin. “I know what you meant.”

  Carly smiled.

  Apparently unhappy Holden’s attention was now divided more than ever, Laelia scooted away from Maryanne, closer to him. Holden took note but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her.

  “So,” he said. “I’ll admit I’m moved by your words. But you know how this looks, right? I’m not interested in opening what little pack I have left to a massacre from the inside. Even if you’re being honest, I’d have to play safe and—”

  Owen suddenly sat upright. “Wait,” he cut in. Once shining like emeralds with glimmers of gold, his eyes darkened like a forest plunged into night. “We thought you might think like that. And we don’t blame you. So we brought a sort of... not a peace offering, but I guess proof. That we mean what we say, and we’re done with Olivia and her bullshit.”

  Holden raised an eyebrow.

  Heaving his shoulders, Owen snagged the cooler at his side and shoved it toward Holden. He pulled it closer—Wouldn’t that just be hilarious, if it was a bomb? he thought to himself—and cracked it open.

  Beside him, Laelia emitted a blood-curdling scream. She scrambled away from Holden, practically climbing up the nearest wall in sheer horror.

  A door slammed open upstairs, and he heard Lacey’s voice from the top bannister. “For God’s sake, Holden, what—oh, Jesus.” She swore. In Holden’s periphery, he saw her clamp a hand over her nose and mouth.

  The smell wasn’t great, he agreed. And the sight was grisly, even for him.

  As calmly as he could, he said, “Why her arm and head?”

  The three lycans looked sheepish. Not at all ashamed or sick, he realized. They were severely serious.

  “We were just going to cut off her arm,” began Carly.

  “But she was screaming too much,” interrupted Owen. He seemed to have a penchant for doing that. “We thought the arm might be enough at first, but then we thought, well, he’d think we just burned some poor sap and passed it off as Olivia.”

  Maryanne lifted one shoulder. “It shut her up.”

  Holden replaced the lid. Though he didn’t typically approve of such gruesome methods, he had to admit that the others had flair. Olivia was very much dead, and the proof was right in front of him. They couldn’t take his gift with them; not to the city limits. Tonight would be another one of digging.

  But the potential packmates had certainly made their point.

  So he smiled at them. “Well then. Carly, Owen, Maryanne. Welcome to the family.”

  Chapter Seven

  Getting Rachael out of the hotel would have been challenging, but doable. Aaron’s plan had been to cover her festering bite wound, openly carry her out, and make a big show of ordering Jackson to drive her to the hospital.

  She wouldn’t go, of course—humans didn’t know how to treat a lycan infection, and most didn’t even know they existed. But it had held a good chance of a smooth escape from the hotel.

  A smooth escape no longer appeared viable.

  The addition of the girl—Seritta, he already knew from his time at the Paradise compound—wasn’t a big deal. She could be played off as a niece, especially if she was an adept actress. It was the baby who complicated matters.

  Initially he’d been furious with Nathan. Already their situation was precarious; adding mo
re wood to the fire obviously didn’t help. But Rachael’s brief minute of consciousness had tempered his fury, and afterward Aaron could admit he would have done the same thing in the end. Seritta seemed genuine, and the baby had done nothing wrong.

  But it wasn’t just a baby—it was a lycan baby, doomed to infancy and toddlerhood for a minimum of thirty years. And if what Olivia had said was true (in spite of her lunacy, he had no doubts here), then Rudy was only a couple years into his life.

  So he had to amend the plan. The problem was, Aaron wasn’t certain how. Explaining away the presence of an infant was a lot more difficult than that of a nine-year-old girl.

  He fumed in the hotel room, all too aware of the ticking clock. Seritta tended to the fussy baby in the adjoining room, subverting all attempts to help at first. But eventually, after the baby ate and she began to look weary, Seritta willingly passed the child off to Eva.

  And Eva seemed utterly in bliss.

  Aaron shook his head, reaching out to wipe Rachael’s perspiring forehead with a damp rag. She muttered but didn’t wake.

  Beside him Nathan said, “I’m really sorry.”

  His jaw set, Aaron said briefly, “You did nothing I would not have.”

  “But you’re still mad.”

  Of course he was. Aloud Aaron replied, “At the situation, Nathan. Not necessarily at you.”

  Relief seeped into the boy’s face.

  “So what now?” asked Jackson mutedly from his seat across the room. He kept glancing at his wife, but she appeared preoccupied with rocking Rudy. “Rachael’s still passed out, and we can’t stay here for the next month. Plus we have two extra little kids.”

  “M’not that little,” Seritta said crossly from the other room. She lay upon Nathan and Ana Sofia’s bed, one skinny arm covering her eyes. Ana Sofia sat cross-legged beside her, absorbed in drawing on a hotel notepad with a cheap pen.

  Jackson rolled his eyes. “You’re little enough. How old are you, anyway? In real years, not what you’re supposed to say you are.”

  Seritta sighed in annoyance, never moving her arm. “Twenty-something? Thirty? I don’t know. I stopped counting. Doesn’t make a difference anymore.”

  That wasn’t necessarily a bad practice. Aaron’s first alpha, Sanjana, had tried to impart wisdom upon him about not taking on human vanity. Aaron himself had never been entirely successful in following that advice. He had to silently applaud the girl who could.

  “Not that much older than me,” murmured Eva. Rudy whimpered in her arms, and she shushed him softly, a tiny smile playing upon her lips.

  Aaron tried not to grimace. He was aware of Eva’s desire to be a mother, just as she was aware of the fate of those lycan-born. It didn’t seem to matter to her. She believed she could still give a perpetual child a great life.

  Not that he doubted her abilities. That was far from the problem. His only experience with small children in a pack was Nathan, and that was as far as he preferred to take it. At the same time, Aaron was not one to forbid his pack from having children. Doing so was an understandable urge—one he didn’t share, but understandable nonetheless.

  It would complicate matters, particularly when it came to his role as alpha. While Jackson and Eva would be expected to parent, Aaron’s authority could not be undermined. He may not have had the personal experience, but he was well aware of a mother’s protectiveness.

  If and when Eva fell pregnant, they would need to discuss the matter. For now, his focus had to stay on their present predicament.

  Quietly, he said, “We need to move. Sooner rather than later.” His primary plan was still in the works, but he had plenty of options for backups. “I have secured a location in the middle of the city under an assumed name. The location is crawling with unseemly people, so our scents ought to remain masked if we are cautious about entering and leaving. We only need to figure out how to get everybody there safely.”

  “Well, you better hurry,” said Seritta. The girl finally sat up, her poof of curls practically bouncing her into position as she moved. “Olivia could be here any minute.”

  “How did you come by this information?” asked Aaron without taking his eyes off Rachael.

  “You can’t take someone’s niece without them huntin’ you down,” said Seritta. “I don’t know where some of ‘em are, but a couple wanted out. They split with me early on. And I know the old man’s with the boys. But for sure she took Cindy, Audrey, and Vahn.”

  Aaron frowned, trying to recall their faces. The only one who immediately came to mind was Cindy, since she’d been involved in his capture. The other two he vaguely remembered, but the details of their features were fuzzy.

  “So that makes four perfectly able-bodied lycans on our tail,” he murmured. “It will be more difficult to shake them all off, but it is not impossible.”

  “Then let’s go-o-o,” complained Seritta.

  Heat raised his blood temperature to boiling levels. But before Aaron could rebuke the girl, one of his charges snapped.

  “God, shut up already,” shouted Jackson. He glowered toward the room, the angle of the walls making it impossible to see Seritta, but he ranted in her direction anyway. “We’re already taking you in even though we could turn you loose and keep the baby. Quit whining!”

  Aaron narrowed his eyes. “Jackson.”

  Either he didn’t hear his alpha, or Jackson was past the point of caring. “We have enough problems with two kids already, now we have four, and my sister’s just been infected. Try thinking of someone else for once and—”

  “Jackson.”

  Finally, the young man shut up. Aaron glowered at him before turning to Seritta. She sat up on the queen-sized bed, her face flushed dark with restrained fury.

  Evenly, he said, “We will leave once it is safe, and not a moment sooner. I apologize for the delay, but the baby complicates things.”

  “He has a name,” growled Seritta. “It’s Rudy. And just give him a minute. He’ll be ready to go in no time.”

  Aaron raised an inquiring eyebrow at her, but before he could say anything, the familiar sound of bones snapping flooded the room. He bolted to his feet, and Eva cried out.

  The young woman didn’t drop the child, but she stared in shock as the bundle wailed, shifted, and growled pathetically. Seritta just watched patiently. But for Rachael, who remained practically comatose, they all stared at the grotesque scene before them. Seritta approached the Eva and opened her arms in demand. Eva obliged without question.

  Seritta held a small wolf cub in her arms. A tiny black nose poked out from beneath pastel blue blankets, and the cub whimpered. She grinned and shifted so the cub could snuggle against her easier, and then she looked up to them with pride.

  “I don’t know why he does it when he does,” explained Seritta. “But sometimes he changes. Makes it easier to carry him around.”

  “So that’s how ya got him here,” said Nathan, seemingly impressed.

  “Yup.”

  Aaron flashed the girl a sharp smile. “Well then. This makes matters quite a bit easier. The only question is: how well can you act?”

  Seritta shrugged and said, “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out.”

  Indeed, they would.

  After rapping out quick instructions to the pack, Aaron went into a small bag he and Rachael were meant to use during their transportation of few belongings.

  He pulled out an unwashed shirt of his and, with Nathan’s help, propped her up and pulled it over her. As he fastened the buttons he was relieved that her bite marks could be covered. Even with the wound cleaned of blood, it looked ghastly.

  Within minutes they were out the door and down the stairs. When they entered the main lobby, Aaron and his pack began the performance of a lifetime.

  “Once you get to the hospital, call us,” he said to Jackson, handing Rachael off to him. His girlfriend groaned but otherwise didn’t stir. “We will join you as soon as possible.”

  “Got it,” said Jackson.
>
  Seritta piped up as though concerned. “Is Auntie gonna be okay?”

  Well done, thought Aaron.

  Jackson nodded curtly to the girl and glanced back at Aaron. “I’ll call you as soon as we know what’s going on. See you in a bit.”

  Then he left, and nobody stopped him. In fact, a few got out of the way as he made a beeline for the parking garage. Were Jackson not acting, Aaron might have smiled. Instead he waved for Eva and the younger ones to follow him to the front counter and began to check out.

  While he quietly argued cancellation fees with a surly clerk, Nathan and Ana Sofia conversed with each other in Spanish. Seritta stared at them but, apparently, didn’t know enough to speak along with them. Her full lips pursed and she petted the cub beneath the blue blankets. Eva hung behind, her expression one of slight boredom.

  The clerk finally noticed Seritta. “What is that?” he asked incredulously.

  Seritta glared up at him. “My puppy.”

  “We don’t allow—geez.” The clerk sighed, his patience clearly worn thin as though it were the end of his shift. “Pet damages will be billed to you. You will not be refunded for the extra two days. I don’t know when the last time you checked into a hotel was, but it doesn’t work like that anymore. Not here. We’ve lost out on reservations moving things around for you as it is.”

  “Yes,” said Aaron dryly. “I can see the loss of business hitting you quite hard.”

  “Look, I’m just the receptionist. If you want more, you’ll have to file a complaint.”

  Aaron had no intention to do so, but keeping up the act would cast at least a little doubt as to his immediate identity. To Olivia it might not make a difference, but if Holden were to return, he might question a story about Aaron being difficult, given he usually went through these motions as quickly and quietly as possible. So he continued to argue.

  Behind him, he heard Eva murmur, “Honey, why don’t you let me take the puppy? He needs a good place to lie down.”

  Seritta mumbled something that sounded like protest, but within a moment Eva was at Aaron’s side with a blue bundle in her arms. Aaron gave her his attention while the clerk typed furiously on his computer.