Her Hidden Pack (House of Wolves and Magic Book 4)

by Helen Scott

  When his arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me closer, I took that as a yes, and I vowed to make more time to cuddle with each of my mates. Sometimes sex wasn’t what we needed, sometimes it was just affection, nonsexual physical touch, and being seen as a person. After everything we’d been through, I thought all my mates could understand that. I only hoped they would open up to me when they felt secure enough to do so.

  23

  Nina

  When I woke up next, I was bathed in warm afternoon sunlight streaming in through the curtains, not the thick almost blackout ones, but the sheer ones that barely even filtered the light, just obscured us slightly. I didn’t remember coming back into the room with Tate, so he must have carried me in after I’d fallen back asleep. The rumble of my belly was the first thing I heard, followed swiftly by chuckles coming from all my mates.

  “Took you long enough to wake yourself up,” Blake said with a wink as he came and sat next to me on the bed.

  “Wake myself up?” I asked, my mouth feeling like sandpaper.

  Roman handed me a bottle of water as he said, “Your belly has been growling for the last hour or so.”

  “What time is it?” I took a mouthful of the refreshing cool liquid, trying to resist the urge to just down the entire bottle in one go.

  “Late afternoon,” Micah answered as he flopped down onto the end of the bed, making me spill water down my front as I had been going to take another drink at the time.

  I shot him a glare and pushed out of bed, stripping out of the shirt I’d been sleeping in and wrapping a towel around my chest. “I’m going to shower, then we should get some food before I eat you all.” I bared my teeth at them, but all I got were raised eyebrows and glances that said they were not taking my threat seriously. “And I don’t mean in a sexy way.”

  I stomped off into the bathroom, pretending to be frustrated, while they all laughed and began chatting amongst themselves. After the fastest shower I could manage and taking care of all my morning business, I was out and ready to go again in record time. “So where’s the closest place to get food?”

  “I found a diner earlier if you’re okay with some grease,” Tate said.

  “Always,” I replied, grinning at him.

  Our little pack made our way down a couple blocks to the diner that Tate had discovered at some point while I was sleeping. I wanted to give him a hard time about leaving, about just being outside while there were all kinds of people looking for us, but I knew as soon as I thought it, they probably wouldn’t have paid him any attention unless they recognized him.

  No, everyone was looking for me.

  Which was just as annoying as it sounded and made me feel self-centered to realize, even though it was almost the opposite. I didn’t want anyone other than my mates to give a shit about me. If I could, then I’d just hide in a cabin in the woods and call it done, but no one seemed willing to let me do that.

  The diner didn’t have a name as far as I could tell, there was simply a sign that read “Diner” as an arrow pointed toward the door. What had probably been bright red when the sign was first erected was now a faded pink, and the white around it was almost caramel in color. We went in and snagged a booth toward the back. It wasn’t at the very back, which was unfortunate, but it was close enough.

  I was squished between Blake and Roman, while Micah and Tate sat opposite us. A woman with bright, fire-engine red curly hair came over and brought a stack of glasses and a pitcher of water with her. “Welcome to City Lights Diner. What can I get you?”

  The guys all ordered burgers and fries, not to mention all the appetizers, if you could really call them that. It just seemed like an excessive number of sides to me.

  Part of my mind wondered if a place like this could be considered a bar? I didn’t think so, but what if Skuld had been mistaken in where she’d theoretically seen my fifth mate? What if he never actually went to bars and that was a one-off for a friend’s birthday or something? The questions plagued me and ate away at the confidence I had that we were going to find him.

  “I didn’t see anything on the news about what happened with those guys, so I assume that Jax took care of it,” Blake said quietly.

  “I figured,” I replied as I sipped on my water. It was callous but true. “If there’s one thing I know about Jax, it’s that his disdain for humans is almost as great as his obsession with me.” I kept my voice quiet, barely even a whisper, so I knew no one other than my mates could hear.

  There weren’t any shifters in the diner, I could tell that just by scent, but I was never sure which humans might be on the payroll of a shifter to work as informants. From my understanding, it was fairly common for alphas to have humans working as their eyes and ears around the edges of their territory. Just because we weren’t even close to the edge of Jax’s territory didn’t mean that he’d just let it go unmonitored. Something I was coming to learn about the man who so desperately wanted to be my mate was that he was more than a little paranoid. His plans had plans, and that meant that he wouldn’t be happy just monitoring the edges of his territory. He’d have his hooks throughout the region.

  Apparently, no one knew how to respond to my comment, because the next person that spoke was Micah as he asked, “Did you two have a nice little jaunt last night?” He looked between me and Tate.

  “Who says jaunt?” I asked with a giggle. It may have been a teeny bit forced, but seeing and feeling the tension break between my guys and me after a split second made it real. “I didn’t realize you were such an old man, Micah.”

  “Just been spending too much time with that old man,” Micah said feigning being grumpy at my comment as he nodded toward Roman.

  Roman simply raised an eyebrow as he looked between all of us. “With age comes experience, and I have enough to make you scream my name as you come on my cock in less than sixty seconds, faster than any of them. Or I could have you writhing in pleasure while I fuck and tease you for hours without needing my own release,” he said with a growl as he looked me dead in the eye, which was slightly awkward, given that he was sitting right next to me. It didn’t matter though. I still felt my body flush with desire and my cheeks heat in response to his words. When his hand landed on my thigh, just a touch higher than would be polite, it only made me more aware of him and the others.

  Dark chuckles erupted from around the table, and my body seemed to have a mind of its own as it kicked into high level horny at the memory of having them all in bed with me. I used my hair as a shield, thankful that I’d worn it down for once as I shook it over my shoulders and reached for my water once more, hoping the icy liquid could cool the heat that was building within me. When Roman’s hand slid higher and his fingers curled further in between my thighs, I could feel the heat flaring in my cheeks.

  His hand was straying closer and closer to the seam of my jeans, and I was torn equally between stopping him and seeing how far he’d go. Roman was private enough that I didn’t think it would be very far, but sometimes he surprised me. I wasn’t the only one waiting and watching, the rest of the guys were as well. We probably looked weird as hell to the rest of the diner patrons, all of us just sitting there quietly as they all stared at me and I blushed furiously. Roman’s fingers brushed the curve of my pussy through my jeans, and I had to stifle the gasp that left my mouth. I had not expected that. Each minute movement of his fingers made my pulse spike higher and my core clench with unfilled need.

  When the waitress returned a few tense minutes later with our food, Roman removed his hand before she ever would have even noticed it, and I was flooded with relief. For a moment there, I was sure they were about to torment me into an orgasm in the middle of the restaurant in broad daylight. The embarrassing thing was that I would have let them. One hundred percent.

  I totally wasn’t a nighttime and lights off kind of girl, but I wasn’t sure I was into quite such a public display either. For them, I would try though. There was nothing that I wouldn’t at least think
about when it came to playtime with my mates. Though I’d been with Roman in public before, it wasn’t quite the same. When we had been together outside the hospital, it was in an area that didn’t get any traffic. Sure, he talked about people watching and seeing us, but we both knew no one would. It had been night in a deserted area with hardly any lights, and no one had been looking in our direction.

  After pulling my thoughts away from sex, I thanked the waitress for the food and dug in as soon as it was polite to do so. Ever since we’d been unsure of where our next meals were coming from, I found I’d fallen back on old habits, eating as much as possible as fast as possible so I could at least feel full for a little while. It meant I was done before most of the guys. My plate was clear, down to the smear of ketchup that I’d been using for my fries. As much as I tried to ignore it, I caught the questioning glances as they were all barely half done with their food, the only one who I didn’t see it from was Roman.

  My eldest mate was well aware of where I’d come from and what I’d been through. We’d talked about it on multiple occasions, and I knew down to the marrow of my bones that I could do whatever I wanted in front of him and he wouldn’t bat an eye unless he was concerned for my safety. It wasn’t that I thought my unruliness and large appetite were going to scare off my other mates, far from it, but I hated feeling like I was drawing attention to myself via my actions. I figured it stemmed from trying to hide for most of my life.

  As they all had a strange almost secret conversation around me with glances and shoulder raises, I wondered how the fifth mate would fit with our little group. Would he judge me for eating two burgers, a basket of fries, fried pickles, and three slices of pie? If he did, then I thought the others would quickly sit him down and tell him how things were, but that didn’t mean I’d be comfortable around him, or at least not as comfortable as I was with my other mates.

  That all depended on me finding him though.

  I would swear it was like the moment I started looking for my mate, the harder he became to find. I’d practically stumbled across Tate, fought Blake, fucked Micah as soon as I laid eyes on him, and Roman had run into me. Literally. With his car.

  This guy though?

  Lucky number five?

  He was making me work for it, and it was pissing me off. I wanted to find him and move on. If I couldn’t, then we needed to come up with plans B, C, D, and E as to how we were going to get the hell out of dodge and avoid Jax for the rest of my life.

  “Whatever you’re worried about, you’re overthinking it.” Roman’s voice was quiet in my ear, as though he didn’t want the others to pick up on the fact that I was struggling. They all heard though, and I felt their attention zero in on me.

  “I just want to find him and get it over with, or if we can’t find him, then figure out where to go from here,” I replied.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Roman said.

  “We haven’t been looking that long, not really,” Blake added as Tate nodded along.

  “We’ve made it this far and found each other, we’ll find him as well, we just need to keep trying. We can’t give up, not yet,” Micah said, sounding almost like a general coaching his troops.

  I nodded at him and smiled since I wasn’t sure what to say. How many women could say that they’d found the love of their life four times and that all four of them were encouraging her to look for the fifth? I was beyond lucky, I knew that, and I knew they were all right as well. We just had to keep trying, keep believing that we would find him.

  24

  Nina

  I wasn’t sure whether it was the pep talk at the diner or the fact that I was feeling more upbeat since my discussion with the guys, but as I got ready to go out for the evening, I found myself putting on the cleanest T-shirt I could find and the shortest shorts to go with it. The T-shirt was threadbare, and it was easy to see the black bra I had on underneath, which made the guys raise their eyebrows when I exited the bathroom. It wasn’t a fancy bra by any means, so it wasn’t like it was worth showing off, but it was the cleanest bra I had. Micah was the first one to break out into a grin as I gave them a spin of my fanciest outfit, which wasn’t saying much, considering all I had was a duffel bag full of jeans and T-shirts.

  One of these days when this was all over, I’d wear a fancy dress and they’d all fall to my feet, drooling over how beautiful and sexy I was. I’d stand at the top of a staircase, and they’d all look up at me like I hung the moon and the stars. I couldn’t wait, even though the negative part of my brain decided to pipe up and ask if that would ever even happen at the rate we were going. I pushed the voice back down though and focused on the dream as we left the motel.

  We went to the closest bar, which was called Jimmy’s or Johnny’s or Jones’ or something like that, and it was leaning heavily into the Western theme. There were cowboy hats and lassos hanging from hooks on the wall, along with some of the biggest belt buckles I’ve ever seen in my life. The bar stools were saddles, not dainty little things either. Big honkin’ leather saddles. Just looking at them made my thighs ache, but part of me really wanted to go and sit on one. Sitting at the bar with your four lovers and trying to have a conversation was challenging though, so we ended up getting a booth.

  The faux leather was a caramel color and very worn. There was no creaking or squeaking as we all slid into our spots. Tate, of course, was the one that got us drinks, since he was the one with the credit card, and he came back with some slushy deliciousness for me and beers for all of them.

  Drinks in hand, we surveyed the bar. I wasn’t sure whether it was the scent of sweat or booze or the peanut shells that littered the floor, but I could barely smell anything, which wasn’t really ideal for a wolf that was on the run. At the very least, I should’ve been aware of whether or not there were other shifters in the bar, but I couldn’t tell.

  The only thing that I noticed was a guy at the end of the bar who was trying to pick a fight with the bartender. His muddy jeans and dirty flannel shirt, which was hanging open around a stained white undershirt, only seemed to add to his, uh, character. His olive skin was accentuated by close cropped dark hair and darker eyes from what I could see. He kept gesturing to one of the TVs above the bar that was playing an ice hockey game. I figured he was mad about the team, or maybe the bartender liked the other team or something like that. I didn’t understand humans and their sports.

  “Anything?” Roman asked as he took a swig from his beer bottle.

  I shook my head, disappointment filling me that, once again, we’d gone out, spent money that we didn’t have, and I had yet to find my fifth mate.

  “That’s okay,” Blake said with a smile. “We don’t need to find him right away. We have plenty of time.”

  I looked him dead in the eye and tried not to be harsh as I said, “That’s not what Skuld made me feel like when we talked. She acted as though I had very little time to find him. Like the longer it took, the more danger we would all be in.”

  “Surely if she’s one of the fates, she knows that you’ll find him when you find him. There’s no rushing this. Everything’s already decided, isn’t it?” Blake asked, his eyebrows pinching together in concern.

  “Apparently, it’s not all written. It’s not all predetermined, and some of it is up to us to make it happen,” I replied, unsure how to explain it any further than that.

  Fortunately, a blast of music saved me from any further mind-bending conversation about the fates and what they knew or didn’t know. As though there was some widely known command at the beginning of the song that started playing along with a guitar riff, a few different groups of people got up, and for the first time, I realized there was a small dance floor off to one side. If I hadn’t seen people actually dancing there, I would have figured it was for live music or something. Instead of gyrating and moving like I’d seen on many a TV show, I watched as they all lined up and started kicking and side stepping randomly, scuffing their shoes against the floor as a guy sang about
his aching broken heart. Most of them had their thumbs hooked through their belt loops, and those that didn’t were clapping occasionally with a specific beat. Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do and when, like all of the moves had been agreed on beforehand, even though I was fairly sure that they didn’t all know one another.

  Was this what a flash mob was? I’d only ever seen one on TV before, so I wasn’t sure.

  The whole thing made me feel like I was watching some kind of strange ritual, one that I didn’t understand and had never seen before. About the closest thing I could think of was the Irish step dancing or Highland dancing that my mom had been super into.

  The song changed, and even more people flooded the small area as a woman started singing about being there for the party. I watched as there was a lot of stomping and turning, clapping and kicking. The whole thing fascinated me.

  “What are they doing?” I whispered to Tate as we watched.

  He looked at me like I was crazy before he said, “Line dancing. It’s a thing that people who like country music do.”

  “That’s line dancing?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, whenever I’d heard about it before, it always seemed much more…stodgy.

  He laughed and nodded.

  “I want to take a closer look. Does anyone want another drink?” I asked as I snatched up my empty glass and waved for Tate to scoot out of the booth so I could get out as well.

  All of them nodded, and Tate followed me as I went up to the bar with the aim of getting more drinks. When we arrived at the bar, the man behind the counter gave me a wary look. When Tate stepped up next to me, I could practically see the tension in his face fade, which seemed weird, but I knew some men were like that with women. Why you’d choose to work a job where you had to deal with women all the time, I didn’t know, but that was his business.