by R. E. Butler
“Probably, but Malachi made them swear to watch over me while he was gone and he’d break every bone in their bodies if they went off for a fuck and left me alone when the males were acting up.”
Malachi, Mia’s older brother, was one of the most serious males that Brynn had ever known. He was really handsome, with electric blue eyes and a kind heart. But unlike Mia, he had left Wilde Creek when their parents did, and joined up with their new pack.
Brynn was glad that Mia had two guys watching out for her. She wondered if the males even cared who they had sex with, or if they were just trying to prove that they were virile at a time when their status in the pack was in question.
“It’s hard to be a female wolf, isn’t it?”
Mia shrugged. “Sometimes. The annual heat-cycle is pretty miserable, but I love being able to shift and hunt.”
The heat-cycle was another thing Brynn was glad she didn’t have to worry about. Mia had a male friend who’d helped her through her heat-cycle each year since she turned twenty-five. He was from another pack and she traveled to his home and went through the cycle with him. They were friends and heat-cycle-buddies, but nothing more.
“Do you think you and Reese could ever be more than fuck-buddies?”
Her brow arched. “No. And he’s getting mated at the end of the year to someone he went to school with, so this was our last heat-cycle together. He didn’t ask her to be his mate until after my cycle, though, so I was glad for that.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah. But I don’t have to worry about it until next year, and who knows, maybe I’ll meet my mate and won’t have to worry about my heat-cycle ever again.”
“I don’t have to worry about any of the stuff that you do as a wolf.”
“True, but being a wolf does have its advantages. The pack is like a second family, and since I miss my parents and brother, it’s nice to have the pack.” She took a drink of her soda and said, “I know that some of the stuff seems barbaric and backwards, but the pack is there for its members no matter what. Last year when the tornado passed through town, the roof of Luna’s was destroyed. Quentin and Paula, who own the restaurant, didn’t get enough from the insurance to cover the cost of the replacement, so the pack came together to help. Some of the males removed the old roofing tiles to cut down on costs, some of the females helped clean up the interior, and others donated money to make up the difference.”
Brynn hummed in her throat but didn’t say anything.
“When my mom got sick after I was born, she told me the females came and cleaned and cooked for her, my dad, and Malachi for a whole month until she was well. Some of the females took shifts taking care of me and Malachi so she could rest. She told me that if they hadn’t stepped in to help that she would have been in misery trying to do everything.”
Brynn looked at her friend with a frown. Mia asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds so strange. On the one hand, you have all these archaic male and female roles in the pack, but on the other hand, everyone comes together in crises to help out. It seems like a dichotomy.”
Mia shrugged. “That’s family, isn’t it? You might fight, but you’re still family. The pack is just a big, extended family. We squabble, sometimes with fangs and claws, but at the end of the day we’re still family.”
That made Brynn frown further. She didn’t have first-hand experience with a functional family. Her parents had divorced when she was fourteen. She couldn’t say that she wasn’t glad they’d split up, because in some ways she was. Her parents had fought like cats and dogs. For most of her childhood, she thought shouting matches were how normal families spent their evenings. It wasn’t until she slept over at Mia’s at the tender age of nine that she discovered that most families didn’t yell at all. And if the parents were upset, they would take their argument away from the kids so they didn’t upset them.
Her mother had taken off with another man and Brynn had stayed with her dad in Wilde Creek. From time to time, her mom breezed back into her life when she wanted something from her, but for the most part, Brynn hadn’t ever been able to rely on her.
“Wolves mate for life, right?” Brynn asked.
“Sure. It’s like marriage.”
She snorted. “Marriages break up.”
Mia shook her head. “Maybe bad ones, but I’m pretty sure that no good marriages end. So yeah, mating is like a good marriage and lasts forever.”
The lights dimmed and the previews started, so they tabled their conversation until later. Brynn rubbed absently at her stomach, wondering what her life would have been like if she’d been born a wolf and her parents had never gotten divorced.
* * * * *
Acksel inhaled the scent of his father’s famous beer-can chicken as he sat down at the patio table on Sunday night, joining Eveny and Luke. His dad placed three chickens on a large platter, and Acksel reached for one, stabbing it with his fork and lifting the whole bird onto his plate. His dad did the same thing, tearing a leg off with his hand and taking a bite. Luke, on the other hand, used a knife and took the breasts off the other bird and gave one to Eveny and put one on his own plate, while Eveny scooped several spoonfuls of potato salad and grilled vegetables on their plates.
He had just come from his second weekly meeting with the council he had reinstated after the full moon. His dad had been there and come straight home after the meeting to cook their weekly family dinner. Acksel had stayed afterwards to speak to two of the council members about someone handling the background checks for some wolves from other packs who wanted to join up in Wilde Creek and had gotten delayed by more than an hour.
He’d been having dinner every Sunday night with his dad and sister for as long as he could remember. His dad wasn’t the best cook in the world, but he could grill like no one’s business, and he took family dinners very seriously.
Luke took a bite of chicken and said, “How are things going with the council, Acksel?”
There was a time when Acksel wouldn’t have allowed any talk at the table about pack business with a human around, but Luke had grown on him.
“Good.” Acksel used his hands to pull a drumstick from the chicken. “The council is glad to be used again.”
Instead of weekly high-ranked meetings, the highly ranked wolves would now only meet the night before the full moon to discuss any issues. Acksel was using the pack rankings to his advantage now, thanks to his dad’s help in setting up the new ranking system.
He was still the alpha, still the ruler. Everyone was accountable to him. Underneath him, the beta handled discipline issues, was the peacekeeper, rule-keeper, and authority when Acksel wasn’t around. The theto was the third-ranked, similar to the beta but underneath him, and was the head of the protectors. The protectors were ranked underneath the theto, from the fourth position down through the ranks. Finally were the lowest omegas, those wolves who were unranked, either too weak through injury or age to be of use to the pack, or chose not to engage in ranking fights for one reason or another. Underneath the omegas were the pups who were too young to shift but were still accountable to the pack and alpha for their behavior.
Before things changed within the pack, Acksel had not divided power to his people and had taken on all the responsibilities himself. Instead of letting the theto have meetings with the protectors, Acksel included the highest-ranked protectors in his weekly meetings and that had done nothing but inflate their egos and cause trouble. Acksel could see now that the pack was running more smoothly already. With the rankings settled and members getting into a groove with their roles, there was peace with the pack that hadn’t existed since the previous alpha.
Eveny speared something green and leafy and said, “I really like the way you have the pack structured now. The protectors have been patrolling like police around town. They even stopped one of the she-wolves from getting mauled by a human.”
Acksel put down the drumstick and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “W
hat?”
“You hadn’t heard yet? It just happened last night. It was Mia. She was at Poke’s for a few drinks with a human friend, and a few human males hassled her friend and Mia stood up for her. Luke kicked the males out but they were apparently waiting for them outside. If the protectors hadn’t been patrolling, they probably would have gotten hurt.”
Acksel knew that Mia was very close to Brynn. He’d seen them together around town. Trying to sound unaffected, he asked as casually as he could, “Who was the human woman?”
Luke shrugged and poked around at the vegetables. “Brynn, I think? She was pretty shaken up, but the patrol took both of them home and the human males were taken to the police station and locked up until they sobered; then they were escorted out of town.”
Acksel barely stopped a snarl of outrage. Brynn had been hassled? Unacceptable! He might not be able to be with her, but that didn’t mean that he wanted her to be harmed.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Eveny asked in a low voice.
“What?”
“Your eyes are flashing amber. Are you mad? Did the protectors do something wrong? I know that she’s human, but Brynn and Mia are best friends. Hell, I think Brynn was even in the same class as you, and no one should be hassled.”
“I’m not angry, Ev,” Acksel said, breathing through the rage and willing his wolf to calm down. He focused on his meal, promising his growling wolf that he would check on Brynn as soon as he left.
His dad changed the subject to discuss the Halloween decorations that Eveny had strewn over the front of the house and Acksel was grateful for the distraction. Eveny enjoyed decorating for the holidays, and apparently had enough left over from decorating the home she shared with Luke to make their dad’s home look like the seasonal aisle at Target had thrown up all over it. Fake cobwebs covered every shrub, lighted bats, crows, and ghosts hung from the roof of the porch, and pumpkin and skull-shaped lights were draped around the front door and windows.
When the meal was over, Acksel would normally have helped with the dishes — or at least watched his dad and Eveny do the dishes and had a beer before heading home — but tonight he couldn’t stop thinking about Brynn. Not that it was anything new. He’d been unable to shake the image of the sweet little human no matter what he’d tried.
He found himself driving by her house several times a week, even going so far as to shift and spy on her from across the street. After saying goodbye to his family, he drove to Brynn’s street and stopped at the entrance to the cul-de-sac. The lights were on in her home. The curtains were drawn, but he took it as a good sign that she was there. He was a little pissed at Mia for taking Brynn to a bar, even Poke’s, but he had no right to interfere in Brynn’s life.
As he stared down the street, he wondered what she was doing. Was she dating someone? What if she’d already moved on? After the first two weeks, she’d stopped calling him. If he talked to her, he was going to want to see her. And if he saw her then he was going to do something stupid like ask her to be his mate and toss her over his shoulder and take her home forever, consequences be damned.
But those consequences were exactly the reason he couldn’t even risk talking to her. Another week had passed and she hadn’t called him, and that was okay. Right? That’s what he wanted. Right?
Laying his head on the steering wheel, he argued with his wolf for several minutes, fighting the desire to race down the street and barge into her home. Eventually, his desire for her safety overruled his emotions and he drove home.
He walked into his empty house and went to the fridge, grabbing a beer and twisting off the top. Taking a long drink, he rubbed absently at his chest. The tattoo he’d gotten right after the September full moon was completely healed but he was very aware of it whenever he thought of Brynn. On first view, it appeared to be just a wolf tattooed over his heart. But if one were to look closer, they would see a name hidden within the wolf’s fur just over its heart: Brynn.
He might not be able to have her, but he could carry her with him forever. It was a poor substitution, but it was all he could afford to ensure her safety.
Chapter 6
A week before Halloween, Brynn stood next to the stepladder that Dr. Kimmi was standing on. She was holding a string of pumpkin lights for Dr. Kimmi while she attached them to little hooks to string them over the reception desk. Brynn wasn’t much for Halloween aside from passing out candy to the little kids that came by trick-or-treating, but she did like seeing the reception area looking festive.
Brynn’s stomach churned as she looked up and watched Dr. Kimmi work. She was starving, but everything she tried to eat tasted like chalk and made her feel like throwing up. Closing her eyes, she lowered her head and breathed through her mouth. She felt dizziness swamp her and she opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. She dropped the string of lights and listed to the side, unable to stop from falling as her vision darkened.
Brynn blinked as a bright light was shone into her eyes. She put her hand up, trying to shield herself, but Dr. Kimmi brushed her hand aside. “Scared me to death, honey.”
She looked into Brynn’s eyes again with the penlight and then clicked it off. Nila’s fingers were pressed into Brynn’s wrist and she was looking at her watch.
“What happened?” Brynn asked.
“I could ask you the same thing. One minute you were holding the pumpkin lights and listening to me talk about our weekend plans, and the next minute you were on the floor and unresponsive. I had Frank carry you into an examination room so you could be comfortable. You’ve been out of it for a few minutes.”
Brynn sat up slowly. Her head swam and she thought she might throw up, but the feeling passed after a long moment.
Dr. Kimmi frowned and said, “Honey, are you late?”
“What time is it?” Brynn asked in confusion.
Nila chuckled and released Brynn’s wrist. “No, sweetie, she wants to know if you might be pregnant.”
“Oh!” Brynn blushed and shook her head. “No, it’s not possible.”
Dr. Kimmi said, “Are you sure?” She sounded skeptical. Before Brynn could answer, Dr. Kimmi said, “You told me a few days ago that you weren’t drinking coffee anymore because it didn’t taste good to you. Did you eat anything today?”
“Nothing tastes good,” Brynn said.
“No harm can come from taking a test. If you’re not pregnant, then maybe it’s something simple like a mild cold that’s messing with your appetite. It happens to the best of us.”
Brynn took the sample cup that Nila got for her into the small bathroom, leaned against the closed door, and put her head in her hands. Although her first reaction had been disbelief, after a quick recap of the last five weeks of her life, she knew that she hadn’t gotten her period. She wasn’t really sure how she’d not been aware of missing it, but at this moment it seemed like a really stupid thing not to pay attention to.
After filling the cup, she carried it out into the examination room and gave it to Nila, who stuck a pregnancy test into it. Brynn knew without watching the strip change colors that she was pregnant. Since she’d only had sex with one man in the last several months of her life, that meant the asshole who had never called her back after their amazing night together was the father of her baby.
Nila turned around from the counter and looked at Brynn. She was smiling in a sad way, her eyes filled with compassion, and Brynn started to cry. Within seconds, Nila had her arms around Brynn and was holding her while she wept. The unfairness of the situation swamped her.
As Brynn tried to control her raging emotions, Nila said, “Doc, can you give us a minute?”
“Sure,” Dr. Kimmi said.
When they were alone, Nila looked at Brynn and said, “I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
“I’m not. It was a one-night-stand.”
Nila hummed in her throat. “You don’t strike me as the one-night-stand sort, Brynn.”
She chuckled and a sob caught in her throat. “I’m
not. I…didn’t know it was only one night or I would have said no.”
Sighing, Nila rubbed Brynn’s shoulders. “I’m here if you need to talk. Trust me. I know all about making bad decisions. But I don’t regret Jack, no matter what brought him into my life.”
Nila left Brynn alone in the exam room. Sitting in one of the chairs, she stared at her hands. Five weeks pregnant. She didn’t know how she’d make things work, but she knew that she wanted to keep her baby. She’d think about what to do with Acksel later, after she had time to come to terms with what happened.
* * * * *
Two days later, Brynn sat in her dad’s kitchen after telling him the news. She wasn’t surprised that he was both happy and unhappy.
“I thought kids your age knew all about birth control.” He sat a glass of milk in front of her. After her embarrassing passing-out episode at work, Dr. Kimmi had given her a handful of pamphlets about pregnancy, a container of prenatal vitamins, and a stern lecture about eating right.
“Dad.” She rolled her eyes and took a long drink of milk. “It’s complicated.”
He arched a dark brow at her and leaned on the counter. Two steaks were cooking on the stove and the scent made her mouth water. “What about the father? You let him know?”
“I tried. He won’t call me back.”
Putting on her big-girl panties, she had called Acksel three times in the last two days, hoping that he would either answer the phone when she called or return her messages, but he had done neither. At first she was sad. Then she was pissed. She could have said in the messages that she was pregnant with his baby, but she had decided from the beginning that she wouldn’t do that. All she said was that it was important for him to call her.
She didn’t want him to contact her just because of the baby. There was a part of her, however small it might be, that still hoped he actually cared about her and that something besides his giant jackass-ness was keeping him from calling. That he’d show up at her doorstep like he’d done before, except not drunk this time, and tell her what a mistake it had been to walk away that night and that he’d done everything he could to get back to her as fast as possible.
