“Not all of them. We divide them by how much they know and how good they are. Not all of them will end up in the pack’s security team, though. You’ll want to talk with Duncan and Maxine to assess their level.”
“Does that mean you’re giving me the job?”
“After you talk with Duncan and Maxine and possibly give them a demonstration of what you can do, yes. They and Nick will be the ones to decide if you’re skilled enough to do it.”
Craig hadn’t thought it would be easy to get the job, so he wasn’t surprised. “Aren’t three teachers enough already? You only have twelve recruits.”
“Nick doesn’t teach. He has enough to do with his job and being the pack’s beta. I just want him to be there and give me his opinion, and if you do get the job, I’ll be able to take Duncan off it. He’s good, but he’s too close in age to some of them, and some are his friends. He’s not really made for a teacher’s position, but he’s the only one who agreed to do it.”
Craig nodded. “When will the test be?”
“I’ll call Nick and check when his next free day is. Of course, it could change, since he’s a detective, but we’ll start from there. I want them to see you both fighting and teaching.”
“No problems. You know where to find me.”
Kameron smiled. “Yeah, in the room next door.”
Craig was living in the alpha’s house at the moment, but if Kameron decided to give him the job, he would have to find himself a house. “Are there any empty houses in the pack territory?”
“There are. Some of the members were expelled some days ago, and the houses they lived in are empty. I can have someone show them to you if you want. You won’t have to pay rent, but you’ll have to pay for any remodeling you’ll want to do, and of course the pack will pay you a monthly salary.”
It sounded too good to be true, and Craig let himself hope he would get the job.
“Oh, if you do pass the tests, I want you to do something for me.”
Craig grimaced. “I knew it was too good to be true.”
“It’s nothing bad,” Kameron said, waving Craig’s worries away. “I don’t know how much you know about the company’s experiments exactly, and I’ll tell you more about it later, but I want you to assess the level of three people.”
That didn’t sound so bad, but Craig couldn’t help but think Kameron wasn’t telling him something. “That’s it? I have to make them fight and tell you just how good they are?”
“That’s it. I’ll tell you more about it when the time comes, and I think you already know there’s something more to it, but you don’t have to worry about it at the moment.”
“Okay then. So, how exactly do I become a part of the pack?”
* * * *
“Eli, you should go, maybe over to Jarrett’s house.” Elias opened his mouth, probably to protest, but Thomas was having none of it. “Please. I know you took this well, much better than I could have hoped, but I don’t think it’ll be as easy with your mother. It’s not the same.”
“Fine.” Elias hesitated before stepping forward and sliding his arms around Thomas, hugging him close. Thomas usually wasn’t much for hugs and kisses, even if he loved his kids more than anything else in the world, but he was happy that Elias wanted to be close to him at the moment.
He felt his eyes burn and he closed them, hugging Elias back with all his might. He had been so scared that his kids wouldn’t want to see him anymore after they found out he was gay, but Elias had accepted him without so much as a protest.
Thomas kissed the top of his son’s head. “I’m so lucky to have you as my son, Eli.”
Elias chuckled in Thomas’s chest. “Yeah, I know.”
When they separated Elias looked down, a slight flush on his cheeks as if he was embarrassed. Thomas chuckled. He would have been embarrassed too, if he’d been hugging his father when he was eighteen, not that the man would have let him. He was happy he and Elias didn’t have the same cool and distant relationship he’d had with his own father.
“Go. I’ll come by and get you when this is over, okay?” Thomas didn’t know how it would go, but obviously Laura was going to be less than pleased with him. He wished he didn’t have to hurt her like that, but he didn’t think there was anything else he could do, not now that Elias knew. While he probably wouldn’t tell anyone if Thomas asked him not to, Thomas didn’t want his son to have to hide things from his mother, at least not things that he shouldn’t have to hide.
Carissa was already at a friend’s house, so there was nothing stopping Thomas. She had been more than happy to go, not knowing what Thomas was about to do. He hoped she would react as well as Elias had, but he knew that would be too good to be true.
Thomas waited for Elias to shift and disappear between the trees before shifting back to his wolf form and trotting toward his house. Once there, he shifted back, took a deep breath and opened the front door of the house he had lived in for the last nineteen years. He briefly wondered how Craig would look sitting on the battered old couch in the living room and shook his head to dissolve the thought. Even if he decided to tell Craig the truth, it didn’t mean the man would want him, and even if by some miracle he did, Thomas was positive he would never set foot in the family house.
Thomas knew that these were the last minutes he would pass in the house that had seen so much of him and his family. He wasn’t about to ask Laura to move out, not even if the house was in his name. He should’ve thought to ask Kameron if there was a house he could move into, but he hadn’t, which meant that he probably would spend the night in the alpha’s house. It would be uncomfortable, what with Craig living there at the moment, but it was only one night.
“Laura?”
“In the kitchen.”
Thomas passed through the living room and followed the wonderful scent of tomatoes and garlic to the kitchen. Laura was cooking, which was a good thing. It meant that she would be marginally relaxed for their talk.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t such a good thing to have her so close to knifes and other sharp stuff she could use to cut Thomas’s balls off, but he was a man, damn it, and he would take whatever she threw at him like one. Nodding to himself, he strode into the kitchen with a new resolution, only to falter when he saw her with a huge knife in hand, cutting tomatoes.
“Laura? Can we talk?”
She looked at him and slowly put the knife down and Thomas breathed out a relieved sigh. Thank God.
“Are you finally ready to tell me what’s been going on with you?”
“No, I don’t think I’m ready, but it’s time to do it anyway.”
“I’m going to want to sit down for this, right?”
Thomas grimaced. “Probably.”
She turned the heat under the pot down, giving it one last stir before wiping her hands and heading out of the room. She didn’t look at Thomas, but he saw how tense she was, how her lips were pressed together, so thin they nearly disappeared. Her back was ramrod straight and her hands clenched at her side, and Thomas cursed himself once more for what he was about to do.
He followed his wife to the living room and sat in one of the armchairs when she went to the couch. Laura folded her hands together in her lap and turned her gaze on Thomas, waiting for him to tell her the truth finally. He wanted nothing more than to tell her everything would be all right, but he couldn’t, not knowing it wasn’t true.
“So? Are you going to tell me, or are you going to just stay there and look at me?”
Thomas winced at the bitter tone of Laura’s voice. “I’m going to tell you. It’s just... it’s not easy for me, knowing I’m going to hurt you. It’s the last thing I want to do, Laura.”
“But there’s no other way. You already hurt me, Thomas. You’ve been hurting me for months, every time you refused to talk to me, every time we fought. Every time you ran away instead of just telling me what was going on.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” And h
e was. He might not be in love with Laura, had never been, but it didn’t mean he didn’t love her. They had been together for years, had been friends and lovers.
“Do you... do you have another woman?”
Thomas’s head snapped up. Laura’s face was pale and she was biting her lower lip, waiting for him to tell her that yes, he was leaving her for another woman. “No. I would never cheat on you, Laura. It’s... there’s no other woman.”
“But you’re still leaving me.”
Thomas took a deep breath. Instead of confessing the truth, he was letting Laura pry everything out of him. “Yes. I love you, but I’m not in love with you. I never was.”
Laura’s breath hitched and Thomas berated himself for being so harsh. “You know we were thrust together nineteen years ago. We were young, so young, and we never had the opportunity to explore the world.”
“Is that what you want to do? Go away and explore?”
“No, no. I’m not thinking of leaving the pack and the kids. I just... we had to get married then, even if I knew I would never have married a woman. It was the last thing I wanted to do.”
“I don’t understand, Thomas.”
Thomas was making a mess out of it, and he knew there was only one way to get the damage under control. “I’m gay, Laura. I’ve always been.”
Laura opened her mouth, then closed it with an audible snap. “You’re... gay?”
Thomas nodded. “I knew it when we got married, but I couldn’t say no—you know that.”
“You could have told me.” God, Thomas felt like a shit at the sight of the lone tear sliding down Laura’s cheek.
“I should have, but I didn’t think I would ever have the opportunity to be myself, not here in Gillham. I never thought Erskine would be challenged and that the new alpha would have no problems with gays.”
“And you thought it was a good reason to—to betray me?”
“In the beginning I didn’t know how you would react. You know what would have happened if it had gotten out, Laura. I would have had to leave you and the kids at best, but I could have been killed.”
“And after? After you knew I would never have said anything? Why not then?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you and the kids. I though it didn’t matter, that I would stay with you forever.”
Laura took in a shaky breath. “What changed? I know you said it’s because Kameron is accepting, but you’ve been a dick for months. Why are you telling me now?”
Thomas shrugged. “Erskine is gone.”
“Are you sure you’re...” The hope on his wife’s face crushed Thomas. He knew he wasn’t in love with her, but maybe she was with him. “Maybe you just want to, to try new things now that you feel you can. Maybe you won’t even like it. I could... you could try it, maybe. I’ll let you.”
Thomas wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her about Craig, or anyone else for that matter, but he owed it to Laura to be completely honest, especially since she seemed to think it was just a whim for him. “It’s not temporary, Laura. I can’t go and give it a try then come back to you.”
“But why not? You said you love me. If you want to have sex with a man, then do it. I... I won’t like it, but I’ll let you. Then you can come back and leave that behind and we’ll still be a family.”
Thomas shook his head. Laura was outright crying by now, and he felt more and more like a total dick. Was it so wrong that he wanted to be himself, finally? “I can’t do that. I know I said I loved you, and I really do, but not like I should love my wife.”
“I still don’t understand, Thomas. How can you throw twenty years away just because you want to—to fuck a man?”
Thomas cringed. “It’s not just that I want to, uh, fuck a man. I... met my mate.”
The silence in the room was heavy, so heavy Thomas could have sworn he felt it pushing down on his shoulders.
“Your mate?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a man?”
“Yes.”
“Are you... are you going to claim him?”
“I don’t know. No one knows he’s my mate, and I’m not sure I want anyone to know, at least not yet. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, Laura. I just know I couldn’t keep on hurting you like I’ve been doing in the last months.”
Thomas held his breath as he waited for Laura to say something.
“I... I don’t know what to say. I understand why you did it, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I don’t... I think it would be best for you to stay away for a little while. I need time to forgive you.” A sob escaped her and she pressed a hand on her mouth as if she was physically trying to stop herself from crying.
Thomas nodded. He had known it would come to that, of course, and he didn’t blame Laura. How could he when he had all but betrayed her? “Can I come see the kids?”
“Of course. They’re your children as much as mine, Thomas. I’m just not sure how to tell them this. I’m not sure I’m the best person to do it, not when I’m so angry with you.”
“I’ll tell Carissa. Elias already knows.”
“He does?”
“He kind of cornered me earlier and made me admit it.” Thomas wouldn’t tell Laura that Elias thought he was gay. It wasn’t his secret to tell. “He took it well. I’m not sure Carissa will, though.”
“She’s probably going to be angry at you for a while, but she’ll get over it, especially if you tell her you found your mate.”
Thomas could only hope it would be as easy as Laura thought it would be, and that she would forgive him one day. He might not be in love with her, but she had been his best friend for years, and he didn’t want to lose that.
* * * *
Craig’s mind was still spinning after his chat with Kameron.
He’d been sworn into the pack, and was the first human member ever to do that. He had been told that Xavier didn’t count since he had become a pack member through his mating with Andy, so yeah, that made Craig kind of unique at the moment, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He wasn’t blind. He’d noticed some of the people he’d met weren’t happy to have him there, and he hoped no one would cause problems when they found out what Kameron had done. Still, he had made his decision and he didn’t regret it, not even now that several hours had passed.
Night had fallen and the house had grown silent. Craig was still in the downstairs living room, the TV on with a low volume, his mind already focused on what he would teach. He was confident enough to know he would get the job. He knew he was good at teaching, probably better than at being a following-orders guard. The only thing that worried him was the fact that he didn’t know how the young shifters would react to a human teacher, one that wasn’t even mated to a shifter.
He knew Elias had seemed to like him enough, but they had talked only for a little while. He didn’t seem the type to want to be a guard, though, so Craig probably wasn’t going to have him in the group.
He whipped his head toward the front door when it opened. It still shocked Craig a bit to know that any pack member could come in the house whenever they wanted and stroll through the lower floor as if they were at home. That was something he would have to get used to—the pack mentality.
The wolves all lived together on the same patch of land. Sure, it was quite a big one from what he understood, and some of the houses he couldn’t even see from the alpha’s house, but it was still weird to see for someone who had lived alone most of his life.
People came and went, gathered in the alpha’s house and spend time together like a big family. It wasn’t something Craig was used to.
He took his feet down from the coffee table and turned back to the TV. Whoever it was might not want to talk to him, and he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to chat, but he also wasn’t going to push anyone away if they did come to him. It would be the easiest and fastest way to have people not like him, and it wasn’t something he could afford at the mom
ent.
“Still awake?”
Craig’s head snapped up toward the voice. Of all the people he’d thought he would see and who would willingly talk to him, Thomas was the last one. Okay, so maybe not the last one, since Kameron had told Craig about Thomas’s assignment, but still, he hadn’t expected to see Thomas at the alpha’s house at nearly midnight.
“Yeah, but I don’t think Kameron is.”
“Oh, I know he’s not, and even if he is, I sure don’t want to go there and disturb him and Zach.” Thomas shivered. “Who knows what I could stumble in on.” Thomas let himself fall on the couch next to Craig and Craig moved out of his way.
“What, your straight little eyes couldn’t bear the view?”
Thomas’s fists tightened and Craig waited for a scalding answer, but it never came. Thomas seemed to relax just a bit and said, “Nothing to do with being straight or gay, I just don’t want to see Kameron’s hairy ass more than I already have to when we shift.”
Craig was surprised. He didn’t know Thomas all that well, but the few interactions he’d had with him hadn’t left him with a good impression. “I don’t know... I think I would like the view.” He couldn’t help himself, he just had to taunt Thomas. He was curious to see when the man would snap.
“You might, but I’ve known Kam since we were kids. He’s more like a brother than a friend, and that’s what makes it uncomfortable.”
Craig remembered something then. “What, you’re more into the twink type?”
Thomas turned to look at Craig and Craig waited for the outburst. “Why would you think that?” The way he was looking at Craig’s body, his eyes moving on the entirety of it, made Craig uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad uncomfortable, though.
“You did ask if I was with Jago. Why would you do that if you weren’t interested in him?”
Craig was surprised Thomas wasn’t lashing out yet. He knew their little conversation would have made more than one straight man uncomfortable at the least, and one so easily angered like Thomas even more so. Craig had a hard time believing that Thomas could be so comfortable with himself that the hint he could be gay didn’t anger him.
Craig [Gilham Pack: 3] Page 5
