Page 54 of In the Mouth of the Wolf (Of Wolves and Kings #1)

54

NOLAN

I woke up in Cam’s basement, naked and confused. My skin was cold and tingly, and my hands and feet ached. I’d had the strangest dream, running through the woods…

“My wounds…”

I sat up, now seeing that I wasn’t the only one down here. Elias and Marlowe were spooning, asleep in a makeshift nest of couch cushions, while Archer sat against the wall, pushing his fingers into his chest.

“She was right, I’m completely healed,” Archer whispered to himself.

“Of course I was right,” Marlowe chimed in, starting to rouse. But Elias had other plans, his hands now hungrily running up and down her body while he licked and nibbled along her neck. With a quick jerk he was inside her, and she began moaning.

I wanted to watch, feeling my own cock begin to stir, but Archer jumped up, stretching and laughing as he twisted his chest without any pain. He walked over and offered me his hand. “Come on, let’s go survey the damage.”

I glanced back longingly at Elias and Marlowe, watching in admiration and envy as he thrust relentlessly into our omega, and she enjoyed every second of it.

Were all omegas so ravenous, or was that just Marlowe?

I let Archer help me up and followed him upstairs. “Hey, wait. Why do they get out of cleaning up again?”

Archer shrugged. “I’m just being pragmatic. They’ll be occupied for the next thirty minutes or so, and I have no idea when Cam’s coming home. It couldn’t have been easy for him, watching his whole pack shifted and running off without him. The least we can do is make sure his house isn’t a disaster.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I grumbled under my breath. “But Elias and Marlowe are definitely on the hook the next time this happens.”

Aside from some muddy paw prints and the broken door, the house remained intact. Archer found painter’s tarp in the garage while I swept the glass, and we sealed the open door as best we could from the cold.

“I think we’re going to need to take a page from old shifter architecture and install a wolf-friendly entrance,” Archer said.

“You mean a giant doggy door?” I smirked.

Archer rolled his eyes. “If you want to call it that, sure. Of course, we are still learning how this works, and in the future, we’ll have more control about when and where we shift. But it wouldn’t hurt to make it easier for our wolf forms to get in and out of the house.”

I wouldn’t put it past Cam to already be thinking about all of this.

Marlowe’s beautiful voice, keening in pleasure, echoed up the stairs, and I realized I really needed some pants. Archer and I had shared our omega before, but it still felt weird to just be hanging out naked and hard in front of my pack.

“I want to find out what made her so upset today,” I said quietly. I had felt her so acutely down the bond. She had been upset and scared about something, and then had collapsed into unbelievable sadness. “Do you think she ran into another one of Cam’s exes? He has a horrible habit of shitting where he eats.”

Archer ran his hand over the edges of the tarp, feeling for gaps of cold air. He added another layer of tape and kept going. “ Had ,” he corrected. “And no, Marlowe was fine when we saw her, remember? Camden didn’t seem particularly rattled either. I bet it had something to do with her father.”

Right, that made more sense. My own phone began to ring and I found it in the kitchen, biting back a groan when I saw who was calling. I had totally forgotten about my meeting with Seth, the City Manager.

“Hey Seth, I know, I’m so sorry…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Nolan,” he snapped. “This is getting ridiculous. I’ve been covering for your ass since you disappeared two weeks ago, and now you can’t even bother to show up to a meeting you scheduled? Are you even coming to the Town Council meeting tomorrow night?”

Shit, tomorrow was already the first Thursday of the month. “Yes, of course. Let’s go over the agenda in the morning. I’ll be in at nine, I swear it.”

Seth scoffed. “You better be.”

I cursed under my breath when he abruptly hung up. By now, nearly the whole town knew about Marlowe, thanks to gossip and Cam’s eulogy at her dad’s funeral. But two weeks for an omega honeymoon was pushing it. Especially since I’d likely need to take more time off again in the near future once she started another heat.

My cock twitched at even the fleeting thought of it.

“Everything okay?”

Archer broke me out of my thoughts and I sighed. “Not really. I’ve been a crappy mayor recently and it’s finally catching up with me. Thank the Moon the next election isn’t for two more years.”

He nodded knowingly. “Yeah, my dean isn’t too happy with me, either. Once things calm down, we’ll find a better balance.”

Once things calm down … He said it like we just had a few extra things on our plates and not like our lives had turned completely upside down since Marlowe had arrived. Of course, if I had to choose my job or her, she’d win in a heartbeat. But I still hoped we could quickly figure out who the creep that had threatened to take her was so we could neutralize him and maybe start living in a mentally and emotionally sustainable way, instead of just rushing from one emergency to the next with no breathing room in between.

All I wanted was to go to work, help make meaningful, positive changes, and then come home, cook dinner, hang out with my pack, and fall asleep with my omega in my arms.

The American Shifter Dream.

C am came home a couple of hours later, carrying Marlowe’s clothes in a bag. He looked defeated as he set them down and walked around, making sure we’d cleaned up. The sight of the door made him furrow his brow.

Marlowe slinked out of her nest from upstairs, coming down wrapped in a blanket. She sunk into Cam’s chest and he held her tight, kissing her on the head.

“So does everyone at the company think I’m a total weirdo now?”

He chuckled. “No, word spread that you made Julian get you coffee and I overheard one of the beta females call you a ‘girl boss,’ which I think is a good thing.”

She rubbed her face into his chest and laughed. “Well, it depends if she was being sarcastic or not.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt your quarterly review,” Elias said, entering the room from the basement. “But what the hell happened today to make our omega so upset?”

Archer and I closed our laptops from where we were working at the kitchen island, giving the conversation our full attention.

Marlowe looked up at Cam and then over to us. “I went to work in my dad’s old office, and the screensaver on his computer was a picture of my family. It just… really affected me.”

Elias stepped forward to rub her back and comfort her, but I clocked Cam’s confused expression. Marlowe was hiding something from the rest of us. I could feel her hesitation through the bond. She didn’t seem scared, though, so I wasn’t going to push it. People were entitled to privacy, even from their bonded pack mates who could detect deception.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Cam announced. He was clearly not going to expand on Marlowe’s story.

Marlowe smiled shyly. “Do you want some company?” she asked in a sweet voice.

“Fuck yeah.” Cam smacked her ass and she ran ahead of him, laughing as he chased her.

As soon as the door closed and the water ran, Elias turned towards us. “That was bullshit, right?”

Archer opened his laptop back up, returning to work. “If that’s her official story, and Camden’s fine with it, we should be, too. It won’t do us any favors if we call her a liar.”

I wasn’t going to call her a liar, but she wasn’t telling us the full story. I spoke through clenched teeth. “How can we protect her from threats if we don’t know what threatened her?” If she had felt something so deeply today that it triggered my wolf to finally be released, it wasn’t something we should just sweep under the rug.

“Do you really think Camden would take her safety lightly? After everything he’s done so far? I’m sure whatever happened, he’s got it under control, and I don’t particularly feel like upsetting Marlowe further,” Archer said.

Elias’s eyes widened. “I wonder…” He walked over to the bag of Marlowe’s clothes and stuck his nose inside, inhaling deeply. A menacing growl reverberated through his chest. “That motherfucker let a new alpha rub all over her today. I bet he was trying to scent match a new pack mate.”

I jumped out of my seat and snatched her sweater out of the bag, sniffing it carefully. “For Moon’s sake, she was drenched in him. Cam allowed this?”

“Is it a good match?” Archer asked.

A good match? A good fucking match?

I threw the sweater towards him. “How the hell should I know? Right now, I’m just pissed! Elias and I said we didn’t want a new pack mate!”

Elias chimed in. “We can defend Marlowe just fine on our own from those commune freaks. You’re fixed now.”

Archer walked over to where the sweater had fallen and picked it up, smelling it along the neck. “It’s not bad. We should meet him.”

I knew Archer was a logical male, and he was usually very good at talking me off a ledge.

But right now, I wanted to dive off headfirst into an angry abyss. “We are not bringing some random alpha into our pack and giving him access to Marlowe! The only way I can even tolerate sharing her with you guys is because we trust each other, and we’ve had years to build and test that. This is just a knee-jerk reaction, and if we pull that trigger, we could be stuck with a male we don’t like. Someone who might hurt our omega. What’s the bigger risk?” I yelled.

Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself calm. “I don’t want to let jealousy get in the way of what’s best for Marlowe. You didn’t see that shifter, Nolan. He ripped my car door off with his bare hands . I thought he might kill me. And when he told me he was coming to take Marlowe away from us, and there was nothing we could do to stop it… I almost believed him. But now I know he was wrong, because there is something we can do, and I’m willing to at least meet the male before I let my knee-jerk reaction leave her vulnerable.”

I snarled. “I refuse to let your insecurities endanger our omega.”

Archer snarled back. “I am not insecure, I’m realistic. But if we want to talk insecurities, how about we address yours? Tell us the truth about why you two don’t want another alpha in the group – you both just don’t want more competition for Marlowe’s time.”

I was about to leap over and grab him when Marlowe barked from above us.

“That’s enough!”

We looked up to where she stood by the railing upstairs, both her and Cam wrapped up in towels. “I agreed to meet with any potential new pack mates, and I meant it. I didn’t get the best impression of Julian today, but then again, I didn’t like half of you when I first met you all, either. Cam invited him for dinner tomorrow night, and I expect you all to give him a fair chance, myself included. Got it?”

Her orders weren’t dominating like an alpha’s would be, but I bristled all the same. Elias mumbled his agreement to her terms as I shored myself up and smiled through my fury. “But you liked me at first, right, sugar?”

She held her hand horizontally above her head. “First impression ratings – Archer.” Her hand lowered slightly. “Nolan.” Her hand dipped about twice as far down. “Elias.” And then she brought her hand down to her knees. “And all the way down here is…”

Cam snapped at her playfully and grabbed her around the waist, dragging her to her nest while she cackled and screamed in delight.

First Elias had her today, and now Cam. I hated to admit it, but Archer was right. I didn’t know how I could handle sharing her with another pack mate. These three assholes were already more than enough, and dividing up Marlowe’s attentions even further seemed unbearable.

Elias went to the fridge and grabbed a few beers, handing them to Archer and me. “How much do you want to bet this Julian guy is just like Cam?”

Archer rubbed his hand down his face and sighed. “Exactly. I’m kinda hoping they’ll have so much in common with each other they’ll just hang out by themselves and leave the rest of us alone.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, now considering that possibility. If the new alpha was actually dividing Cam’s attention rather than Marlowe’s, maybe he wouldn’t be so bad.

“Okay, I’ll give him a chance. But I have my Town Council meeting tomorrow night, so I’ll be a little late, and someone else will have to cook.”