Page 24 of Rogue If You Want To (Fur-Ever Mountain Pack #2)

OTTO

“All right, my sweet boy, it looks like we’re good to go.” I picked up River, put him in the baby carrier, snapping the straps behind me, and held him close. “We’re gonna go see our family.”

He was already starting to doze off again. He just finished having his meal, and if he hadn’t needed a diaper change, would have already been asleep.

I bounced from left to right, helping to lull him to sleep as I headed out to join the others. It was the first pack run since River was born, and we were having an all-out celebration, because it happened to hit a full moon and a weekend and was River’s first all rolled into one.

Torin had already gone ahead to help set up, and I was just waiting for River to be ready.

In some ways, our lives had changed so much since he was born.

We didn’t have as much sleep. Our lives revolved around our sweet baby.

And I had more love pouring out of me than I thought was possible.

But also, so much stayed the same. I was still Otto, Torin’s mate, one of the newest pack members of the Stoney River pack.

Although that was going to change. A couple of shifters had been asking questions and were coming by to meet the different people in our pack.

It still shocked me how much word got out about us and how many shifters were longing for what we were building here.

At our last pack meeting, we discussed adding some more buildings.

All of our current ones were fixed up, with the exception of the place that my mate and I stayed in, and that was in pretty good shape.

I was one of the last ones to reach the river, and many people were already eating.

A few were singing a song that was about the history of our pack.

Noel had been working on writing it, and it was getting pretty good.

It wasn’t there yet by any stretch, but I could see us teaching it to the little ones…

so much better than having to memorize the books of old and getting beaten if we made a mistake. That was for sure.

My mate stood with Creven. The two of them had become really close, and while neither of them said anything about it, I suspected my mate was being considered for a position as pack Beta.

And if that time came, we’d discuss it and work from there.

But for now, they were just friends, and he helped out when he could.

Larkin was sitting with Auden and watching Oak as he devoured a cookie the size of his head that was covered in frosting… navy-blue frosting. His face was now blue, and he was having the time of his life.

“Sorry I was late, Alpha.” I bared my neck.

Alpha Creven gave me a look.

“Sorry, I was late, Creven.”

“That’s better.” He wasn’t one for all of the protocols, and I was still stuck with them being automatic. I was getting better, though. “Looks like River’s gonna miss his first pack run.”

Sure enough, he was asleep, the baby carrier doing exactly what it was designed to do, helping him feel snug and safe against my body.

“I can stay with the kids today.” That had been my plan, anyway.

“Or I can stay with River.” Torin pointed to the baby carrier around his waist too. He wasn’t one of those alphas who didn’t want to have anything to do with “omega” things. He was a 50/50 father. “You haven’t shifted on a pack run in a while.”

He was right. The further my pregnancy went, the less I wanted to shift. And even though otters could shift through most of their pregnancy, that wasn’t happening for me. I was happy keeping my skin and having a snack as I watched my mate’s wolf in action.

“Do we have a lot of pack business tonight?” I asked.

Creven shook his head. “No, probably talk about a couple of old barns we acquired that we have to take apart for the lumber, and if we want to add a playground closer to the buildings. Not much.”

I hadn’t seen pictures of the land before we got here, but even in the short time I was here, it had really come a long way.

“A playground would be nice.” Shifter children tended to be climbers, so might as well give them something fun to climb on.

Creven shooed us away for dinner. It was nice sitting with other families, everyone here having a story of their own. We didn’t eat by the river very often, but when we did, it was always special. Something about the running water made it less formal. All of the best stories were told here.

We didn’t have a collective pack history, going back generations, but we had something better. Because unlike people in my Bevy, and from what I heard from others here in packs and dens across the state and other steads as well, we all chose to be here and took it seriously.

“Do you want another deviled egg?” my mate asked.

And of course, I nodded. I couldn’t believe there were still any left. Usually they were the first things gone.

“Larkin made an extra dozen today,” Auden said, and that explained that.

Torin came back with some eggs, which I quickly devoured, and Creven called us to the meeting.

When he brought up the barns, I didn’t quite get it.

Like, why would you want a raggedy old barn to tear apart and rebuild?

But then he talked about how great reclaimed wood from the older barns was and how much we could do with it.

By the time he was done talking about it, I was ready to say, “Let’s cut this run short.

We can all go get it now.” Obviously, that wasn’t a good idea, but it got my mind churning… all the things that were possible.

We might not have had the large sums of money that some packs had, and we didn’t have the manpower either, but we had creativity.

Who would have thought to go to a book sale in the next county to fill the library?

To build common eating areas using a lot of supplies we already had and repurposing them?

To offer to take down barns in exchange for the wood?

Not very many, but we did, and I was really proud of being part of this.

“Do you want to run?” Torin asked, and he meant it too. He’d be happy as could be to stay here with our son, but so was I. He could watch him next run.

“No, I’m gonna sit here. He’ll probably wake up soon and want to eat. But can you do me a favor?”

“Anything for you.”

“Can you come back with a rabbit?”

He chuckled. His wolf loved when I gave him tasks.

And while rabbit stew wasn’t my all-time favorite meal, I did love it.

And we were collecting quite a collection of pelts to make a liner for this winter to put in the wagon for when we took River out and about.

He’d probably be in the carrier most of the time, but having a project was nice.

He agreed, kissed me goodbye, and then everyone who was shifting shucked their clothes and followed Creven into the woods.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that my mate was back in less than ten minutes with a rabbit. But then he took off like a shot again. Four more times he returned, four more rabbits.

“Your mate understood the assignment.” Auden chuckled.

“He does love to spoil me.”

When he came back the next time, rabbit in his mouth, and dropped it, River started to stir.

“Look, Daddy brought us dinner for the week and some snuggles for this winter.”

River didn’t cry, just started making the little mouth gestures he did when he was hungry. But if I didn’t hook him up quickly, he was going to.

“Why don’t you go clean up, and I will feed our little one. And then maybe we can get these back to our house so that we don’t make the rest of our pack jealous.”

He loved the sound of that, trotting off to the river, where he would probably spend some time in the water before coming back.

River was still suckling away when he showed up, happy as can be, kneading his little fist against my collarbone and drinking his milk.

I started to yawn. I did cut it off, but not soon enough for my mate not to catch it.

“I’ll get these rabbits back, and when I come back here, we’ll go home, okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. I’d have liked to stay until the end, but Torin was right. I was D. O. N. E. Done.

And as we walked back together, a few minutes later, River dozing off again, I couldn’t think of a happier place to be than here with my pack, my mate’s arm around me, holding our son.

“I love you, alpha mine.”

“I love you more, omega mine.”

“Impossible.” I leaned into his side. “Absolutely impossible.”

Not all packs are evil.

But mine sure was. Being born a unicorn in a herd of horses sounds like a win.

Unicorns are just fancy horses, right? Wrong.

I'm a daily reminder of my omega father’s infidelity.

My alpha father? Yeah, he is the very mated Alpha of our herd.

My beast? A recessive gene reminder that I should be mated to our next Alpha.

Ever since my first shift, I’ve been bullied, ostracized, and living in fear. Leaving isn’t an option. My horn is too valuable on the black-market and it has been made crystal clear that the second I leave, my herd will sell me out to poachers.

What can I do, but I bide my time and wait for the perfect opportunity to break free. That opportunity comes the day I stumble upon a rogue bear my beast calls mate.

I’m left with two choices:

1) Stay with my pack and ignore my mate.

2) Flee and hope we can outrun the trouble that is following us both.

We choose to run.

Rogue Me Tender is the third book in the popular co-writing duo Colbie Dunbar and Lorelei M.