Page 12 of The Bookish Girl’s Guide to Mating with a Werewolf (Mate Hunted #1)
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ABBY
It was dark when our wolves finally made it back to the house.
Rather than shifting when they reached it, they kept walking.
Their sides brushed as they went. She leaned into the contact, and he did too.
I realized they were headed toward what looked like a campfire. Smoke curled above the trees, and I could see bits of the flames flickering in the distance.
They stopped there, and Nico shifted back first. He coached both me and my wolf through the shift.
It didn’t feel any faster, but the pride in his eyes when I was in skin again told me it was.
“We missed dinner, but I think they want you to meet the pack.” Nico’s words were slightly apologetic, but he still looked proud.
Maybe even happy, too.
“I’m filthy,” I said, huffing and puffing as I tried to recover. Mud was dried in smears and patches all over my skin. Probably tangled in my hair, too. “And naked.”
“I’ll find you some clothes and help you clean up.” Nico offered me a hand.
My mind flashed back to his big hands massaging my scalp in the shower earlier.
If he was going to offer to clean me every time, maybe I should stop hating dirt.
“If you can find me something to wear, I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world to meet your pack before I get all this mud off. It’ll give me an excuse to leave pretty quickly,” I said.
“That’s the spirit. I’ll be right back.”
My eyesight was much better than it used to be as I watched him stride a few feet to my left before stepping behind a tree. I heard something open a moment later—it sounded like metal—and he came back with a pair of men’s athletic shorts and a t-shirt.
I put the shirt on while he stepped into the shorts. It fell nearly to my knees, so I was plenty covered.
After a beat of hesitation, Nico’s arm draped over my shoulders. He pulled me close, and I slipped mine around his waist as we walked the rest of the way to the campfire.
Seven men sat in various positions around the flickering flames. The vibes were relaxed in a way I really liked.
Two of the guys sat side-by-side on the dirt with their backs leaning up against a large wooden log that looked like it was being used as a bench.
One of them had an arm around the other’s back while the other rested his head against the one’s shoulder.
They were respectively dark-skinned and tan.
The first had shaved his hair completely, while the other’s was long, blond, curly, and tied up in a gigantic bun.
Another guy was sprawled out on his back on the dirt, snoring. He had light skin and crazy brown hair cut around his chin, concealing most of his face.
A fourth was laying across a bench on his stomach, his head resting on his arm while he stared at the fire. His hair was dark, falling long past his shoulders in waves that made me just a little bit envious, and his skin was tan.
The last guy I didn’t recognize had his hair done in what I thought might be short locs.
He had dark skin, and was relaxing on a metal, outdoor chair next to an identical one that Ethan occupied.
Both of them were roasting marshmallows, and there were huge boxes and bags of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolates on the table between them.
Graham was in another metal chair, across the fire from the guys roasting s’mores. He was leaning back pretty far, his shoulders slumped and his chin resting against his chest like he was exhausted.
There was an empty bench next to his chair. I wondered if Nico usually occupied it, or if they all just sat wherever they wanted to every night.
All of the guys were shirtless, their only pieces of clothing varying from athletic shorts to sweats. None of them seemed to care how they looked or what they were wearing, and they were all spotted with dirt and/or mud.
They all looked up when we approached.
A few nodded.
A few waved.
The snoring guy kept snoring.
The guy making s’mores with Ethan didn’t look up from the fire.
“Guys, this is Abby. Abby, these are the guys. You already know Ethan and Graham.”
Ethan saluted me.
Graham dipped his head again.
He listed off the rest of their names, and I tried hard to commit them to memory. Teaching had given me some practice with that, at least.
The snoring guy was Wyatt.
The dude with the perfect wavy hair was Connor.
The s’mores guy who didn’t acknowledge me was Finn. I was pretty sure he was the one who disliked women the most, followed by Wyatt.
The guy with the buzzed head was Austin, and he was snuggling Enzo.
“Welcome to the Feral Pack. We’re all smiles out here,” Ethan drawled.
Finn elbowed him in the gut hard enough to make him grunt.
He coughed, and threw out a thumbs-up for emphasis. “It’s great. You’ll love it.”
Something told me they’d already been threatened not to be shitty to me.
“Do you all live around the lake?” I asked, forcing myself to try to be at least a little bit friendly.
“Yeah, we live in the cabins,” Austin said, nodding toward the buildings. “There are a few larger lodging spaces in that direction for the wolves who are staying while they go through lessons.” He gestured behind him.
Nico led me gently toward the open bench, and I went with him, sitting down at his side. His arm remained on my shoulders, and I couldn’t help but lean in a little.
Multiple sets of eyes followed the motion.
Most of the guys seemed to relax a little in response to it. I imagined they were worried they would have another rejected wolf joining them soon.
“How long do people usually stay here?” I asked.
“Depends on the person, and how much they hate their wolf. We’ve got a few mated pairs who’ve been here eight or nine months, on and off. A few bastards have been here every weekend since we started,” Austin explained.
My eyes widened. “It takes them that long to get better at shifting?”
“Not to get better at shifting,” Connor said. “To learn how to live peacefully with their wolves.”
“Why does it take so long?”
“Not everyone reads werewolf smut.” Finn’s voice was cutting.
Ethan elbowed him significantly harder than he’d already been elbowed.
Finn bent over, wincing at the pain.
The fact that he’d called it “smut” instead of “porn” told me he was probably part of the online bookish community, or had at least looked into it.
“Monster romance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. What kind of books do you read?” I checked.
Finn’s eyebrows shot upward.
“He likes epic fantasy. We have a book club,” Graham put in. “I started it. All of us read together.”
Ethan snorted. “Some of us enjoy it more than others.”
He looked at Nico.
The rest of them did too.
I flashed the man beside me a surprised look. “Tell me you aren’t a book hater, Cucumber.”
He looked slightly embarrassed as he grimaced, adjusting his arm over my shoulder. “I mean…”
“Whatever the opposite of a book dragon is, he’s that,” Finn cut in.
“If we were reading werewolf smut , I think I’d enjoy it more,” Nico countered.
A few of the guys snorted.
“If you don’t like fantasy, you probably wouldn’t want to read about a tiny woman getting knotted by a big, bad alpha.” I patted his thigh. “It’s okay, you don’t need to like books. You can make me cookies while I read. I think that’s actually better.”
“I can handle that.”
Turning back to the rest of the guys, I found mixed expressions on their faces. I couldn’t read most of them, honestly, but I knew most of them were rejected. It made sense that they wouldn’t know what to think about Nico having a mate after so long.
“What was the last book you guys read together? I want to join this book club, by the way.”
“I don’t think we want to recruit an English professor. It’s pretty laid-back,” Finn said bluntly.
I waved his concern off. “I’ll binge it without you guys, and I can talk about it with whoever doesn’t hate me.”
Ethan smirked. “Don’t try too hard to make friends, Cupcake. Nico’s not going to want to share you.”
“Nico will be fine.” I looked at him.
He nodded, though he did seem reluctant to do so. “None of them hate you.”
“We’re the epitome of friendship,” Finn muttered.
His marshmallow dipped too close to the flame, and caught on fire.
Believable.
He was so, so believable.
“You don’t have to force them to be nice to me,” I told Nico, flashing him a look.
“He’s going to anyway,” Ethan said. “Better that than fucking up the pack over a mate bond that’s obviously going to work out.
Grant made a sound of agreement.
“What was the name of that book we were reading last month?” Enzo asked, looking at Finn. “Fire something?”
Finn reluctantly said the name, and I lit up.
“Oh, I love that one. What did you guys think about the underground city?”
The conversation moved easily.
If there was one thing I could do well, it was discuss books.
And essays.
Essays were obviously much more boring, though.
My stomach growled loudly at some point during the discussion. When Nico tried to drag me back to his house, one of the guys explained that becoming a werewolf was known to make someone extremely hungry.
Ethan—and even Finn—spent the next hour passing me s’mores to eat while we all talked. That stopped Nico’s protests for the most part, even though he didn’t seem happy about it.
Honestly?
It was the most fun I’d had in ages.
Even though I definitely ate some dirt along with the marshmallows and chocolate.