Page 80 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

If a piece of burnt toast on the way out the door counted.

Clay rolled his eyes and handed me my pack, dropping it into my lap. “Get some clothes on. I’ll go find you something to eat.”

He rose and pulled on his jeans, now with darkened spots of drool on one hip from where he carried them in his mouth and then got his shoes on. “I’ll come back and get you.”

Before I could get enough breath and clarity of mind to argue with him, he was gone.

I let my head fall back and cursed my own stupidity. I’d been so preoccupied worrying and stressing about Layla and Viv and about tonight’s meeting that eating just completely slipped my mind.

Vaguely, I remember pushing around my macaroni salad at lunch while I explained what was going to happen to my friends in mere days. I’m not even sure I had a single bite.

And water? Fuck, had I even drunk any water at all today?

I groaned and pushed myself unsteadily to my feet.

I might’ve been fine if I hadn’t shifted and run thirty miles from town.

My hands shook with twitching tremors as I pulled on my panties and jeans, followed by my bra and top.

Even with my sweater on, I felt cold as I put one foot in front of the other toward the smell of campfire and the low hum of classic rock filtering through the trees.

Seth was the first familiar face I spotted as I stumbled down the decline and onto hard packed dirt. He squinted to make me out at the edge of the trees and a wide grin broke out over his face. “Hey!” he called, running over.

His grin faded when he got a better look at my face. “Shit, Allie, you’re looking a bit shit. Nerves?”

I shook my head and immediately regretted it when a spike of pain drilled into my brain. Ugh. “Nah,” I lied. “Forgot to eat.”

“Forgot…to eat?” Seth asked as though I were speaking a foreign language.

I nudged his shoulder as we walked together toward where the highest concentration of pack members awaited, nearest to the main fire ring.

“I know,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”

“I mean, I wasn’t going to say it but…”

I made a face of mock insult at him when we came upon the furthest ring of shifters and Seth dragged me over to a smaller group hanging out near the open tailgate of a sleek black truck.

Away from the sniveling glares of Harrison, Forrest and the other members of Ryland’s merry band of butt sniffers.

“Allie!” Charity called, waving me over to sit on the tailgate’s ledge with her. I happily obliged, not sure my legs could hold out much longer. I tossed my pack into the back of the truck and hopped up, accepting a tight hug from Charity. “How are you? You look—”

“Like shit? I know. Seth already told me.” She laughed.

“What the hell, Allie?” Clay’s growl silenced what remained of the conversations from the small group as he barged in, a steaming plate of barbeque ribs and corn on the cob in his hand.

Oops. Had he asked me to wait?

Clay cleared the gap between us and laid the plate down on my lap, grabbing a bottle of water from his back pocket to set down next to me. “Eat,” he ordered. “Ry’s just finishing up dealing with some pack bullshit and then he’s going to want to talk to you.”

“You mean make an example out of me?”

“This one’s got claws,” Seth commented with a little swipe of an imaginary paw in my direction.

I rolled my eyes at them. “What? It’s true, isn’t it?

That’s totally what’s going on here.”

Charity bumped my shoulder as I ravenously tore a massive bite out of the piping hot meat, wholly unable to stop myself as the scent of it wafted up into my nose. “He isn’t so bad.”

I raised a brow at her.

“What?” she said with wide, innocent eyes, and I was reminded of the first time I was ever here at camp. When I went to use the bathroom in Ry’s house and ran into the vampire Grey. Ryland had been busy talking to Charity while Creepy McBloodsucker and I had a stare down in the hall.

She’d been blushing while he looked down at her, his forearm pressed into the wall over her head as he looked down into her eyes.

Oh my god. Ew.

“He needs to show the pack who their alpha is to keep everyone in line. If he’s lenient with some and not with others, no one would ever listen to him.

There would be anarchy.” Charity said as she stole a rib from my plate, and I resisted the urge to growl at her, both for sticking up for the fucker and for stealing my food.

“And he’s just a fucking dickhead,” Clay muttered.

At least my mate agreed with me.

“Who’s a dickhead?” Jared asked, seemingly appearing from thin air around the back of Clay.

Clay jumped, cursing beneath his breath. “The fuck, man?”

Jared held his hands up in a placating gesture and gave a little shrug. “Sucks getting snuck up on, doesn’t it?”

He tossed me a wink while Clay finished fuming and grumbling to himself, and Jared pressed through to lean next to where my legs dangled over the edge of the truck bed. “So, is my Jeep still in one piece?”

I smirked and worked to chew the massive chunk of meat in my mouth before I answered, praying my face wasn’t completely covered in barbecue sauce.

“Are you doubting my skills?” He smirked. “Never.”

Jared reached in, brushing a thumb over the corner of my mouth and bringing it away covered in a smear of sticky sweet sauce. He popped it in his mouth and his brows went up. “Are there any more ribs?”

The small group quieted. Clay looked like he might throw up.

“If you guys are going to be all cutesy and gross, go find your own flatbed,” Seth joked.

Clay grunted.

“I think it’s adorable,” Charity said wistfully. “I hope I don’t have to wait too much longer to find my mate. I thought for sure when the packs merged I would but…”

Seth laughed. “Better hope you don’t end up like Ryland. Dude’s almost fifty and he still hasn’t found his.”

“Who would want to mate with that?” I grumbled through another mouthful and Charity elbowed me.

“And how in the hell is that guy over fifty?” I continued once I was finished chewing. “He looks more like, I don’t know, maybe thirty?”

The group shared a look, and I got the immediate sense that there was something I was missing. When their stares all turned to me, a heat blossomed in my belly and I cringed back. “What?” I demanded. “Do I have some shit on my face or something?”

Jared bit his lip and muttered to the others, “We, uh, we haven’t exactly told her yet.”

“Oh,” both Charity and Seth said in unison.

“Tell me what?” I asked, dragging the back of my hand over my mouth and taking a long pull of lukewarm water from the bottle Clay gave me.

I looked to Jared for an explanation, but it was Clay who spoke, surprising me. “Look, Allie,” he said and then seemed to consider how best to phrase what he planned to say next.

Jared’s pallor had changed from its usual burnished tan to a sallow shade of green.

A pit yawned open in the bottom of my stomach. I turned my attention to Clay.

“Spit it out already,” I urged, setting the plate down next to me. At least I got a few bites in before my appetite vanished again.

Clay wiped a wide hand over the shadow of scruff on his jaw. “Ryland looks like he’s still thirty because… shifters don’t age the same way as humans.”

“What do you mean we don’t age the same?”

A ringing began in my ears. I’d wondered before… I’d wondered why no one at pack camp looked much older than their late twenties. Why hadn’t I asked this before?

“Holy shit,” I choked out. “Are we…are we immortal?” No. There was no way that was possible. I mean, I would know, wouldn’t I? I would’ve been able to sense it or something? How could someone not know they are immortal?

Clay shook his head, and I took a breath. “Not exactly.”

“It’s the pack magic,” Jared explained, and I turned back to him, liking how his soothing, matter-of-fact voice sounded to my ears right now over the sound of Clay’s gruff, unapologetic one.

“Pack magic protects the pack camp from being found by other supernaturals. Sort of like the spell on the cabin that keeps people away and shields it from view, except with pack magic, it’s naturally occurring.”

He took a shaky breath.

“Pack magic also slows the aging process.”

“Slows?”

Clay pursed his lips. “It stops it.”

If my brows rose any higher, they’d get lost in my hairline. “So, you’re telling me that as long as I belong to a pack, I won’t ever get old? I won’t ever die?”

“Well, you can still die,” Clay corrected me, though he didn’t look pleased allowing those words to leave his lips. “Just not from old age.”

“Is that why Grams is the only one who looks old?

Because she doesn’t have a pack?” Clay nodded.

“A lot of shifters leave the pack after a hundred years or so, so that they can age out and pass naturally.”

“But there are some who are hundreds of years old,” Seth added with a swig of his beer. “The oldest on record was over four hundred when he died. I plan to break that record.” He winked, polishing off his drink.

“Anyone want a beer?”

Numbly, I nodded. “Got anything stronger?”

Seth chuckled. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said and then took off in the direction of the fire.

Across the blinding orange glow and the curl of dark smoke rising in the air, I could see Ryland exiting his house, the door banging closed behind him as he stared out over his pack.

Silver scars in his right cheek glistened in the firelight.

The mark from where Samson bit him had left his face puckered and ugly.

I couldn’t help but feel a little triumphant seeing it. “We’re sorry we didn’t tell you before,” Jared said,

stuffing his hands in his pockets. Neither of my mates had seemed to notice Ryland scanning the shifters crowded around the fire. “There just never seemed to be a good time, I guess.”

“That’s bullshit,” Clay said, beating me to the exact words I was going to say. “We should have told her, man.”

“Yeah,” I said grouchily and hopped down from the truck. “You should have.”