Page 6

Xander

“LOOKS LIKE YOU’LL need to tan the ear first, similar to how they make leather, and then we can bronze it,” Ethan states, looking up from his phone and turning around in the front passenger seat of my truck to gaze at Billie in the back, who’s snuggled up in her normal car-ride position: head resting on Jax’s lap, her fingers playing with his.

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” I query, obliquely looking at Ethan while pressing on the brakes to slow down when the road changes from paved to gravel as we take one of the less traveled roads onto pack lands.

“Yes, I am,” Ethan affirms with a huff. “And you can’t tell me your wolf and you aren’t on board with our mate flaunting the evidence of her savagery, the extent to which she will go to protect her mates.”

A shot of hot-blooded desire blasts through my body, and my wolf rumbles with need in my chest. “Not saying that at all,” I reply, a raspy quality in my voice. “Just surprised that wearing a human ear—” And that’s where I stop because I’m assaulted with the visual: the visual of Billie lying there, the slab of flesh lightly held between her fingers, and the ferocious smile sliced across her blood-painted face as she looked at her prize. And that shot of hot-blooded desire turns into a gallon poured straight into my cock. I squirm in my seat. “I see what you’re seeing now, and”—I force down a dry swallow— “I think a brown leather lariat necklace would be good. One that loops around her neck a couple of times and then the... um... pendant hanging on the end.”

“Perfect,” Ethan groans, and I notice him adjust the growing bulge in his pants. “Are you good with that, love?” He questions.

“Jax?” she asks, her voice soft. I peek in the rearview mirror and see him looking down at her. I can’t see Billie too well, but I watch her arm reach for him, the backside of her fingers tenderly brushing the underside of his jaw. She murmurs, “What do you think, playmate? It affects you too.”

He works his arms around her body and pulls her higher up into his chest, hugging her tight and burying his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent. Their bodies seem to blend together, with both of them wearing red-and-black flannels that complement Ethan’s black and my red crewneck sweaters. If you’re wondering whether I dressed us, I did—and will continue to do so. It is more than just us showing a united front. It’s a reminder for me that although I am the alpha of an entire pack now, these three souls are more important than all others. Jax rocks her back and forth, and she holds him the best she can in the position she’s in. “Wear it around your neck like the trophy it is, Rocky,” he says, and there’s a little laughter in his voice. “Jimmy’s got his belt, and you’ve got your ear.”

Billie giggles, and the sound has my lips curving into a smile of endearment. A warmth blooms in my chest, and I bask in it, like the feeling of the noontime sun on a winter day spent on the slopes. She calls out in a horrible Stallone impression “ ADRIAN! ADRIAN ! ,” then she giggles again, and I swear I feel the truck move from her bouncing around in his hold. “Playmate, you’ve got another nickname!”

“Fuck, B,” he groans, and there’s more laughter and emotion in his voice. “I’ll be your Adrian, Jack, and most importantly, your playmate—so long as I’m yours.”

“As I am yours,” she replies in a similar tone. I look in the rearview again, seeing that Billie’s now straddling Jax, her arms wrapped tight around his neck, his arms banded hard around her waist, and they just hug and rock side to side. They just hold each other. I let it hold my attention, and I take a mental snapshot of the moment. It hits me with a love and a need to feel something similar, to feel that connection. Without thinking, I lay my hand on Ethan’s thigh. He lets out a sigh and then places his hand over mine. I peer over at him, and he’s looking at me with a soft smile. He bobs his head and curls his fingers around my hand, then leans back in his seat. There’s nothing sexual about the touch, nothing more than connection and the physical reinforcement of that connection: our bond, the four of us.

I let go when we drive onto the paved main road that cuts through pack lands. We actually crossed into pack lands about two miles back on the gravel road, and thanks to this new role, the mantle of alpha, my body and wolf knew exactly where that line was. Awareness prickled across my scalp and down my spine, forcing me to sit up taller, and my wolf did the same.

There’s no visual delineation to denote the boundary that any non-shifter would be able to distinguish, but if you’re a shifter and you look through your shifter eyes, you would be able to see where our pack symbol—a wolf’s head thrown back, howling with the ridgeline of the Presidential Traverse in the background—has been embossed or engraved high up on trees and large boulders. Non-wolf-shifters may not be able to actually discern the symbol of our pack, but the area would appear blurry, as if the sharp edges of the bark had become dulled or the stone’s pattern was washed out. I was never able to feel the boundary at this intensity before, and it makes me wonder about the symbols: about how they’re applied or created and whether there are any protective qualities to them.

It’s a process I don’t know much about, not yet anyway. The elders were the ones in charge of the initial creation of the symbols, and mid-level betas are responsible for surveying the boundary and alerting the elders, if some symbols need to be, for lack of a better term, reetched.

Our pack lands encompass just under a thousand square miles cutting through several towns and a lot of the northern section of the National Forest. Some of the towns don’t have town police; instead they rely on state authorities and county-wide sheriffs, and we have pack members employed by both.

The major main road looks like any other small-town main road, with a gas station convenience store, a local grocery store, a drug store, and a package store, but most commerce is outside of pack lands. The pack house that we use for funerals, pack meetings, and functions is set back from the main drag up a side street about two miles. The structure looks like a church without a specific religious denomination.

One major difference is the appearance of the pack offices, pack hospital, and pack police station. They’re all held within single-family homes that look like any other single-family home to outsiders. We have two pack members who work as state police, one who was elected to be part of the county sheriff’s office, and an additional two who are our full-time pack officers. All five pack members can live for free in the house that represents our pack police station. One of them has to be home at all times. We also have one pack member who is part of the New Hampshire Fish and Game and one pack member who works with the United States Forest Department. These positions are sought after in our pack, positions that are voted on and then trained for.

I pull onto a side street and follow it all the way down to the cul-de-sac, where there’s a long narrow driveway that leads to a well-maintained, extensive log cabin stained a dark brown with a green metal roof, appearing similar to those of the forest rangers in the National Forest. The driveway widens into a paved area big enough for several vehicles and stretches from one side of the house to a detached five-car aluminum garage set farther back that looks more like an airplane hangar thanks to its height. The area between the garage and the house is split by the continuation of the driveway so that the entrance of the garage is down the small hill and faces the side of the house about one hundred feet back. A local police cruiser is parked in front, facing the side of the garage, and I pull in alongside it.

Putting the truck in park and turning off the engine, I unbuckle my seat belt and spin around so I can see my pack-mates. Feeling my attention, they all turn to me. I want to say something, explain the process, and give them surety, but I’m finding myself at a loss for words. Ruffling my fingers through my hair, I softly snicker. “I don’t know exactly what to expect. Ethan’s called DeLuca, and he should be here soon. I know my mother, Elder Allan, and Elder Ralph are also planning on being here. There’s a lot that needs to be discussed. I don’t want any of us alone. If possible, we all stay together. If not, then two of us together at all times.” I look at Jax, who’s hugging Billie to him like she’s a life-sized stuffed animal, his nose buried in the crook of her neck, his eyes staring up at me through the locks of his blond hair that have fallen forward from an uncharacteristic lack of hair product. I try to assure him: “We’ll make this as easy as possible. I want to make sure you’re taken care of, Jax, and I also want to make sure we don’t fuck anything up. What do you need from us? What can we offer to make this doable?”

Jax slides his gaze to the passenger-side window behind me, to the metallic orange Camaro, one that could only belong to Brian Callahan, parked on the other side of the cruiser, and then looks back at me. “I’d prefer to interact with as few people as possible. Keep Amber and her family away from me. If anyone besides one of us and a pack officer needs to be with me, then either your mom or Elder Ralph. I can’t...” Faltering, he slams his eyes shut and tightens his hold on Billie to the point that I can see small quivers running from his shoulders down his arms. My heart catches with a need to comfort him, while my teeth grind with a desire to take revenge on the person who dared to make him feel this raw, this weak. He peels his eyelids back, and I see the shine of hurt and the shadow of shame in his teary, dark eyes. He sucks down a jagged breath. “I don’t want to tell my dad until after we leave here. And if my mom’s here, I don’t want to see her at all.”

I will myself not to react to his pain, to the fact that I had momentarily forgotten that more than one person is responsible for what he went through last night. I will myself not to add more emotion to the situation. I need to be in control. I need to be calm and sure. I need to be his alpha. Exhaling a long breath out my nostrils, I nod. Pulling out my phone, I call the pack station and set about making sure I give Jax what he needs.