Page 12 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)
~Troy~
My hands clenched into fists at my side as I led Kalo through the house to the pack house mess hall.
Unlike the formal dining room where the Alpha’s family and important ranked members of the pack ate, the mess hall catered to the staff that kept the house running and wolves like me whose business might bring them to the house.
Utilitarian tables filled the clean but slightly cramped space, and several groups of workers were already partaking of their midday rations.
Curious glances flew our way, but a well-directed scowl from me had them all quickly turning their heads away again.
I grabbed two of the pre-packed hot meals from the warming tray and brought them to the quietest corner of the room, placing them down unceremoniously in front of two chairs.
“Water or coffee?”
Kalo’s gaze drifted from the packaged meals to the other tables in the room, taking everything in. “Coffee. The hotter, the better.”
With a grunt of acknowledgement, I returned to the serving area and poured two cups from the pot already sitting there. By the time I returned to the table, the stranger had opened his meal and was examining its contents, poking at the various items with his fork.
“You aren’t given a choice of what to eat?” he asked as I took the seat across from him, using my body to block his escape route. He couldn’t leave the room without going through me.
“The former Alpha implemented a new nutrition program. Meals are carefully planned.”
I didn’t bother to explain the genetic modifications that had been part of that program.
Since the downfall of Kyle, the geneticist responsible for both that and the Luna’s near-death, it didn’t seem like something to brag about.
Besides, I didn’t trust the man in front of me one bit and had no intention of giving up more information than required about our pack in general.
“You didn’t like the previous Alpha,” he stated, the words an observation rather than an accusation.
Kalo had already proven with Amanda that he could read people well, so I didn’t bother to argue with that assessment. “I had my reasons,” I replied instead.
“And you’re very protective of Alpha Amanda,” Kalo added. “Unusually so.”
“And?”
Again, I didn’t deny it. Had he already guessed we were mates? How good were his powers of deduction?
“I simply find it interesting. That’s all.” He offered me a smile obviously meant to be charming but my expression remained stony. “Werewolf pack dynamics are incredibly interesting to an outsider like me.”
“Do you deal with a lot of werewolves?” Maybe I could get a bit more information about his background than Amanda had managed in their limited time together since he wanted to chat.
“I deal with a lot of everything.” He took a delicate bite of his food before giving it an approving nod. “Well, at least it tastes good since you don’t get a choice.”
He really seemed stuck on the limited menu, and I felt an urge to defend our pack’s practices simply because they now reflected on Amanda. “I don’t mind having the meals selected for me. Saves decision-making energy for more important things.”
“The freedom to make your own decisions should never be taken for granted.”
Something pained flickered across his golden irises, but I focused on the hypocrisy of his words. “And yet you want to force my Alpha into a deal with you where she doesn’t have the necessary information to make an informed choice. How is that free or fair?”
Rather than answering, Kalo placed another forkful of food into his mouth, so I followed suit, shovelling in as much as I could to try to make this meal go faster.
“How long has this pack been on this land?” Kalo asked after a few moments of silent eating had passed. My plate was nearly empty but he paused in his eating to take a long sip of his coffee, holding the mug between his hands as if drawing heat from it.
“Almost a hundred years. Wolves were breaking off and founding new packs as settlers moved further west. Some located closer to the human towns. The Alpha’s family chose this location instead, remote and unoccupied.
It’s served us well and there are plenty of packs who would like to get their hands on it. ”
Based on what he told Amanda in the library, I assumed he asked for that reason, and Kalo’s nod seemed to confirm it. “I imagine it has some attractive natural resources too. Are people still looking for gold in the mountains?”
“Gold?” A frown pursed my lips as I searched my memory for any mention of gold on our land.
A vague memory of a field trip back in school sprung up from somewhere deep in the back of my brain.
“There are old stories about people coming this far east during the gold rush in the mid 1800s, but as far as I know, they never found anything. It was a dead end, and all of that happened long before our pack got here.”
“I suppose it was a while ago.” His eyes drifted to a spot over my shoulder, unfocused, as if he were deep in thought. I waited a few moments before clearing my throat.
“Are you almost finished?”
He blinked, his eyes refocusing as if waking up from a dream. “Not quite.”
My foot tapped impatiently on the floor while he finished his meal, completely unhurried, and at last, we stepped together out into the fall afternoon. A light drizzle had started and grudgingly, I offered to get him a raincoat, knowing my Alpha expected me to be hospitable.
“The weather doesn’t bother me,” he said, turning his face upwards to let the drops hit his cheeks. “Without the rain, we can’t appreciate the sun.”
This guy is fucking weird, Hunter grumbled in my head, and I couldn’t disagree. Hopefully, Amanda was making some progress on figuring out his species and true motive because the more time I spent with him, the more confused I became.
Together, we set off towards the north, towards a mountain ledge that would give us a full view of our territory and its natural defenses.
What he was able to glean from that would tell me a lot about his knowledge of the challenges we faced, and whether he might have anything worthwhile to offer if Amanda decided to trust him.
The whole thing still felt like a terrible idea to me.