Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  It wasn’t the most badass of speeches, but it was the best I could do, given the fact that badass speeches weren’t exactly my forte. I’d have to make a mental note to get better at them.

  Either way, I was getting in the freaking basement.

  Mike seemed to study me harder. It was a long moment before he let out a sigh and stepped aside, initiating a shocked “What?” from the kitchen. Landon stormed to our side, eyes narrowing at the both of us. “You’re not supposed to let her strongarm you into moving, Mike. She’s…she’s not even a true wolf yet—”

  There he went, trying to insult me. I rolled my eyes again. I would have to make another mental note, the second of the day already, to stop rolling my eyes. These guys drove me so insane, my eyes were about to roll right out of my head at this rate. Plus, I was practically twenty. Two decades old. Kids rolled their eyes, not adults.

  Though I could always say, once Landon started acting like an adult, I would, too. That would get us nowhere.

  “Yeah, but she’s intimidating,” Mike said, now no longer standing between me and the basement door. “She reminds me of her mother. You and the twins will have your hands full with her.”

  I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Not literally, but it was hard to hear a stranger talk about my future mates handling me, not to mention how slightly mortifying it was. Pack members knowing everything about my life was something that would take a long time to get used to. I was a fan of the old, quaint, very human aspect of life called privacy. I might miss it the most.

  Once I overcame the mortification, I shot back, “You’re about to have your hands full right here if you don’t open that door for me.” Totally, one hundred percent full of hot air with nothing to back my words. Really, I just wanted to leave this conversation as quickly as possible, and since my hands were full with a plate and a bowl, it would take some serious juggling to do it myself.

  And making Mike open the door for me would only make Landon madder, right? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that. Actually, I kind of enjoyed making him upset. Landon got what he deserved, the jerk.

  Mike jumped into action, turning the knob and pushing it open for me.

  I gave him a smile. “Thank you, Mike.” I thought about saying more, but as it was, I already felt like I wasted too much time between Landon and Mike, so I kept quiet and went down the stairs.

  Jack was on his side, his chest rising and falling sluggishly with each breath, the chain around his neck keeping him locked to the house’s support beam. When I rounded the stairs, his ears perked up, and he lifted his head off the cement floor.

  The only thing different from before was the plate and bowl I’d brought down last time. They were licked clean, empty, off to the side. It was just as I suspected; no one else fed him, because no one else cared to. They all thought Jack was a traitor. Why waste food and resources on a wolf who might never be capable of being let go?

  But if they didn’t let him go, what would the pack do with him? Kill him? Let him wither away down here and starve to death? I would be aghast if Forest allowed it to happen. If he let it happen, if he authorized it or whatever it was alphas did, then he was not the kind of alpha I wanted to follow.

  “Hey, Jack,” I whispered, moving closer to him. The basement had started to smell, due to the fact he’d gone to the restroom in the corner of the room a few times. You had to do what you had to do, right?

  I felt bad for him. Even if he couldn’t shift, somewhere in there was still a person. He might’ve made terrible decisions, but everyone made bad ones here and there, and I would argue until the end of time—the pack could not hold him responsible for what he did under Clay.

  Jack let out a low whine as I set the plate and bowl down before him, reaching with my foot to yank the others away. I’d clean them and use them again later, since it was clearly up to me to take care of him. I knew there were other things on the pack’s mind, on Forest’s mind, but it was no excuse. Jack was a living, breathing wolf. Those other bodies were just that—bodies. Corpses. No life in them anymore.

  A harsh reality, but it was reality all the same.

  “I’m sorry you’re still down here,” I said, sitting cross-legged just out of his reach. What a hypocrite I was, going on and on about how the pack should treat him, yet I barely treated him any better.

  It was hard to trust a beast without a man’s face. If he’d been in his human form, this would be easier, I knew. But again, if he was human, he wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

  His large, round eyes met mine, and I stared into their reflective, metallic green hue for what felt like ages. Pretty eyes, eyes that were intelligent, but eyes that held no recognition. Animal eyes, through and through. There was nothing inside of him that shouted I’m a man, nothing familiar about him to me.

  To my wolf, well, that was a different story. My wolf was a little boy crazy at the moment, which I found ridiculous, because who knew how old this wolf was. In human years, he could be forty. It was hard to tell a wolf’s age, unless they’d started to go gray, in which case their wolf’s fur would also be graying.

  “Surely, somewhere inside you, you’re in there,” I whispered, suddenly becoming sad as I gazed upon him. I could only imagine what it would be like, to be trapped in the forest of my mind while my wolf took full control. Miserable, awful, downright terrible. This was my life. My wolf was a part of me, not the other way around. I had full control, and it should be that way for Jack, too.

  “If you’re in there, know that I’m going to find a way,” I continued. “It might not be soon, might not be tomorrow, might be months from now—” God, I hoped not. “—but I’m going to help you, Jack. You deserve a life. No one should be locked up like this. It’s not fair to you. Once Clay is dealt with, I promise, I’m going to help you.”

  I didn’t make promises lightly, either. Whether or not Jack could hear me and understand me, or whether he just looked at me and thought female wolf, must claim, didn’t matter. I would help him. I’d do everything in my power to help him, even if it meant spending hours every day learning new spells.

  I stared at him, watching as he gazed up at me. He didn’t go for the food or the water; he would not break eye contact with me. My heart constricted; I couldn’t help it. I felt for him, even though I did not know him. This had to be torture for him, and a torture like this I’d only wish upon one man.

  Clay.

  A bizarre urge came upon me, and before I knew what I was doing, I acted on it. I reached out a hand toward Jack, shaking only a bit because I was not certain how he would react. The last thing I needed was to get a bite or a scratch, so it was beyond stupid for me to lean over the area where he could reach and try to touch him.

  I couldn’t say why I did it, only that I had to.

  Please don’t bite me, I thought desperately. I’d never hear the end of it from Landon. I was ready for any sudden moves; a jerk or a twitch of his wolfish body would send me tumbling back and out of his reach. I had my wolf’s instincts though, and my wolf did not sense any fight radiating from Jack.

  Jack slowly lifted his head off the ground, and I pressed my hand against his head, right between his ears. Fingers splaying through his ashy blonde fur, he was coarse and rough. If his diet was better, if he was less sickly and starved, he’d probably feel softer, be nicer to the touch. It was like I was rubbing a steel wool pad. Not the softest thing to touch, and only made more depressing because he was a living, breathing entity and not a pad to clean a sink.

  “I’m going to help you, Jack,” I whispered, reaffirming it to both him and myself. I had Clay to handle, somehow, and then I would focus on Jack. Everything else could wait. My horny inner wolf would have to learn patience, which shouldn’t be too big of a problem, considering my wolf had waited until now, anyway.

  There was no telling what would happen once I shifted. It was a very real possibility I could lose my magical abilities, so it would wait until everything was de
alt with. When the pack was nothing more than my new family with no dangers around, then I could unleash my inner wolf—truly let her out into the world.

  Not before, no matter how tempting it was.

  And when it came to my future mates, even the asshole upstairs, it was super tempting.

  More tempting than I wanted to admit.

  Chapter Thirteen – Addie

  After spending a bit more time with Jack, and learning that he liked his ears rubbed, I left the house. Landon had to stay, taking over guard duties from Mike, whom he said was a pansy for letting me walk all over him. I could think of a few comments to say to him about the subject, but I held it in, knowing Landon would soon do something else that made me want to strangle him.

  It was so frigging difficult to think Landon had been so gentle with me in my room. How he’d spoken to me, the way he’d touched me softly and made my body feel weightless, not to mention all the heat…

  It was the assholes who drove me crazy.

  The sun was a balmy seventy degrees, a little warm for my jean jacket, but it was a fashion statement I would not give up. Jean jackets always seemed to go in and out of style, but I didn’t care. It was my favorite thing, and if someone took it or threw it out, there would be hell to pay. Sarah had learned that when I was in fifth grade. Who cared if the jacket didn’t fit anymore? Throwing a jean jacket away was blasphemous. Give it Goodwill, or something. Some kind of donation so someone else could love it as much as I had. I wasn’t crazy about a lot of things—my grades, before I was kicked out, were one thing. The second? Definitely my jackets.

  Other than my jacket, I wore a tank top and shorts, along with ankle-high boots. My typical outfit. My legs were a bit on the long side, and they used to be kind of lanky, at least from my perspective. After joining with my wolf? They were built better, packed with more muscles, somehow.

  I liked how I looked, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I looked like a model, but the basics were there. Clear skin, thin but muscled limbs, and not a scar anywhere. My mom had always gone on and on about how pretty I was, but I knew to take it with a grain of salt. Mothers were supposed to praise their kids about anything and everything; it was their job. When the guys told me I was pretty?

  Well, that was something I could believe.

  I should go back to the house and practice with Sarah, but being outside, after spending some time with Jack, I couldn’t. Surely I could take a short walk, maybe see what the others were doing. Landon had said they were near the lake. I’d go there, see if I could help with anything.

  Procrastinating, me? Never. I’d been a straight-A student, prior to that research paper which was weighted to be over thirty percent of my final grade. I didn’t procrastinate. It wasn’t me.

  Okay, so I might’ve been doing it a little now, but there was a first time for everything. That’s what people always said.

  My feet drew me towards the lake. I made it to the park, where a little jungle gym and other slides and swings were for the kids. I could hear the hustle and the bustle long before I could see it.

  On the shore of the crystal-clear lake, dozens of wolves worked. Some were picking up stones in the sand, while others dug out a trench of some kind. Forest stood near the trench, talking to another wolf I didn’t recognize. A man who looked as intimidating as Forest. His beta, maybe?

  No one looked at me, which I liked, because they were all so busy, so focused on their work. It was like I wasn’t even there.

  Probably just as well, because even though I’d decided to join their pack, I’d never been formally introduced to them as a whole. There were wolves I’d never seen before, hustling as they went about, doing whatever they had to. They didn’t know me, and I didn’t know them, though I knew they knew of me, at least.

  Henry, thankfully, was nowhere in sight. The last thing I wanted was to see him here, get scolded by him for wanting to learn more about my heritage. What the old coot didn’t seem to comprehend was that I was not just a shifter. I was a witch by blood. My father was one of the high warlocks of the world. One of seven.

  Just because I was a shifter too did not mean I would throw all of that to the wayside, especially since it could help us defeat Clay. If Henry could not understand it, I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to sit him down and explain it. I owed him nothing, not even respect.

  I heard someone scolding someone else, “You shouldn’t be out here, Cait. You should be taking it easy, with the pup in there.” A man’s voice, one laced with concern.

  “Yeah, he’s right, you know. You should rest,” another male’s voice, this one just as unfamiliar as the first.

  I turned around, spotting Caitlin standing between two worried men. The way they stood near her, their heads angled down to her, their brows creased in apprehension—it was clear they cared for her. They were her mates. One of them was the one who put that baby in her belly…a thought I should not have had.

  Today Caitlin wore strapped sandals and a flowing dress that blew easily in the wind. Her long black hair was drawn back by a low, puffy ponytail, the kind of hairband I had not seen for years. She waved a hand to the side, as if to swat away her mates’ worries.

  “I’m not doing any heavy lifting. I’m not overexerting myself,” Caitlin spoke, trying to hide her annoyed tone. “Guys, I’m okay, really. The baby is fine. Go—” She spotted me. “—I’m just here to help Addie learn how we do funerals.” She sashayed to my side, and her two mates watched her come to me, unable to stop her.

  Women were a force to be reckoned with, especially while pregnant.

  When she reached me, Caitlin turned back to face her men. “Go on, then,” she said, when neither of them moved. Eventually, they wandered off, back to the trench in the rocky sand, helping to make it wider. “I love them,” she told me, “but sometimes they’re a bit overprotective.”

  “I’m sure they only want to keep you safe, and the baby,” I said, giving Caitlin a smile.

  Caitlin frowned somewhat, pausing to gaze down at her stomach. Large and round, ready to pop at any moment. She ran a loving hand over it and held it along her stomach’s bottom, as if she had to help keep it up. “I know. It’s just hard, because…” She bit back a smile, glancing to me. “Nothing you should worry about. Come on. Let’s get some wood, help out a little. You fine with doing the carrying?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t like I could say no. Either me or the pregnant one, so it would be me. Plus, I was morbidly curious as to what Caitlin had stopped herself from saying. Was it hard because of all of the bodies the pack had brought back from the clearing? All those corpses were reminders that they were not invincible, nor were they the highest on the food chain, so to speak. When it came to magic, wolves were not immune.

  We left the group, heading into the woods. We were not the only ones gathering branches; others hiked around, stopping to inspect any large, wide branches on the ground that might do the job, whatever the job was.

  The…the pyre my mom had mentioned? I shivered at the thought.

  When we were relatively alone, Caitlin spoke, “I heard you were there.”

  Rumors traveled fast in the pack, didn’t they? I wanted to make a joke, but now was not the time for such things. This was a morbid, serious, and quite melancholy situation. Definitely not the time for jokes. Sarah was right—Maze had to have rubbed off on me, because my first instinct should not be to joke.

  “I was,” I said, bending to pick up a branch Caitlin pointed to. Four feet long, it was decently thick. At this rate, I’d be able to carry three more before we had to turn around and go back.

  It was then I knew what we were doing, what their funerals were like. They didn’t bury their dead; they burned their bodies, and since there were so many…

  Sarah had mentioned shifter funerals were usually a joyous occasion where everyone drank and told stories about the deceased. Tonight…things would not be the same, due to the sheer number of dead and how they were taken from this world.r />
  “I’m glad you were there,” Caitlin said, turning her brown eyes to me. “This pack hasn’t been the same since the disappearances. Hannah was the first. We all thought she’d run off, like your mother. I was only a kid at the time, barely old enough to remember, but when Sarah ran off with that…well, your father, I suppose, she was the talk of the pack for months. Years, even. No one left the pack. Ever.”

  Hannah was her name. A pretty name. I wondered what she looked like, what her laugh sounded like. None of the wolves taken deserved the fate they got, and knowing one of their names only made me feel worse, which I didn’t even know was possible until that moment.

  “Forest was devastated. He forbade anyone to go looking for her, because he’s not that type of alpha. He would never keep anyone here who doesn’t want to be. He let her go, because he thought it was what she wanted,” Caitlin carried on, pausing to point at another branch. More like a freaking log, but I picked it up all the same. “It was only when the next went missing he started to realize she didn’t run, and by then, of course, it was too late.”

  I could imagine. With the barrier Clay had enacted, shifters couldn’t find his murder cabin, even though it was less than an hour’s hike from Crystal Lake. They’d go around it, believing they went straight. They had no idea the murderous creep was camped out in their own backyard.

  “We lost so many,” Caitlin said. “Some of us wanted to move, but others, mainly the elders, refused. This is our home, they said. We will live and we will die in it.” She forced out a smile, though it fell off her lips quickly. “I bet they didn’t think we’d have a warlock to deal with. Hell, until you guys came back with your stories about Clay and what he did, I always thought magic was a thing in fairytales.”