“When you’re with a wolf, physically, their scent rubs off on you,” Caitlin continued. “It’s different from the claiming. The claiming is…instinctual, deeper. On a soul level, almost. Sex is physical, and because it’s so physical, scents rub off, mix—”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sex? Who the hell said anything about sex? Did I bring it up? Both me and my inner wolf might’ve wanted it, but surely I hadn’t let it slip. I was reasonably certain no one here had said anything about getting down and dirty.
My face flushed. “I didn’t have sex,” I quickly said, wanting to smack myself for sounding so…so young. So childish.
Caitlin only chuckled. “It doesn’t have to be sex, exactly. It could be other things, like a long embrace or…things leading up to but not including sex.” Though she was soft-spoken and quiet, she had no problems talking about things like this, apparently. All shifters were more cavalier about these things than I was, than most humans were.
If my face was red before, it was on fire now. This conversation had taken a mortifying turn.
She must’ve seen my embarrassment, for Caitlin set a hand on my back, rubbing it gently. “Addie, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to overstep. I keep forgetting you’re new to all this. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but know that I’m always here and always willing to listen.”
Kind words. She’d make a great mother.
“No, no. I’m okay.” I shook off my humiliation, figuring it was pointless to deny it, since apparently shifters all had a super sense of smell. “It’s just…weird to me.” So, I smelled like Forest and Maze, at least. Maybe the others, depending on how much of an embrace was needed before scents started to mingle.
That meant every wolf I’d come in contact with now would know all about my sexual escapades.
Awesome.
Caitlin giggled. “You have a lot to get used to around here. The way you’re turning red is adorable, though.”
Great. I’d always wanted to be adorable. Check that off my bucket list.
Chapter Twelve – Addie
I stayed with Caitlin a while, talking and laughing, getting to better know the shifter who I already felt a strange closeness to. It felt good to have a friend, better to talk about some of the weird things shifters did and get an inside perspective without fear of being judged.
The whole no-knocking thing was because the pack was not supposed to hide anything from each other, not keep any secrets—which I had already failed miserably at, after keeping the warning from Clay to myself—and that included houses and anything in them. Nothing belonged to an individual pack member; everything was the pack’s. Children-slash-pups? The pack’s, as ridiculous as it was.
It made sense, to a certain extent. It quashed jealousy over material possessions, stopped other members from wanting things others had. Theoretically, anyway. No one was a stranger to anyone else.
What I could not get past, however, was the barging in thing. What if the occupants of the house were getting busy when someone else walked in? What if it was a family member? That would be excruciatingly horrible.
Then again, everyone in the pack was family to everyone else. Maze called Landon his brother, even though Landon was from a different pack entirely.
Rules were…loose here.
It was when Aaron started wailing downstairs, when Caitlin’s mate brought the crying baby up, the very moment she started to lift her shirt to breastfeed him, that I excused myself and said I had to get back to the house.
Not a lie per se, because surely Arthur had to be back by now. The light coming in through the window had lost its strength, fading into dusk. Dylan and I should return to Forest’s house before darkness fell and the creep factor of the town was exponentially increased. Plus, the whole watching a woman breastfeed thing was not something I wanted to do, no offense.
Babies still kind of weirded me out, and I’d just recently discovered how wonderful it was when one of my mates touched my breasts; I didn’t want to so quickly associate them with children.
Kids were not on my priority list. Not anytime soon. And even after Clay was gone from this world for good—and I wouldn’t rest until that statement rang true—popping out babies would still be the last thing on my mind for a while.
Just because the shifters as a whole weren’t as populated as they once were did not mean I had to give my life to the effort of repopulation. Call me selfish, but I wanted to enjoy life for a while, get used to being a shifter. Run with the pack.
Not have pups of my own.
Besides, deep down, I was still the same Addie I was before all this. Logical. Looking at the whole picture, well, the world had changed. Shifters might’ve been prolific hundreds of years ago, but science and technology took the forefront of human civilization, and as a result, shifters had been run from their homes, maybe even hunted by the same people who feared witches.
Huh. History’s disdain for witches, especially of the female variety, suddenly seemed a tad more reasonable. Still, though, having power did not mean it was okay for humans to burn them at the stake.
I would never say aloud that maybe it was natural selection, maybe humans were meant to take over the world, but the writing was on the wall. And these shifters weren’t even trying. Half of them didn’t know how to Google something, for goodness sakes. Who in this century, besides people born before the age of the internet, didn’t know what Google was?
Dylan and I walked hand in hand back to Forest’s house, his warmth welcome, his grip soft but firm. The breeze that blew against us was cool, signaling the night air that was so very close. The moon had already risen in the horizon in the sky, though the sun had yet to fully go down. With no one else on the sidewalks, it was both eerie and calming.
“Thank you,” I whispered, squeezing his hand, “for taking me there. It was good to see her. I’m glad she’s doing alright.” Doing alright was a bit of an understatement, because Caitlin had practically exploded in a ball of happiness and joy when her mate had brought Aaron up to be breastfed.
Looking forward to breastfeeding. It was mind-boggling.
“I thought you’d like to see her,” Dylan said, running his free hand through his blonde hair. A few inches longer than Maze’s, it hung over his forehead, touching the top rim of his glasses in a kinky mess. “And I wanted you to know that no matter how bad things get, there’s always a bright spot in the darkness.”
Okay, forget about what Caitlin said about calling me adorable. If anyone was adorable, it was Dylan. What guy went around saying things like that?
I pulled his arm closer to me, practically hugging it as we walked. “Sappy,” I whispered, shooting him a smile. Right now, I was more than okay with sappy. I could use more sappiness in my life, given the state of it.
“I think you have enough seriousness,” he said, grinning back at me. “I’m one of those people who think you can never get enough sappiness.” We stood before Forest’s house, at the start of the pathway that led to the front porch. He stopped us, turning to look at me. “Sometimes you need sappy.” His serious demeanor broke away as he added, “Plus, with all of us hounding you, I’m sure you’ll need a friend to run off to and complain about us to.”
I giggled at that. “The others, yes, but you?” I leaned in toward him, whispering, “Never.” And I meant it, one hundred percent. Out of all of them, Dylan was the most serious one, the understanding one. He was the type who would never judge someone for their decisions, never unfair in anything he did or thought.
Dylan was perfect.
Even the way he currently smiled at me made my stomach flip flop inside my gut. His shallow dimples. His messy hair and warm, brown eyes. He was both attractive in a sexy way and appealing in personality alone. The nice guy that never got enough exposure in human entertainment.
What was that human saying? Nice guys finished last.
Not Dylan. Not if I could help it.
I leaned in further, pressing my lips to h
is, softly at first, but quickly gaining steam and momentum. Now that I knew what I was doing when I kissed him, I took charge, bringing my hands over his shoulders, holding his head to mine.
As if he would dare pull away. Judging from the eager way he kissed me back—not to mention the way he held me against him, nearly suffocating me—the last thing on his mind was pulling away and ending this.
The world around me could stop spinning, could shatter and break and fade away into nothing, and I wouldn’t even realize it. I was so lost in Dylan, so lost in the feeling of his lips on mine, I wouldn’t even freaking care. I could feel nothing else, focus on nothing else. Hands and heat, our bodies practically melding together.
Speaking of hands, his had found the base of my shirt, sliding under, touching my bare skin. That soft, sensitive patch on my lower back. That area which made me lean into him harder, want him more.
Just when I started to wonder if we should’ve waited until we got inside, for then we could’ve taken our embrace to a different room in the house, a voice called out from the porch, “You might want to bring that passionate embrace inside. Your mother’s had dinner ready for a while now, and she’s kind of ticked it’s getting cold.”
I let out a soft whine as Dylan and I pulled our heads away from each other, both of us turning to glare at Landon on the porch. The cocky ass was grinning, a genuine expression of glee on his face, as if he truly enjoyed breaking up our so-called embrace. Which he probably did.
The jerk.
Dylan took the lead, giving me a smile. “Don’t worry,” he told me, “there will be plenty of more time for that later.” If he were his twin, he would’ve ended the statement with an over-the-top wink, but he wasn’t. He was himself, and because of it, I believed him.
When we stepped back into the house, I found Arthur was still gone, and just like Landon said, my mom had cooked an actual meal. Meaning multiple pots and pans were used, something I was not used to. At home, it was usually microwavable meals or something thrown in the oven, nothing that took planning.
Needless to say, it was an awkward dinner.
The most awkward, uneasy situation I had ever been in. Maze, Dylan, Landon, Sarah, and me, not to mention Forest, who’d brought himself out of his room and did his best not to show any hint of pain. There had never been a more motley group of people, of shifters—and never had Sarah thrown so many death glares than she did during that meal. Mostly at Forest.
Hey, at least Forest was clothed now. No more shirtless alphas…though it didn’t really make it any easier or any better. Sarah was hellbent on glaring at Forest the entire time, and I wanted to curl up and pretend none of this was happening.
All that glaring, it had to mean Sarah had heard what went on upstairs between Forest and me. Which, okay, I wasn’t the quietest one around when I was having a good time—something I didn’t realize before—but it wasn’t reason enough. I had the feeling that if I hadn’t gone into Forest’s room, Sarah would still be shooting him daggers with her eyes, anyway.
“How long until Arthur gets back?” I asked my plate, refusing to glance up. I sat between Maze and Dylan, across from my mom and Landon. Forest sat at the head of the table, leaning as far back from it as he could while still trying to eat. My face burned with the knowledge Sarah knew, and I was afraid meeting anyone’s eyes would only make her more enraged.
A more enraged Sarah was a no-no.
“I don’t know.” Sarah’s voice was like ice. “Depends on how long it takes the assembly to—”
“Assemble?” Maze offered, with his easy way.
It was not amusing to her, and though I wasn’t watching, I could feel her turn her icy stare his way. “Now is not the time for jokes,” Sarah said, almost snidely. That tone, that voice—she was hardly the mother I knew. All because of what happened with Forest? Or maybe this whole situation was pushing her toward the edge.
“I say it’s always the time for jokes,” Maze went on. “Because you never know, tomorrow you might be dead.”
I felt myself rolling my eyes, but I stopped. Such a cliché saying, one I’d never heard before in real life, but now that I had, I wished I could forget about it. It hit too close to home, because it was true. Tomorrow Clay could come back and kill us all with a flick of his wrist.
A death priest who could survive a snapped neck. I hoped I’d never have to see him again, but I knew I would. Arthur hadn’t wanted to get out of that cabin so quickly for no reason. It was only a matter of time before the death priest rose again and created more havoc, more destruction, stole more lives he had no right touching.
I kept my mouth shut for the rest of dinner, pretending to ignore the looks Sarah threw my mates. Mostly Forest. When the guys offered to help clean up afterwards, I did not argue with them, and I most definitely didn’t volunteer myself for the job. I had to get away from Sarah.
Sarah was going to drive me crazy, that much I knew.
Within ten minutes, I was in the basement, sitting across from Jack. The wolf let out a whine when he saw me, his eyes flashing a more metallic green when I approached. A small plate sat near him, along with a half-drank bowl of water. His ashy blonde coat looked relatively healthy, given his confinement and the chain around his neck, holding him to the house’s metal support beam.
The concrete floor around him was littered with claw marks, as if he’d tried to escape. That night, the shifter guard who’d watched him said he had gone nuts. I knew he probably felt Clay’s magic, felt the pull, and tried his best to escape, to get out of this basement and return to the death priest who’d played his master for years.
I knew what Clay was capable of, and I didn’t blame Jack for it. Landon might’ve hated him for how he’d attacked him, helped drag him to the cabin, but Jack had no choice. Clay had total and absolute control over him. How could I hold anything over him when he was not the one in control of his functions?
Jack stared at me, lifting his head off the floor, the scar on his neck, beneath the fur, visible. Though he could not speak, I knew what his whining meant. It’d been so long since I’d seen him, he was worried about me.
Maybe.
Or maybe he was nothing more than a wolf after all, and all of this was for nothing. Domesticating a wild animal, a shifter who’d lost his human side, was impossible. It was only torture for him.
But we couldn’t let him go, either.
“How you doing, Jack?” I asked, leaning closer, going for his ears. He liked it when I rubbed them, especially when I itched the backs. I wished I could speak wolf, and hear what he had to say, or at least sense what he could feel. With the slight wagging of his tail, the way his snouted head leaned into my hand, I knew he liked the attention.
It couldn’t stay like this.
“I’m sorry you’re still down here. I wish I could help you like I helped Forest,” I told him, noticing the way his green eyes locked with mine. Such a pretty green, a deep emerald. Like jade, cut and shaped in the form of eyes.
Green eyes were the rarest in the world. About two percent of the world had it, and I was one of them, just like Jack. Pure green, no flecks of brown, no bits of blue. Absolute, undiluted green. It was a beautiful color, bright and vibrant with life. They were eyes I’d inherited from Arthur.
Well, at least I could thank him for one thing.
I inhaled, focusing on the strings of invisible energy floating around us. I’d gotten a little better at detecting spells, but regardless of how hard I concentrated, I could not sense anything. No spells lingering, no influence from Clay. There was nothing in the air that would suggest Jack was anything but a shifter who just couldn’t shift.
My voice was quiet as I asked him, “Why can’t you shift, Jack? What happened to you?” Maybe if I found out, I would be better equipped to help him—and really, I was his only chance, because it didn’t seem like anyone else cared enough to try. “Are you running from something? From someone?”
I still scratched behind his ears,
and he only stared up at me, barely blinking and giving away no hints.
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” I whispered. “But know that once everything settles down, you’ll be my main concern.” My hands roamed to the top of his head, petting him like I would a dog. “I’ll help you shift back, I promise.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have made the promise, but I felt like I owed it to him to try. Being stuck as a wolf did not look pleasant, and with everything he’d been through, he should have another chance at life, regardless of what went on in his past.
I would make it happen, one way or another.
Chapter Thirteen – Addie
It was three days before Arthur came back with news. Three whole days of being stuck in Forest’s house, trying to ignore the dirty looks Sarah kept throwing the alpha. Three days full of boredom and anxiety over what was to come, for the longer Arthur stayed away, the higher the chance Clay would come back and make all the shifters in town his puppets.
Henry, much to everyone’s chagrin, kept coming around. The first time he’d shown his face, acting extremely haughty due to Arthur’s absence, he’d zeroed in on the scent that apparently still lingered on me, smiling like a true creep and only further angering my mom when it came to the alpha.
Surely the smell would have to fade sometime? As sad and depressing as it was, I did not have any more alone time with any of the guys, fearing the repercussions from Sarah. She was not someone to take lightly, and most definitely not someone to underestimate. No, I figured, the steamy naked times and orgasms could wait.
A really depressing thought, because after that first one, it was hard for me not to think about the way Forest had made me feel. It wasn’t a wonder why the movies glamorized sex so much. If sex was anything like that, I totally understood.
During the three days, Forest’s wound in his gut healed and scabbed over. His skin grew less pale, less pallid, and his azure stare was once again filled with life. He was back to his old self, plus a few scars. Couple the one from the arrow—technically two, since it went straight through, leaving a hole in his front and his back—with the ones already on his back from the skeleton the night of the funeral…I was the root of all of his recent scarring.
Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance Page 46