Clea (Gillham Pack Book 17)

by Catherine Lievens

  The sound of voices approaching was enough to distract Christian from his thoughts. Everyone came in, talking and laughing, and Christian could see his mom and Clea’s mother would be great friends. They already looked like they’d known each other for years rather than for minutes. It was freaking Christian out.

  The rest of the evening went well. Christian mostly kept close to Clea and his own family. The dinner was more for their parents to meet each other than anything else, but it was nice to spend some time with Clea without having to worry about something happening.

  The enforcers’ house was always full of people coming and going, and even when Clea and Christian were in Clea’s room, they could hear noise and voices. Christian’s room was mostly out of the question since he still lived at home with his parents and both his brothers. Iggy might have his own room in Kameron’s house, but he spent most of his free time at home.

  Christian loved it. He loved being with his family, especially after he’d thought he lost Iggy forever, but he also wanted to be able to be alone with Clea, really be alone.

  He leaned sideways against Clea’s side. Clea looked up at him, a smile on his lips, and Christian blurted out, “When are we moving in together?” They’d talked about it, but they hadn’t actually done anything about yet.

  Clea cocked his head. “When do you want us to?”

  “We need to talk to Kameron about finding a house we can have, or even only a room.” That wouldn’t really change anything from living either in the enforcers building or with Christian’s family, although Kameron’s house was a lot quieter than the enforcers’ building.

  “Some of the houses Kameron had built are still empty.”

  “Are there small ones? We don’t need too much space.”

  “Yeah.” Clea’s smile widened. “So we’re going to move in together soon?”

  Sei flicked Clea’s ear from his other side. “Honestly, you two are so sweet you’re giving me diabetes. You’re mated. Why aren’t you already living together? You’re weird. You’re doing stuff out of order.”

  Christian snorted. “You think there’s an order to do things?”

  “Of course there is.” Sei raised his hand so Christian could see it and ticked his fingers off as he spoke. “First you meet and you realize you’re mates. Then you go live together, you have sex, and you mate. You were all over the place. You met and realized you were mates, then stopped talking for weeks. Then you had sex, mated, and only after that you’ll go live together.”

  “Can we not talk about Christian and me having sex at my mother’s table?” Clea asked in a pained voice.

  Sei grinned. “Of course we could, if I wanted to. You know what your mom asked me when she cornered me earlier?”

  Clea shook his head. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  Sei grinned, and it was evil. “You should. She wanted to know if I was fine with white and green.”

  “For what?”

  “The colors for my bonding ceremony.”

  Christian frowned. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “My mom apparently decided that since she can’t bond me off, she’ll work on Sei,” Clea explained.

  Christian’s eyes widened. “And you’re really going to bond to the person she chooses for you?”

  “Of course not. I’m not Clea. I’m not going to let her decide anything about my life. He, on the other hand, would have let her bond him off to that girl she’d chosen. By the way, I’m the one who’s supposed to bond with her now. She apparently has hips made for childbirth.”

  Christian had a hard time believing Clea really would have bonded to that girl if they hadn’t met, or even only if he hadn’t finally realized no one cared if Clea was a guy. What would have happened if he’d changed his mind too late? If Clea had already been bonded to that girl? Would he have left her for Christian, or would he have stayed with her and have lots of little Cleas?

  That was the one thing Christian couldn’t give his mate. They hadn’t talked about it seriously, but maybe they should have.

  “Hey, do you want kids?”

  Clea’s eyes widened. “Shhh, don’t even mention children while in my mom’s house. She’ll expect us to have a thousand of them and to start right away if she hears you. And I’m sure you remember how it went with your mother.”

  Christian pressed his lips together.

  Clea nodded. “Good. And I don’t know yet. I mean, I’m only twenty-nine. We have years before we need to decide that. Why? Do you want them now?”

  Christian shook his head. “Can I talk?”

  “As long as you don’t use the k-word.”

  “I might want them later on, but not right now.”

  “Good. Then we’ll have all the time in the world to talk about it. Once we’re away from this house and we’ve saved Sei from an unwanted bonding with a girl with wide hips.”

  “We have to rescue him?” Sei was probably more than able to rescue himself from anything, but he was family. If he needed anything, Christian was ready to help. Even if it involved wide-hipped girls.

  Chapter Seven

  “Do I really have to do this?” Kameron whined.

  “No, you don’t,” Clea answered.

  Kameron snorted. “Of course I do.”

  “Then why are you asking? You already know what I’m going to say.”

  “I had to try.”

  Someone knocked on the door and Clea put down his notebook and pen to go open it. He tugged on his shirt, not used to wearing it yet. He’d been used to fatigues and T-shirts, but now he was Kameron’s PA. No matter what Kameron said, Clea needed to look the part if he wanted to be taken seriously, so he’d switched to dress pants and button-down shirts. He hated his dress shoes and they hurt like a bitch, so he might accept Kameron’s suggestion of wearing sneakers. His Converse wouldn’t look too bad with his dress clothes.

  Clea sighed when he found Dan on the other side of the door. “I thought you weren’t supposed to come.”

  Dan grinned. “Why not? I want to see those big, bad guys Kameron has to meet.”

  “Of course you do. You know you’re only supposed to take care of the human side of this, though.”

  Dan pushed by Clea. Clea had liked the man better when he’d been scared of talking. That had lasted only a few minutes when they’d found Dan and Anthony in the woods, of course, but Clea thought about that moment with fondness.

  “I’ll deal with the humans, but I need to know what’s happening to do that,” Dan said. “Hey, Kameron. You look nice in that shirt.”

  Kameron pulled on his dress shirt like Clea had done earlier. “I hate it.”

  “But you’re hot. If I didn’t know about Zach...”

  Clea snorted. “Kameron would eat you for breakfast.”

  Dan grinned. “I wouldn’t mind being eaten, for any meal.”

  “Horndog.”

  “You know it.”

  At least they were making Kameron laugh. The alpha had been bitching about meeting with his new general and some other guy from the government. Not that Clea could blame him, but still. It was Kameron’s job.

  Dan flopped into one of the chairs in front of Kameron’s desk. Clea rolled his eyes and went to get another one from the corner, putting it with the other three. There was another knock before Clea could sit down, and this time, it had to be the guys Kameron was waiting for.

  He looked at Kameron, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but in his office. He nodded, though, so Clea went to open the door. He swallowed at the wall of flesh he found himself in front of, but the guy smiled and offered him his hand. “I’m Bran Morris.”

  Clea shook Bran’s hand. “Clea, Kameron Rhett’s assistant. Please, come in.”

  The man behind Bran was smaller than him, but he looked just as lethal. They both walked in and Kameron gestured for them to sit down. Clea looked at Dan, wondering if Kameron would kick him out, but Kameron didn’t say anything, and Clea wasn’t about
to.

  He closed the office door, but it opened right after he did. He rolled his eyes, because he felt more like a concierge at this point, but he didn’t say anything to Zach.

  Zach ignored the chair Clea had taken out for him and went to sit on the arm of Kameron’s chair. Kameron wrapped an arm around Zach’s waist, and together, they faced the two newcomers.

  Clea settled in his chair after taking his notebook from the desk. Then he waited. He’d organized the meeting, but he didn’t have anything to say. This was Kameron’s thing, not his.

  “Have you found a way to clean up your mess?” George Kebler, the government guy, asked.

  Clea didn’t like him.

  Kameron didn’t look fazed by the guy’s sour tone. “My mess, as you call it, could have been avoided if the council had had help.”

  “You know I couldn’t do anything, not without giving away what I am.”

  “Yes, but you know I had no way of getting out of the situation with Tom without exposing myself. Which I didn’t do, actually, since I didn’t actually shift in the video.”

  “Everyone who watched it thinks you’re a shifter.”

  “I can’t do anything about what people think, and you know that as well as I do. I actually didn’t do anything. Tom did, and I’m the only one who’s trying to deal with it.”

  George sighed and his face relaxed. He looked almost human.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do. Helping you would mean exposing my identity as a shifter.”

  “Why? You could be helping a friend.”

  “No one will believe that.”

  “All right. What do you want me to do, then? I’ve stayed hidden in pack territory since we locked Tom up, but people aren’t stupid. They know where I am, and if someone doesn’t say something, this is going to explode in our faces. We already have humans coming into our territory looking for me.”

  “What have you done about it?”

  Kameron looked at Dan, so of course everyone followed his lead. Dan blushed, but Clea noticed he couldn’t seem to be able to look away from Bran. He’d make sure to tease him about it later.

  Dan waved at Bran and George. “Hi, I’m Dan, and I’m one of the two humans who trespassed the other week.”

  George didn’t look amused. He narrowed his eyes at Dan then looked back at Kameron. “What is he doing here? He obviously knows about you being a wolf shifter now.”

  “Of course I do,” Dan answered. “Look, I’m here because Kameron offered me a job. The entire town knows about the guys in the pack. Not all of them know they’re shifters, but everyone knows there’s something weird with them. So many people living together like they do? Either it’s some kind of cult or a commune. The smartest ones, like me, saw the video and added two and two together. We came up with four.”

  George looked like he wanted to hit something, but Clea had to bite his lower lip to avoid laughing his head off. Trust Dan to be down to earth and explain things how they were.

  “You came up with four,” Bran repeated. He was smiling, and he looked like he wanted to eat Dan in a good way, at least for Dan. Clea didn’t want to have to think about that particular kind of meal. Ugh.

  “Yeah, well. Everyone in town knows Kameron, at least from sight. Everyone recognized him on that video, even though it didn’t stay on the web for long. So Kameron, plus a guy who used to live with Kameron and who changes into a wolf? Doesn’t take a genius to understand Kameron is a wolf too.”

  “Why are you here?” George asked. “Why didn’t the council incarcerate you for trespassing?”

  “Because he’s useful,” Kameron answered. “He knows the town. He’s lived here all his life, and he knows what the people think. I don’t think me being a shifter will remain a secret for long. I’m surprised I don’t already have swarms of people trying to see me.”

  “That’s because you’re part of Gillham. We don’t betray our people,” Dan answered—Clea hadn’t expected that answer.

  He knew Gillham was small and that everyone knew everyone, even though the town had been growing over the past few years. He was surprised that the inhabitants seemed to be so ready to protect one another, though. As far as he knew, Kameron and everyone else in the pack had mostly kept to themselves. They went into town, of course, but they didn’t have much contact with its people.

  That was changing too. Some of the pack members, mostly human mates, had started working in Gillham. Maybe that was one of the reasons why the people seemed so accepting. Clea didn’t doubt some of them were assholes—Calvin had been attacked by two of them after all—but most seemed to be good people.

  They weren’t stupid, and they deserved to know the truth. It was going to come out anyway. It was only a question of time. The two assholes had seen Calvin shift. Clea was surprised it wasn’t all over town already. They probably had to thank the non-asshole inhabitants for that.

  “So what are you going to do?” Bran asked.

  “That’s why you’re here,” Kameron told him. “I think I should come clean.”

  George made a strangled sound. “Come clean? You want to expose shifters to humans?”

  “We’re already exposed, and if we don’t come clean, humans will start to band together to hunt us. They won’t know we’re not dangerous. That’s when the government will have problems. They need to explain we’re not a menace to anyone.”

  “I can try to talk to my superiors.”

  “You do that. The council knows some of them are shifters. Try talking to them, yeah?”

  “What will happen if the town doesn’t take it well? If they attack?”

  “That’s where Bran comes in. He’s our new council general. He’s in charge of all the enforcers. We’ve done our best until now, but we can’t stay fragmented anymore, and Bran knows what he’s doing. He was in the military for years, until he had to leave to avoid being found out because he’s not aging.”

  Bran leaned forward, and Dan mirrored his move, as if he were trying to get closer. “So how are you going to come out to the town? Because you’re going to do it with them first, right? Before it goes national.”

  “I’m going to answer their questions.”

  About the Author

  Catherine lives in Italy, country of good food and hot men. She used to write fantasy as a child, but it was reading her first gay erotic romance novel that made her realize that that was what she really wanted to write.

  After graduating from college in English language and translation, she divides her day between writing, reading, taking care of her son and reading some more.

  You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or on her website: authorcatherinelievens.wordpress.com

  Email: lievens.catherine@gmail.com