Her Hidden Pack (House of Wolves and Magic Book 4)

by Helen Scott

  “Can we get another round of beers, as well as another piña colada and two fingers of Maker’s Forty-six, neat?” Tate asked from over my shoulder as I smiled at the bartender, who just looked uncomfortable.

  He gave us a curt nod before going about fixing our drinks. I left him to it and turned around to watch the people dancing. Apparently, once someone started it, they all did, and only a few of them had returned to their tables or to the bar. If they’d made their way to the bar, it seemed like it was generally for shots before returning to the kicking and swaying crowd.

  There was lots of laughing, and the men were definitely eyeing the goods that were swaying around them, though only a few of the women were in clothes that showed off their assets. The rest were in more conservative attire.

  When I saw a couple of worried glances shot toward the other end of the bar, I followed the direction of the gazes and saw the man with the flannel shirt gesturing wildly at the TV.

  “Stop putting the baseball on. No one wants to watch that. Put the hockey back on,” Angry Flannel Man called to the bartender.

  I watched as the guy picked up the remote and changed one of the TVs to hockey and another to baseball when it had been something else. Someone booed from farther back in the bar, and Angry Flannel Man spun around and glared out across all the dancers and other patrons, trying to visually scold whoever had expressed a negative opinion. That wasn’t in the cards though, as whoever had objected to the change in TV channels didn’t object quite enough to confront Angry Flannel Man.

  With no one to unleash his rage on, he went back to watching the TV and his beloved hockey. His eyes seemed to glaze over as he knocked back the rest of his drink and watched men that were padded up to look like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters except with a thing for violence and armor. Oh, and a strange obsession with the small black cylinder they kept hitting with sticks.

  “Want me to add it to your tab?” the bartender asked from behind me, his voice making me jump.

  He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me like that, not with shifter hearing, but I wasn’t exactly focused or looking for threats. Which was probably a little irresponsible of me, but I was focused on other things, like finding my fifth mate. The search, while entertaining in some ways, was also super frustrating, which was why I was surprised when the feeling hit.

  It wasn’t strong, but it reminded me of the day I saw Tate in the forest. Something waking up inside my soul, recognizing that another part of me, of our little family was nearby. Whoever it was had to be closer than Tate had been that day, and yet the feeling was fainter. Maybe it was because there were so many other people around, or maybe it was something else that I didn’t understand yet, but either way, it made me nervous.

  There was so much that could go wrong, but the last thing I wanted was to accidentally miss the connection because I couldn’t pick them out of the crowd in the bar. As my eyes scanned the dancers, I couldn’t figure out where the feeling was coming from, who it was trying to lead me toward.

  Tate elbowed me as he picked up the beers. “Mind grabbing Roman’s drink?” he asked.

  I shook my head, my brain still focused on the feeling that had awoken in my chest as I almost blindly followed Tate back to the table. As I set the drinks down, I paused and turned to look at the crowd once more, trying to will the feeling to narrow and point me in the right direction.

  “What’s wrong, angel?” Roman asked as his hand closed over mine.

  I hadn’t even realized I was still holding his glass, even though I’d set it down on the table. I turned back to the table and said quietly so as not to alert the other shifter, “My fifth mate is here.” I don’t know why I felt like it had to be kept a secret until the last moment, but something in my gut told me that we weren’t as safe as we’d first thought.

  25

  Nina

  I made my way back over to the bar with Blake and Tate in tow, and the two of them leaned against the glassy wood countertop, pretending to take in the dancers. The women closer to the front seemed to come alive a little more as they kicked and twirled, working their way across the floor. Part of me wanted to tell them that they were wasting their time, that both of the men they were showing off for were already taken, but I had other things on my mind.

  Specifically, the mate bond.

  I was trying to focus on the feeling in my chest, the one that I got whenever I found one of my mates. A cheer went up from some of the men at the other end of the bar, and as I looked over, intending to glare at them for distracting me, but I could feel the connection grow stronger. Surprise swirled through me as I took in the group that stood in the corner.

  Angry words sounded between two of the men. As I watched, dread filled me and I knew, down to the very marrow of my bones, who my fifth mate was—Angry Flannel Man. He and one of the guys next to him were having some heated words about the ice hockey game that had been on the TV. I glanced at Blake and nodded my head toward my new mate before I moved in that direction, skirting around the bar, dodging the dancers, and trying to avoid the strange gazes that some of the other patrons were giving me as I headed toward the angry men instead of away from them.

  As I got closer, I could hear that my new mate was upset about a penalty that was issued to one of the players on his favorite team. Or at least that’s what it sounded like. The other guy thought the penalty was well deserved, and the strange bartender was stuck between them, trying to mediate. As I approached Angry Flannel Man, the bartender’s wary gaze met mine. I could tell that he wasn’t sure what my intentions were. He didn’t seem to know whether to warn me away or to encourage me to try and break things up. I patted Angry Flannel Man on the shoulder and said, “Surely the other team is going to get what they deserve eventually, right? I mean, the refs have to play fair.”

  He looked down at me with an expression on his face that said I was either crazy or naïve, and I expected the bond to click into place, but it didn’t. I looked at him and tried to make eye contact, and it was only then that I realized the bond hadn’t formed because he was too drunk. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus on a single thing, let alone on me or the bond.

  “They never get what they deserve. That’s just the way the world works,” he said, though it was hard to understand, given his slurred speech.

  The bartender looked at me and asked, “You friends with him?”

  I nodded because what else was I going to do? Say no and walk away?

  Angry Flannel Man was my mate. Eventually, we were going to be friends, whether he wanted to be or not.

  “If he’s your friend, then get him under control,” the bartender said, giving me a pointed look. “If he continues to act like a fucking moron, I’m going to kick him out. People come to this bar to dance, drink, and find someone to fuck, not to watch ice hockey and shit talk teams. I will put him outside on his ass if he keeps acting like an idiot,” the bartender said before finally walking away.

  I loved that he just assumed my agreement with this whole situation as soon as I said I was friends with him. I never said I’d stop him from acting like an idiot. Frustration rolled through me, and I tried not to let it show. After all, this was a big night. I’d found my final mate.

  Now I just needed to get the mate bond to actually click into place.

  I had to flag the bartender down once more so I could ask, “Can we get a coffee or something? I need him to sober up.”

  The bartender nodded reluctantly and disappeared through a door to the back.

  “I don’t want a fucking coffee from you,” my new mate said.

  I looked at him dead in the eye and said, “You’ve had enough. The bartender is going to kick you out if you keep this up.”

  “I haven’t had nearly enough,” he growled out at me, the wolf there in his eyes, staring me down.

  “Listen,” I began, trying to get him to focus on me. “I know you. I know exactly who you are. You’re the whole reason I’m here.”

/>   Before he could reply, the bartender was back with the coffee. The short white mug was filled with a liquid so black, it looked like tar. The worst part was there wasn’t even any steam coming off it to signal that it was warm. Cold coffee was one of my least favorite beverages, but my new mate didn’t care. He took the mug into his large hands, slammed the coffee back like it was a shot before plonking the mug back down in the bar top so hard, I was surprised it didn’t break, and then he walked away.

  I chased after him, needing him to realize exactly what was going on between us, and he stopped just before the door and spun in place, making me almost crash into his chest.

  “I know exactly who you are. I just don’t want anything to do with you.” His words may have still been slurred, but I understood exactly what he said and exactly how much he meant it. When he spun around and left through the glass doors, swinging them hard enough to make them bang into the wall behind them, it made me jump. He practically disappeared into the night on the other side, and I felt a crushing sensation in my chest, like my heart was collapsing in on itself.

  I was shocked, and I didn’t know what to do or say as I gaped after him. He was just gone, even though he knew I was supposed to be his mate and that was supposed to be something sacred within our culture.

  When he appeared in the doorway once more, coming back inside, I thought he had changed his mind. I was wrong. He bypassed me and went straight for the bartender. “Give me my fucking smokes back,” he yelled as he leaned across the bar and grabbed the bartender by his shirt, yanking him forward faster than any human could have moved. My new mate’s fist came out and clocked the bartender across the face, snapping his head to the side like we were in a cartoon. If the music had been playing on anything other than a jukebox, I swear it would have scratched to stop and everything would have been silent in that moment. Fortunately for us, it was a jukebox, so the music kept going, which kept some of the customers distracted.

  Not all of them, though.

  Fortunately, my mates were quick to react. Blake jumped over the bar and helped the bartender back up, getting him to his feet and making sure that he was okay, while Tate grabbed my new mate by his shoulders, wrenching him away from the bar. Blake’s hand whipped out, and for a second, I thought he was going to hit the bartender as well, but that would have made no sense. Instead, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes off the counter by the cash register and tossed them toward my new mate. Tate caught them, though, snatching them out of the air as easily as you would take candy from a child, but with Tate’s grip loosened, my new mate was able to wrestle free.

  Instead of going after the bartender again, though, he went after the guy he was arguing with when I first approached him, letting a fist fly and hitting him with a right hook, followed by a left cross. The guy clearly had some training, and that just made him that much more dangerous than I ever thought possible, considering he was a drunk shifter. Roman and Micah were suddenly there, and they were dragging my new mate away from the guy he was currently attacking.

  They weren’t just putting some space between them though. No, they were hauling him completely out the door. All of us filed out of the bar except for Tate, who I assume stayed behind to pay the bill. We didn’t stop. As we got outside, though, Roman and Micah dragged my new mate, whose name I still didn’t know, all the way around the side of the building until not a single, solitary eye was on us anymore.

  “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Micah demanded as they pushed him up against the wall of the bar.

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to get away from you, asshole, and from her.” My new mate shot me a glare as though this was all my fault, as though I was the one that had chosen to have five mates.

  “Watch your mouth when you’re talking to her,” Roman said, his eyes flaring in anger that I knew he was longing to unleash. There were a few things that my eldest mate had no tolerance for. One of them was people threatening me or disparaging me, which was beyond sweet. It made my heart feel all mushy when I thought about it too long. So I tried not to.

  “Listen, I want nothing to do with you, any of you, but especially her. I just want to go. I want to finish watching the game. I want to keep my buzz. That’s it.”

  “She’s your mate, man. How can you talk about her like that?” Blake questioned.

  “She could be my mama or my grandmother or my auntie. I really don’t care at this point. I just want her to leave me alone. I want to move on. None of this is going to happen, so just let it go.” He pushed out of Micah’s hold, and I stared at him for a moment as he watched me and my reaction to his words.

  I didn’t think I reacted the way he expected, since he just stormed away. Roman began to go after him, his body practically vibrating with anger, and it was only my hand on his shoulder that stopped him from moving as I turned him to look at me. It forced him to physically break his laser focus on my latest mate, and I said, “Let me go after him alone. He needs some space.”

  “You don’t know shit about him, angel,” Roman said, surprising me by cussing for once. That was usually my younger mates’ department. Roman was much more refined than that, or at least that’s how he always came off.

  “I know that even though he might not want anything to do with me, he’s yet to lay a finger on me. He doesn’t want me near him, but I don’t think that means he’s violent. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He just wants me to go away. But as you all know, I’m much too stubborn for that. So let me chase after him and bring him back. Let me talk to him. We’ll figure it out. I hope.”

  “You can go ahead of us, but you’re not going alone,” Roman said.

  I nodded, accepting the compromise for what it was. “Fine, you can follow behind me. Just don’t get too close. Don’t spook him, OK?” I asked.

  Roman nodded. And with that, I set off after my latest mate, hoping that he would at least talk to me.

  26

  Nina

  My new mate was running ahead of me. Well, stumbling would be more accurate, I guessed, seeing as how he was still completely shit-faced. Needless to say, the intoxication made it easy for me to catch up with him.

  The alley we were moving down had originally led behind the bar before it made a sharp right-hand turn, leading between two strip malls that each had a few businesses to call their own. The place was dark and mainly full of dumpsters and a couple delivery trucks that were parked behind the businesses they delivered for. The scent of the garbage was strong in the air, preventing me from getting a good read on my new mate’s scent. Part of me wondered if that was intentional, if he was actively working against the bond like I had been with Roman in the beginning. Was that why he’d come this way instead of going back out in front of the bar? Or had he just been trying to avoid prying eyes? Or maybe I was putting reasoning where it didn’t belong—in a drunk man’s head.

  No one was out this time of night, at least not in these areas, which was good for us since it meant we could have an open conversation without having to watch our words for the sensitive human ears. The last thing we needed right now was someone calling the cops because they thought some crazy people were arguing in an alley.

  “What’s your name?” I called out when I was close enough. I was thankful that I hadn’t had to put much effort into catching him. It wasn’t that I was out of shape, if anything, I was in the best shape of my life, but I was tired and so not in the mood to play hide and seek with a man who was supposed to care about me.

  “None of your damn business.” He spun as he spoke and nearly tripped and fell on his ass, which would have served him right. His arms flailed to each side as he caught himself, and I had to suppress a grin.

  “It’s just your name, man. I’m not asking you to marry me,” I said.

  “You may as well be. Keep sayin’ that we’re mates. That’s about as serious as we get. We’re not fucking humans or something. And by the way, I don’t feel anything for you, lady. I don’t give a shit about
you or who you are,” he snarled, his dark eyes flaring with resentment as his lip curled.

  “Well, I’m Nina, and you are…?” I asked, trying to remember how my mom always wanted me to be polite and mind my manners.

  He was quiet as he steadied himself, regaining his balance, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to respond. But eventually, begrudgingly, he said, “Denver.”

  “Like the city?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yep, exactly. Mom loved Denver. She fully believed it was where I was conceived and made sure to tell me that every birthday.”

  I winced. “Sorry, that sucks. But it is nice to meet you, Denver. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think about the city without thinking about you again.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he said with a shrug before turning his full attention on me again, or at least as much as the alcohol would allow. “Listen, you know my name now. I’ve made it as clear as I can that I don’t want anything to do with any of this. I can’t be drunk enough to stop the bond and sober enough to run from you, so just let me go, yeah?” Denver asked as he began to back up.

  “I wish I could,” I said, trying to convey exactly how much I believed that statement, because I really did wish I could. I wished that I didn’t need him. I wished that it was just me and my guys and we were able to move on with our lives from whatever craziness was happening right now. “But maybe you could try not running from me. Maybe we could see what happens then? I mean, if you know I’m your mate and you clearly know that I have other mates and you seem to know how important this is, then you know that it’s not just about us.” I said, trying to see exactly how much he knew without overwhelming him.