The Challenge (The Pack Book 2)

by Kristin Coley

  He’d spent years putting up with my mom’s discontent without ever losing his smile and only now did I understand how much I’d relied on that. On him. Could I forsake him for Dom if I had to make the choice? My eyes burned as he opened every cabinet searching for the plates he swore I hid from him. I knew my answer was no. I wouldn’t sacrifice my dad for Dom. Or Anna. Or Sam. I would fight for all of them.

  No matter what it cost me.

  Chapter Five

  Loud knocking interrupted my last-minute attempt to finish my homework on Monday morning and I growled. It had to be the day Dad decided to make an early morning supply run to Boise. I ignored the fact that he’d had to go because of the sudden influx of nonpaying guests we had, which was sort of my fault.

  “I’m coming,” I shouted, shoving the hair out of my face as I slammed my textbook closed. I’d have to deal with getting an incomplete on it. “Jeez, hold your horses,” I grumbled as they continued to pound on the door. I took a second to peek through the peephole. I doubted a wolf could get within a mile of the place, but the Hanleys had used humans to do their dirty work in the past.

  I reared back when I saw a guy with a nose ring and ear gauges standing there. He had tattoos going down both arms and they were definitely not the sexy kind. More like the scrawny, malnourished kind. He started banging on the door again and I jerked it open to make him stop.

  “You Jess Carter?”

  My eyes narrowed at the question. “Who’s asking?” Any natural politeness I might have had vanished under my newly suspicious nature. I hated it but everyone had become suspect in my world.

  “I got a package for you,” he replied, his movements a little too jerky for my comfort. “You don’t even got to tip me. Just take the little bastard.”

  My eyes widened at his words and I started to shake my head. “No…..no, no, no, no.”

  “Yeah, my job was to deliver him and that’s it.” He dropped a kid’s backpack on the ground, a T-Rex staring up at me from it, and hauled ass.

  “I didn’t accept the delivery,” I shouted after him, but he didn’t hear me or more like he didn’t care, and I flipped a one fingered salute at his back.

  A throat cleared and I lowered my head, already knowing what I’d see.

  “Monster,” I sighed, defeated.

  “Sissy,” he said in the exact same tone.

  “So, Mom got tired of you since I wasn’t around to keep you from terrorizing people?”

  “She hired nannies,” he answered, his little body straight as he stared up at me.

  “How many?”

  “Seven.”

  I let out a low whistle. “That’s a new record even for you,” I answered, trying to keep the admiration out of my voice. Any perceived weakness was blood in the water with the monster.

  “Are you going to let me in?”

  “Are you going to behave?” I replied, not changing my tone.

  “Depends,” he smiled and I suppressed an instinctive shiver. “Do you have cookies?”

  “Is Mom a bitch?” I asked rhetorically, shifting so he could come through the door. He stepped inside and I gestured to the backpack laying on the ground outside. “You gonna get your stuff?” He glanced back at me, sizing me up and I held his stare. No weakness, I chanted to myself.

  He let out a disgruntled sigh, but moved to the door to grab his dinosaur backpack.

  Jess?

  Not now, I answered Dom, knowing I couldn’t lose my focus for a second if I wanted to lay the right foundation. Monster had a sixth sense for weakness and he’d exploit it in a second. I’d met full grown adults who couldn’t hold a candle to his five year old canniness.

  “Cookies?” He repeated, the arch of his eyebrow a mirror image of mine. In fact, he was a miniature replica of me except for the brilliant copper colored hair on his head. Hair that happened to be the exact same color and texture of Mom’s new husband. Except he hadn’t been her husband when Monster was born. Dad had been.

  I fought off a spurt of indignation on Dad’s behalf, knowing he had never treated Monster any differently. Mom was the one who’d done that. Favoring him and making comments to drive a wedge between Monster and Dad and me. It had been her favorite pastime.

  I walked to the cabinet praying Dad hadn’t midnight binged on the cookies because there would be hell if Monster didn’t get his damn cookie. Relief poured through me at the familiar packaging. I grabbed it and pulled out a cookie.

  “Two,” he demanded, hand out as his lower lip pushed almost as far out.

  “One,” I corrected, holding it out of reach. “Did you eat breakfast?”

  His eyes narrowed as he considered which answer would get him what he wanted.

  “Honesty will get you two. Lie to me and I’ll eat it in front of you,” I told him and his little body seized with indignation.

  “No breakfast,” he gritted out. “He wanted to get rid of me.”

  “Now, was that so hard?” I handed him the cookie and put the rest in the cabinet. He shot me a betrayed glance and I rolled my eyes. “Easy there, Monster. You can have the other one after you eat breakfast.” I gave him a pointed stare. “I remember how your mind works.” He let out a huff, but accepted my terms with a nod.

  I pulled eggs and cheese out of the fridge and started to make him a cheese omelet. I glanced at him over my shoulder, seeing he’d pulled himself onto one of the barstools. “It took you longer than I thought.”

  “She thought she could convince you to come back,” he muttered around a mouthful of cookie. “When you refused, she tried to send me to a boarding school.”

  “What?” I shrieked, egg flying off the spatula as I whirled around. “You’re five!”

  “I know!” He threw his hands up. “They wouldn’t take me. She told them she’d pay them extra but they still wouldn’t.” I narrowed my eyes on him.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Set the bathroom on fire,” he answered promptly and my eyes almost bugged out of my head. “Just the trash,” he added hastily.

  “I showed you how to start a fire in case of emergency,” I reminded him, shaking the spatula at him.

  “It was an emergency!” He shouted in exasperation. “Don’t burn my eggs.”

  “Don’t be such a demanding little shit,” I retorted as I turned back to his eggs and moved them around the skillet. “I can’t believe you set a bathroom on fire.” I eyed him. “I don’t know if I’m terrified or impressed.”

  “Impressed,” he said, stumbling over the word slightly.

  “You’re a little too smart for your britches,” I told him, scooping his eggs onto a plate. “One day that’ll get you in trouble.”

  He shoved a forkful of eggs in his mouth and gave me a gap toothed grin. I grabbed his chin and examined his mouth. “You lost another one,” I commented and he nodded excitedly.

  “I still have it,” he said eagerly, dropping the fork and digging into his pocket. “I was waiting till I saw you before I put it under my pillow.” He shoved it into my hand and went back to his eggs as I inspected the little tooth. We both knew he’d waited because without me there was no tooth fairy and it hurt that he already knew that at the age of five, and I squeezed the little tooth until it made an indent in my skin.

  “You better hope the tooth fairy knows where to find you,” I replied, making a good show of inspecting the tooth for any cavities. “There’s a lot of wolves around here, she might get eaten.”

  “Wolves don’t eat tooth fairies,” he dismissed. “They eat deer, elk, moose, caribou, and bison. Occasionally, rabbits, beavers, birds and fish.”

  I blinked as he rattled off the list, impressed in spite of myself. It always amazed me how smart he was considering his parentage.

  “You clearly didn’t get your intelligence from Mom,” I answered and he grinned.

  “I got it from you, Sissy,” he told me confidently and I didn’t correct him. He most definitely didn’t get his higher than average IQ from
me, but who was I to tell him differently? “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

  “I am,” I answered, swiping some of his eggs from his plate. “But seeing as how you showed up unexpectedly I think I’m going to be late.”

  “I can go with you,” he offered and before I could reply, I heard the familiar rumble of a Jeep. He hopped off the barstool and raced to the window. His eyes grew wide when he saw the jacked up Jeep parked right in front of the door and I wondered if Dom had bothered to put the top on. He didn’t get cold like I did so the sharp bite of the weather didn’t bother him.

  “Sissy,” he said uncertainly the emotion so unusual for him, I glanced over. “There’s a giant outside.”

  A heavy thump followed his words and he jumped.

  “Maybe you should let him in,” I replied, smiling. I only allowed it because I knew it was Dom on the other side. Jess? He whispered against my mind when the door didn’t open immediately.

  One sec, I replied as Monster screwed up his courage and opened the door. Dom’s eyes met mine instantly and I saw when he realized I was across the room. He glanced down and both eyebrows lifted.

  “Who are you?” They said in unison and I giggled.

  “You first,” Monster retorted, straightening himself. “My house.”

  Dom blinked and then proceeded to cross his arms, the muscles bulging in his tight black t-shirt. “My girl,” he replied in a low rumble. Monster quaked but didn’t back down.

  “My Sissy,” he answered back, his tone clearly stating his claim trumped Dom’s.

  “I’m Dominic Navarre. I’m here to pick Jess up for school.”

  “You look to old to go to school,” Monster replied.

  “I coach,” Dom answered through gritted teeth. “And you are?”

  “Monster,” he answered promptly and with a quick glance back at me, he lowered his voice. “You have any cookies?”

  Dom shot me a helpless glance and I raised my hands. “He showed up this morning,” I told Dom before adding, “And quit begging for cookies, Monster.”

  “I’m just saying if he wants to date you, it’d go a lot easier for him if he gave me cookies.” He stomped back toward me as I opened the cabinet with the cookies. “It’s a guy thing.”

  “Ohhhh,” I drawled, dropping a cookie in his palm and mentally counting how many I had left to bribe him with. “A guy thing. You should have said something sooner.” He crammed the cookie in his mouth and maneuvered the straps of his backpack on to his shoulders.

  “I’m ready,” he told us through a mouthful of crumbs.

  “Ready?” Dom mouthed helplessly.

  “Monster is going to school with us today,” I answered with a shrug. “Dad is in Boise and I can’t afford to miss any more days.”

  “I might be able to pull some strings,” Dom offered, eyeing Monster warily.

  “That’s sweet but maybe not the best idea?” I wrinkled my nose and he exhaled, knowing I was right. It wouldn’t help our already questionable relationship if he showed me favoritism at school.

  “Maybe someone could keep an eye on him? Sam?” Dom was desperate and I spared half a second’s thought on his suggestion before shaking my head.

  “Is Trent around?” I asked, knowing he might be the only one wily enough to keep up with Monster. Dom shook his head.

  “He went with your Dad as protection.”

  “Then no, he’s with us or I stay here.”

  Dom relented with a sigh, moving out of the door so we could pass him. “Why does this feel like a terrible idea?”

  “Because it is,” I answered as Monster hopped to the oversize Jeep. He bounced up and down as Dom came toward him.

  “I’ll lift you in, little man,” he told him, stumbling over man instead of using the name Monster.

  “You can call me Monster, all my friends do.”

  “You have friends?” I asked, surprised, and he shrugged.

  “You.”

  “Well, I bet we can find you some more in this town,” I replied with a grin. “You’re not the only Monster around anymore.”

  Dom eyed me like I’d lost my mind and I shrugged.

  “Monster, tell him what happened at your last school.”

  “I burned it down!”

  Dom had just lifted Monster up to the truck seat and he almost lost his grip at that announcement. He tossed him into the back and spun around to me. “What the hell?”

  “It was just a trash can,” I reassured him, bracing my hand against his chest as I scrambled into the high seat. I patted the hard muscles of his chest as he continued to stand there. “We’re going to be late.”

  Dom shut his mouth, shaking his head as he slammed the door shut and went around the front.

  “He’s not like us,” Monster commented from behind me. “He smells funny.”

  I turned my head as it felt like time slowed down. “What?” I breathed, staring at Monster with new eyes. He blinked at me, those wide brown eyes a duplicate of mine and with a stunned clarity I realized, our Dad’s.

  “He’s not like us,” Monster repeated. “You know that right?”

  I nodded, unable to speak as Dom reached for the door handle. I lifted my finger to my lips and Monster smiled, nodding. I turned back around as Dom hopped in and turned on the heater for me.

  “This should be an interesting day,” he murmured and as I glanced back at Monster, I thought to myself, you have no idea.

  Chapter Six

  The ride to school was silent as Dom kept glancing in the rearview mirror at Monster. His forehead scrunched as if he was puzzled by something and I suddenly wondered if Monster smelled funny to him too.

  Like…

  Not human.

  The words buzzed through my brain as I started to put things together. The innuendoes our mother had made implying Monster wasn’t my Dad’s. The bright copper hair that didn’t seem to belong, but the eyes. God, the eyes. They’d been staring me in the face for the past five years.

  How could I have missed the damn eyes?

  Shit brown was my favorite description and Dad always corrected me. “Chocolate, Bunny. We have dark chocolate eyes.”

  He’d been right but when he said we I’d never realized he’d meant the three of us. The implications were almost too huge for me to comprehend, especially with Monster’s revelation that Dom wasn’t like us. I knew that, of course, but the fact that he’d realized it so quickly – I glanced over my shoulder at him, his body too small for the seatbelt, and knew.

  He had the right genes.

  The genes that would make him different.

  Special.

  A shifter.

  He caught my eyes then and I forced a smile, turning my head to face forward again.

  Monster? Please tell me he has a real name.

  A smile twitched my lips involuntarily at Dom’s mental pleading, the note of horror I detected in his thoughts that we actually called him Monster to his face.

  Theodore, but only use that if you want to set him off, I warned him seriously, but I couldn’t help my smirk. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to resist and would eventually see why we called him Monster.

  Uh huh. He glanced in the rearview at Monster again and I could almost hear his next thought. How much trouble could he be?

  ***

  “Jess Carter, report to the nurse’s office.” The intercom squealed, making all of us wince. “Immediately!” I recognized the sound of an adult at the end of their rope and scooped up my backpack. The teacher waved me from the room, clearly, he’d already gotten the gossip from the teacher’s lounge.

  “Oh, crap,” I breathed as I took in the destruction. “Monster? You alive in here?” I entered the room slowly, a cloud of what I hoped was baby powder hovering in the air and coating every surface. Every surface that hadn’t been destroyed, that was.

  “Jess!” His little boy voice held such joyful hope I instantly became suspicious. “You came!”

  “Yeah, I thi
nk you pretty much insured that would happen,” I drawled, finally spotting him in the corner, his clothes somehow untouched by the powder. “Where’s Nurse Elridge?” He pointed and I recognized the human shape slumped over the counter. “Nurse Elridge?” I exclaimed, rushing over to her.

  “Take him.” The low growl had me stopping in my tracks. “Take him and never come back.” I backed up, gesturing with my fingers for Monster to follow me. He hopped down from the stool he’d been spinning on, his backpack on his shoulders.

  “Bye!” He cried cheerfully and I watched her flinch. I grabbed his arm and shuffled him out of the nurse’s office, grateful for once that I didn’t have to clean up his mess.

  “What part of be good don’t you comprehend?” I hissed as we went down the hall. I checked the time and figured it was better if I just waited until the bell rang. Lunch was next anyway.

  “When are you going to tell me what Dom is?” He challenged mutinously, arms crossed, little chin sticking out.

  “After school. Remember? You were supposed to behave today for the people watching you and I would explain.” I leaned down and got right in his face. “Three periods and you’ve gone through the librarian, the counselor, and the school nurse.” I huffed. “That’s not behaving.”

  “They were mean,” he protested, puffing out his chest. “Not a single one would give me a cookie.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did it ever occur to you they might not have a cookie?”

  He deflated, a flicker of what I hoped was shame crossing his face. That hope died when he glanced back up at me and asked, “Do you have a cookie?”

  I groaned, throwing up my hands. “Look, we’re about to eat lunch with a bunch of people that aren’t like us. If you can behave there might be a cookie in it for you.”

  “Now,” he demanded promptly, his hand out. I shook my head.