Running with Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 1)

by Noir, Roxie

  Elliott smiled and nodded. He couldn’t imagine going back to college in his mid-thirties. It sounded daunting.

  “Glad to have you in class,” he said.

  “See you Thursday,” Tamara said. Then she turned around and left the classroom, practically humming.

  I might see you tonight, Elliott thought. I’ve got a feeling.

  Chapter Eight

  Shane

  Shane stood back and cracked his knuckles, staring at the dresser. His knees were bruised from kneeling on them for so long. Plus, he’d managed to kneel on a screw already today, which had left a painful, dark purple dot right in the middle of his kneecap.

  Also, there was something wrong with the dresser. The drawers seemed to sag, leaving a gap between the top of the drawer and the top of the hole for the drawer, and Shane had no idea what he’d done wrong, putting it together.

  Why did we take all our furniture apart to move it? he wondered for at least the hundredth time that day. What the hell were we thinking?

  He could feel the rage, borne of frustration, starting to swell inside him. The way Shane visualized it, it was a red cloud, black around the edges, and it moved like smoke.

  The key to that visualization was that it also dissipated like smoke. The idea was that Shane breathed deep, and each breath helped to waft the imaginary smoke-anger further away from him. He’d thought it was impossibly stupid the first time he’d tried it, but then it had turned out to actually kind of work.

  I wish I’d told my job I’d start today, he thought. Working outdoors is exactly the right thing to counter furniture frustration with.

  He opened his eyes. The dresser was still there, and still fucked up, a handful of small plastic parts and screws lying scattered in front of it.

  I’m going to have to take the whole thing back apart, he thought. Why didn’t we at least keep the instructions?

  A car drove up their long driveway, and Shane peeked out the window, then dropped the extra pieces into a dresser drawer and went downstairs to greet his mate.

  “And how was school?” Shane said, coming into the living room. Elliott stood in the doorway, looking around.

  “Good,” he said. “There’s less boxes.”

  “That’s because I spent the day unpacking. Elliott, we’re never moving again,” he said, his voice serious.

  Elliott laughed.

  “Not a joke,” Shane said. “I don’t care if we find a mate and have twelve kids. We’ll stack ‘em like cordwood, because I am not moving again.”

  Elliott grinned and leaned forward, kissing his mate on the mouth.

  “Noted,” he said.

  “Want a drink?” Shane asked. “I think we’ve both earned it.”

  He held up a bottle of whiskey and Elliott looked at it, longingly.

  “I shouldn’t,” he said. “Pack meeting tonight. I don’t want to say something I shouldn’t. Gotta be at the top of my game.”

  “Right,” Shane said. “I’d almost forgotten, actually.”

  “Liar,” said Elliott.

  “Well, I was hoping that maybe the date had magically changed, and I wouldn’t have to go to it.”

  He collapsed his big frame onto the couch, making it scoot back an inch or so on the floor.

  “It’s not so bad,” Elliott said.

  Shane knew that wasn’t quite how Elliott felt. The very first thing he’d said when he’d gotten the job at Cascadia State had been ‘We can join the pack!’

  His mate had desperately missed the camaraderie of the pack he’d grown up in. The way Elliott described it, the pack was sort of like your family, but different. Even though most of the boys had bullied Elliott for years.

  “I guess I’ll skip the whiskey, too,” Shane said. “Probably not a good night to pick a fight with someone who beat you up in high school.”

  Elliott’s face was unreadable for a moment, and then he looked across the room and didn’t make eye contact with Shane.

  “I’m sure they’ve grown up,” he said. “We all have. It’s been twelve years.”

  “Did Greta grow up?”

  “Hell yes,” said Elliott. Finally, there was a smile on his handsome face, and he relaxed into the couch, turning his head toward Shane. “I remember her a little from high school, but nothing like that.”

  He shook his head, still smiling.

  “I can’t believe I missed that.”

  “I bet she looked different,” said Shane.

  “She must have, or I’d have been all over her.”

  Now it was Shane’s turn to laugh.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Between everything you’ve told me and the little I’ve gotten from her and your parents, I think you would have drowned yourself in a toilet to avoid talking to a cute girl when you were in high school.”

  “Unfair,” said Elliott.

  Shane just shrugged, and Elliott stretched his legs.

  “Any chance you found my shitkickers today?” he asked Shane.

  “I did,” Shane said. “In the box labeled shitkickers.”

  “And you made fun of my labeling,” said Elliott. “See? It helped.”

  “Was it your idea to take our dresser apart so it would be easier to move?” Shane asked. “I thought I might just toss the thing on the fire today.”

  Elliott made a face, but didn’t respond.

  “I gotta go get changed,” he said. “Pretend I know something about horse breeding.”

  He rose from the couch, and Shane watched the lines of his body move underneath his clothing, a quick hunger swelling inside him.

  “You could just tell them the truth,” Shane said, gently. “What are they going to do?”

  Elliott looked down, then at the bare walls of their house, and then at Shane.

  “I know you’re right,” he said. “I just... I can’t, yet. Every time I think about doing it, I think about getting clocked in the face with my Latin textbook, or about the time that my father pointed out a lawyer driving a nice car in Canyon City and told me that man was a pussy who’d shamed his family.”

  Shane balked.

  “Give it time,” Elliott said. “I’ll tell them. I will. I hate it, but since coming back here I still feel like a skinny seventeen-year-old in a locker sometimes.”

  Shane felt a wave of emotions rise inside him. There was anger, which was pretty normal, but there was also the urge to protect his mate, sympathy for everything he’d been through. An odd pang of regret that they hadn’t known each other longer, that Shane hadn’t been there in high school to punch people for Elliott.

  Shane put his arms around Elliott from the back. He had to stand on his tiptoes to balance his chin on Elliott’s shoulder.

  I don’t think anyone’s going to kick his ass now, Shane thought. They’d really have to try.

  “Come on,” Elliott said. “Greta’ll be there. Maybe if we’re early we can talk to her for a while.”

  “Think she’ll go on another date with us?” Shane asked, teasing.

  Elliott laughed. “As long as no one burns her bar down, I think we’ll be good.”

  Ninety minutes later, they walked into the barn where the meeting was being held. The whole area was covered in hay, with bales in rows lengthwise across the barn, bare lightbulbs strung up to light the place. When they entered, some of the wolves inside looked their way. Some didn’t.

  Shane didn’t know what he’d been expecting, exactly, but he started to feel better. These mostly seemed like normal people hanging out before an event, not a close-knit brotherhood that was going to require him to sacrifice a dove or something before they’d give him the time of day.

  You really let your imagination get away from you there, he told himself.

  Elliott guided them to a table that had a coffee maker, hot water, and a plate of cookies. Shane ate one, looking around, hoping for Greta. He didn’t see the girl, though, no matter how hard he looked.

  “Okay,” Elliott said, consulting his phone.
“My parents are heading over now. You know who everyone is?”

  Shane shot him a look and took another bite of cookie.

  “I don’t know who anyone is,” he said. “This is my first pack meeting, remember?”

  “I offered to make you flashcards,” Elliott said. “I’m telling you, they work great.”

  Shane didn’t bother answering.

  “All right,” Elliott said, standing close to Shane. “We’ll go clockwise around the room.”

  “Very methodical,” Shane said.

  Elliott rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything.

  “First, the guy in the shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up. That’s Dane. He’s actually Zeke’s older brother, policeman now, detective, maybe? That must be his mate with him. Isaac, maybe? Something that started with an I. My mom told me, and now I’m forgetting.”

  Elliott seemed like he was rambling, but Shane figured he was nervous. It was his first pack meeting in years and years, his first belonging to a pack as an adult.

  “Next,” Elliott went on, pointing to two more wolves wearing cowboy boots, big belt buckles and plaid shirts. “One’s Jack and one’s Houston. I didn’t see them much, they live way down, almost to Ponderosa. They work on or own a dude ranch or something. Bunch of human tourists.”

  “Okay,” Shane said, trying to lock the names and faces in his mind. “Next?”

  “The guy with the fleece and the beanie is new I think,” said Elliott. “He might be the guy who runs all the search-and-rescue operations in his part of Cascadia. My mom was telling me that his former pack had a huge blow-up, so him and his mate came over.”

  “Is there gonna be a quiz later?” said a woman’s voice, and Shane spun around.

  The moment he saw Greta, he felt a smile spread across his face.

  “There you are,” he said.

  “What, were you looking for me?” she asked.

  ‘The Tooth and Claw been burned to the ground yet?”

  Greta rolled her eyes, clearly still annoyed about the whole thing.

  “It was nothing,” she said. “I got there and he was just holding matches to the pool table. That thing wasn’t gonna catch fire in a million years, so I just called his brother and had him haul Zeke out of there.”

  “Someone else couldn’t have done that?” asked Shane.

  Greta shrugged. “That’s the thing about owning a business. Everything’s your problem and no one else’s.”

  She nodded at the room.

  “Elliott fill you in on everyone?”

  “I think so,” Shane said, though more people were streaming in through the open barn doors. “I’ll catch up eventually.”

  Maybe, he thought. Now, people were coming in quickly, and Elliott had stopped telling him who everyone was so that they could talk to Greta.

  Not that he minded. He quite enjoyed talking to Greta.

  “Could’ve had flashcards,” Elliott said, though he sounded distracted, watching the barn doors. “Greta, is your brother coming?”

  Something in Greta’s manner changed, and for a moment, she just looked at him, oddly.

  “Uh, no,” she said, as if it were something Elliott should already know.

  He and Shane both swung their heads toward her, and there was a brief, awkward silence between the three of them.

  “Calder left,” she said, simply, looking at Elliott, her eyes narrowing just a bit.

  “Left?”

  Greta nodded.

  “I guess it was right after you left,” she said, still searching his eyes. “I guess you didn’t know.”

  “You mean he ran away?” asked Shane.

  “Well, sort of,” said Greta. “Except he was twenty-four, so that’s not really running away, it’s just leaving.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  Greta shrugged.

  “My parents get postcards twice a year,” she said. “Different places around the country. He never says anything interesting, just ‘weather’s nice’ or ‘got a great hot dog in Des Moines.’ So I guess he’s not feral, but that’s all we know.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Elliott. “I didn’t know.”

  Greta just shrugged, then waved at two women who looked just like her, except one was slightly older and one was about twenty-five years older. Between them, they were wrangling three little kids, and Greta’s face broke into a smile.

  So did Shane’s. He couldn’t help but smile at a toddler who looked so much like Greta.

  I wonder if ours...

  Mentally, he slapped himself.

  You’ve been on one date, he thought. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

  “All right. Order,” a man’s voice said over a speaker system.

  The man looked very, very familiar, and Shane frowned. He’d only been in town a couple of days and had barely left the house, so unless the guy at the microphone worked at the Tooth & Claw or the pizza joint, he had no idea how he knew him.

  “Elliott,” he whispered. “Who’s that?”

  “Charles Waltz,” Elliott whispered back. “He’s the alpha.”

  A quick jolt went through Shane’s system, and he looked at Greta.

  “Also my dad,” she whispered.

  “Could we start this meeting sometime today?” said Charles into the microphone, sounding irritated.

  “I’ll see you later,” Greta whispered, and hurried off to sit with her mom and sister.

  Shane grabbed Elliott by the elbow and steered him to a hay bale in the back.

  “You didn’t tell me that Greta was the alpha’s daughter,” Shane murmured, even as a few people sat in the row in front of them.

  “Sure I did,” murmured Elliot.

  “No, you didn’t,” said Shane. “I would remember that.”

  Elliott just shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  Someone shushed them, and Shane could feel the heat rise to his face.

  Perfect, he thought. I just got here, and already I’ve got a thing for the alpha’s daughter, I tried to beat up a pack member, and I’m being shushed during a meeting.

  He turned his face forward, but Elliott didn’t. Elliott was watching the doors.

  “First order of business is the weekly pack hunts,” Charles said, reading from a sheaf of papers. “Merillee has proposed moving them to Thursday nights. Floor’s open for discussion.”

  Shane felt himself relax just a little.

  This isn’t a cult, he thought. This is a neighborhood council.

  Elliott still stared toward the barn doors, and Shane followed his gaze. One woman, two men, and a couple kids walked in. None of them looked familiar to Shane, but Elliott obviously knew them.

  Probably someone else who beat him up in high school, Shane thought, taking the mens’ measure. They’re big, but if I had surprise on my side I bet I could beat their asses.

  He squeezed Elliott’s knee reassuringly, and Elliott jumped a little. His head snapped around and he looked at his mate, a slightly dazed look in his eyes.

  Shane raised his eyebrows — something wrong? — and Elliott gave his head a little, but unconvincing shake.

  The pack was still arguing over when hunt night should be.

  Shane stared at the barn rafters and thought about what he should work on unpacking next. Then his gaze drifted over to Greta, and he thought about tangling his hands in her hair, maybe pulling it just the tiniest bit as she threw her head back and screamed his name, over and over...

  Chapter Nine

  Greta

  Having your dad be alpha had its ups and down, Greta figured. It could be nice sometimes — people let her merge in front of them on the highway, and there wasn’t usually much of a wait at restaurants for her — but now was not one of those times. The monthly pack meetings were, to put it politely, boring as shit.

  Being Alpha was kind of like being President: mostly administrative and logistical, and you only occasionally got to use your teeth. The Rustvale pack would follow him to
the ends of the earth if he needed them to, but he was smart enough to use that power on a limited basis. For example, he knew better than to demand absolute loyalty on the matter of which weeknight Hunt Night would be.

  Greta zoned out for a while. She had to be physically present for the meetings, but mentally present was a challenge.

  “Okay,” her dad said. “And, last thing before we leave here, there’s a couple of new members,” he went on, and squinted at a different piece of paper. Greta, her mom, and her sister had been after the man to get reading glasses for years now, but he wouldn’t listen. He felt that it was somehow un-Alpha to use glasses, like the pack might find him weak for being able to see something a couple feet in front of him.

  Apparently, squinting like a blind person was a perfectly “alpha” thing to do. They’d given up on him.

  “I’d like to welcome Samuel Radley and Chase Cook, who came over to us from Ponderosa,” he said, nodding at the crowd. The two men whose names Elliott hadn’t known half-stood and waved at everyone. “We’re all glad you’re here, after all that unpleasantness,” Charles went on.

  Don’t forget Elliott and Shane, Greta thought at him.

  “And welcome back to Elliott Whiting, who’s also brought fresh blood in the form of Shane Patterson,” he said.

  Suddenly, she had a bad feeling. She knew that tone of voice in her dad.

  Oh no, she thought. He sounds like he’s about to make a joke.

  Mentally, Greta sighed and braced herself. Her dad, as much as she loved him, didn’t really have a sense of humor. She’d gotten that from her mom and papa, but her dad tried to keep up sometimes. At best, his jokes just weren’t funny. At worst, they could be infuriating.

  “My youngest Greta’s still single,” he said. “If you don’t mind a woman pushing thirty, she’s right over here! Help give an old man some more grand kids. I could even give you something for your troubles.”

  A vague, polite chuckle went through the crowd and Greta’s mouth dropped open. She could feel her face burning instantly. Her dad stood up there with a dumb smile on his face, looking over at her, her mom, and her sister.