Exploring Alaska (The Juneau Packs Book 3)

by Katherine Rhodes

  If Delia could have grabbed Zanna and Brandy by the ears and dragged them away, she would have. I schooled the laugh at her antics.

  “Come on, Cassie. I think your grandmother has breakfast waiting for us,” Martin said.

  Cassie looked at me. “Have you had Grandma’s wild boar bacon? Holy crap, it’s so good. I freaked out about that wild boar part, but honestly? So delish.”

  I nodded. “I have, and you’re right.”

  She stared at me, then glanced at her father. “Can I talk to you for just a sec, Addi?”

  Me? “Uh, sure.”

  Pushing the door open from the porch, she walked down the stairs to the small front lawn and off to the side. She picked at a nail for a moment and then sniffled. “Look, Addi, don’t be too mad with Dad. He and Mom agreed to keep me a secret. And after my accident last week, I kind of get it. They were aiming for me to get to Mom. Thankfully I am a shifter, and Uri—I mean Uriah, my stepdad—is former CSIS, so…things are changing. Just.” She shrugged. “He loves me. He’s an awesome dad. Don’t count him out because he and Mom made decisions.”

  Glancing down at my own shoes, I let out a little laugh. “I know, kiddo. This isn’t just about you, and you being a secret from like…everyone. But, I hear you. I know your dad isn’t really a bad guy. Trust me, I wouldn’t hold you against him.”

  She nodded and looked at me through her lashes. “Are you going to come over for breakfast? Grandma always makes too much bacon.”

  “I have to help my friends today, but I’ll be around.”

  “Cool.” She nodded. “Grandpa! I want bacon!” She started walking down the street without him.

  Martin hopped down the steps and headed after her. “Her mother said since her shift, she’s just turned into a bottomless pit.”

  “Shifter and puberty,” I said. “Have fun keeping that fed.”

  “It could be worse,” he said, pushing through the gate. “She could be a he, and then we’d have to sacrifice a whole cattle daily to keep him fed.”

  I chuckled as Martin trotted to keep up with his granddaughter. She was already an Alpha personality. We were all going to have fun with her around.

  We?

  Patrick stood next to me, watching them walk back to the house, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Can we talk? Is this a good time? Neutral territory?”

  “I think it’s as neutral as we’ll get.” I sighed.

  The words were barely off my lips when he was jumping in. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. I cheated everyone out of knowing who Cassie was. We cheated. Leighann and I made the choice.”

  “All the things you know about me…” I said.

  “But I just couldn’t tell anyone, Addi. Not just you. My parents are pissed at me. Garrett is pissed. I don’t blame them for it at all. But last week, Cassie almost died because someone found out about her. My daughter almost died…”

  The pain in his voice was overwhelming. And with all of us rejecting him, making this hard for him, he was still standing and still had his shoulders straight.

  “Cassie is going to be safer now that she’s not a secret,” he continued. “Everyone knows her and can keep an eye on her. When she was little it was easy. Leighann and I were always there. And then Uriah came into the picture. But now…she’s a teenager in a few months and we can’t keep her strapped to our sides. We need other people to help us with her. The accident made us all realize that.”

  “She’s a hot commodity?”

  “She’s the granddaughter of an American spymaster. They can get to him through her.”

  “Oh.” I studied his profile. “So her accident was no accident.”

  Patrick shook his head. “It was a warning.”

  “She’s going to be safe, though?”

  He smirked. “She’s a shifter, with a shifter mother, shifter father, shifter and CSIS stepfather. She’s going to be fine.”

  “What the hell is See-Sis?”

  “Canadian special forces.”

  I kept my lips sealed. I hadn’t realized that Canada had special forces. But if they were anywhere near US special forces, I was duly impressed.

  “Can you give me a chance, Addison? I’ve screwed up a lot in my short thirty-nine years, and I’m trying to fix it. I didn’t expect that I would meet my mate so soon, and then screw that up as well.” His voice was plaintive and sad.

  The truth was, I didn’t want to walk away from him. I didn’t know how this whole thing was going to turn out—I was supposed to go back to Chicago and look for a job at the end of August. But that didn’t mean I wanted to walk away from…this. Whatever this was.

  “I need a few days, Patrick. Just a few. Can you give that to me? I am not going to avoid you, but I need time to wrap my head around you, and Cassie, and just…everything.”

  He nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. I wouldn’t dream…”

  I stared up the road. “You’re a good father, Patrick. Just let me get used to that idea.”

  A tight, small smile graced his lips, never really reaching his eyes. He leaned in and kissed my cheek, and pushed back through the gate a moment later, heading toward his house.

  I stood, just staring at the gate for a long time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jess walked me down the side of the house. “Look, just get to know her. Cassie is a great kid. This is the perfect chance to try and get this settled in your head.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to pair me off?”

  “You already know Patrick is yours for the taking.” She smiled. “But this will be a nice chance to get to know her. And see how she and Patrick interact.”

  “You just want me to be there for this whole thing, don’t you? You’re still dealing with the mate-thing.”

  Jess stopped and leaned against the wall. “Yes. Jesus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker. Yes. I am. I’m still terrified.”

  “Did you talk to your mate about this?”

  “He knows I’m scared. He’s also trying to keep his possessive quality to himself, and he struggles with that. But this is really huge, and I’m just having trouble adjusting. I need…”

  “Someone normal. And you picked me?”

  Jess’s look of despair lifted, and she laughed. “I did. I picked you. Because apparently your insanity is a lesser degree than mine.”

  I patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, Jess. You get to live for five hundred years. Just imagine all you can learn and change in that time. It’ll be fun to have Garrett there with you. And eventually, any kids you have can join in on the fun. It’s magic, and you don’t want to question it too much.”

  “Did I tell you what Tomasina said?”

  “Aside from you’re going to be really old?”

  She laughed and nodded. “I’m going to be able to shift one day. That creepy, crawly, not ready yet feeling under my skin is a newborn wolf.”

  Three months ago, I didn’t even believe in magicians and could figure out their every trick. But now? This was real magic, a whole force that none of us really understood. It had laced its way into our lives, and into our very beings, altering everything we thought we knew.

  And now Jess was telling me she had a wolf inside her.

  That was…amazing. “You get to shift?”

  “Not yet. But I’m still freaking out about it! What if I can’t control her? What if I like it so much I never go back to human?”

  I grabbed her arm. “Jess. You have time to worry about this. You don’t have to figure out everything right this instant. Give yourself some time, and some breathing room. Garrett is there. He’s not going anywhere. Believe me.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Right. Right. He and I are in this together. The fist bump.”

  I laughed. “The fist bump.” I gave her a little shove. “And who is who in the moral support category, anyway? You for me, or me for you? Get going. I smell food.”

  We walked into the backyard and there was inde
ed a barbeque grill going, as well as a smoking pit. Which meant more of Olga’s glorious wild boar dishes.

  “Jess, Addi!” Olga called from the table. “Come on over! We’re still getting everything cooked but have a drink.”

  “Thanks, Olga,” Jess said, grabbing a local beer from the cooler.

  I grabbed a soda and sat down at the picnic table.

  “How’s that cabin?” Darius asked, walking down the stairs.

  “It’s awesome. Brandy loves everything about it,” I answered. “She’s having so much fun decorating and arranging. We’re all happy she has a place she can call hers.”

  “She didn’t before this?” Cassie asked.

  “Well, not really,” Jess said. “Her father’s family wasn’t really interested in raising her after her mother was killed. I don’t even know if she talks to that side of the family.”

  “Everyone on her mother’s side, except her grandmother, was mortified that she married a black man,” I shrugged. “Her grandmother was only able to care for her for a few years before the Alzheimer’s forced her into a nursing home.”

  “Wow, people suck,” Tatianna said, joining us at the table.

  “They do,” Jess said. “They really do.”

  Martin appeared from around the corner of the house. “I’d ask how you ladies are liking Alaska, but I think that’s kind of an irrelevant question at this point.”

  Cassie shot her hand in the air. “I like it.”

  “You like the food,” Patrick grumbled.

  I hadn’t even seen him in the chair up on the porch, but he was there, flipping through a biology text book, scribbling something down.

  “So? I like food. There’s really not a problem with that.”

  He slapped the book closed. “Keep eating the way you are and we’re going to have to teach you to hunt so you don’t eat me out of house and hearth.”

  “Please,” Olga said, rolling her eyes. “She’s got nothing on you boys. Seriously. I made an entire damn boar I don’t expect to last three days.”

  I laughed. That was true. The men in her family would eat that pig from stem to stern in three days flat. And not leave any for Cassie.

  “Alpha,” someone called from the walkway.

  “Oh, fuck,” Garrett grumbled. “Even on Sundays?”

  “Every day, son. Every. Fucking. Day. No matter how many times I tell them to call before they appear on my property!” Martin stood with his beer and walked over. Garrett and Patrick followed him, and they made the person come out from behind the building. “What, Lovecraft? Why do you all insist on forgetting my rule?”

  “Alpha, we found Bart.”

  Patrick and Garrett exchanged looks and their stances changed to be more threatening than annoyed.

  “Did you bring him here?” Martin stared at him.

  “We thought it was the best idea.”

  Garrett ran a hand down his face. “What don’t you get about we have a jail and we have procedures.”

  “I would have thought that you of all people, Beta, would want to see him—”

  “I want to have a peaceful day with my mate and my family, Lovecraft. Just one, before we have to deal with the ridiculousness of Bart and his cohorts. Call. For the love of God and all that’s holy. Call.”

  Letting his son’s words hang in the air a moment, Martin nodded. “You’re here now. Bring him in.”

  Two big burly men flanked the scaly-faced man who abandoned us on the hill to die by the coyotes. Another two followed them, heads down, shame-faced. Martin motioned for the two guards to step back, and he circled Bart once.

  “What do you have to say?” His tone was clipped.

  “We want our hunting rights back.”

  Martin cocked his head. “Are you serious?”

  “We want our hunting rights back.”

  “You are serious. You left those women on that hill to die, because you feel cheated that you’re not allowed by the pack and tribe to hunt elk.” He stared Bart down. “Is that correct?”

  “We want—”

  “Is. That. Correct?”

  “Yes, Alpha.”

  Olga leaned into Tatianna. “Go. Tati, get Cassie out of here. You and Darius head to Patrick’s. Go.”

  She nodded and grabbed Cassie’s hand, heading up the porch stairs and through the house. Darius was hot on their tail.

  “So you saw fit to leave my daughter-in-law to die.”

  “Alpha, it was a simple request—”

  “That I denied twice because your idiot cousin shot an elk shifter last summer. He’s exiled. Want to join him?”

  “He was drunk.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  Olga motioned Jess and me to stand. “Look intimidating,” she whispered.

  That wasn’t hard. This man who had the simple job of watching that coyotes didn’t get close to our cabin had abandoned his post and nearly caused one of my best friend’s deaths.

  “Jail. Put him in the jail. Tomorrow evening you’ll hear your sentence, but I guarantee no one is going to object to me exiling you with your cousin, Bartholomew. Because you will also get drunk and use that an excuse, and perhaps this time to kill the last of the Yéils. Go. Get out of here.”

  “And if you all don’t start using the fucking phone, I’m going to start meting out consequences,” Olga snapped. “This is not the nineteenth century, you primates!”

  The two men behind Bart watched as the burly dudes pulled him away. They turned to Martin and looked like they were on the verge of tears.

  “No, don’t even try,” Martin snapped. “You’re not being exiled, but you will be punished. And I expect that you will never bring up this hunting right again until I do. Understood?”

  “Yes, Alpha.” They trembled from head to toe.

  “Go, get out of here.”

  There was a moment of tension in the air, but as soon as they were around the corner, Olga flew up the stairs, into the house.

  “Back soon,” Jess growled, running up them just behind her.

  Both Garrett and Martin leapt up the porch after them, the door slamming behind him.

  And then it hit me.

  Alpha effect.

  Just because I was still angry with Patrick, and we weren’t official yet didn’t mean that biology didn’t continue to work. I swallowed. My whole body lit up.

  He stalked toward me, his eyes dark. “Addi…”

  Did I want this to happen?

  “Addi, tell me now if I need to run this off.” His voice was hoarse, deep. “If I touch you—”

  I dragged in a breath. “Touch me.”

  His mouth was the first thing to hit, and then his arms went around me. “Baby, I need you.”

  “I know,” I managed.

  He released the button on my pants and shoved them off to my knees and picked me up to drop me on the picnic table. All the while, I did the same for him—yanked his pants off his ass and palmed his straining cock.

  Pulling one leg out of my clothes completely, he wrapped it around himself and pulled me close to the edge. “Are you good with this?”

  “Jesus, my blood is on fire,” I answered. “Just fuck me.”

  He speared himself deep inside me and it was like a pressure valve was released for both of us. I groaned loudly and grabbed his ass with both hands, directing him on how to move himself in and out of me.

  “Shit, how could I forget in two weeks how fucking good you feel around my cock?” he grunted.

  There was no good argument on my side. He felt incredible inside me again. He was rough, hard, but nothing I couldn’t take, everything that I wanted.

  “Damn it, Addi, I’m so sorry I fucked up.”

  His apology was in the middle of his driving his dick into me. I couldn’t forgive him. Not yet. So I offered the next best thing as his finger found my clit.

  “I am not walking away from you, Patrick. I’m not. Just need time.”

  His teeth grazed my neck and screeched
a little. I wanted him to bite me, but I couldn’t let him. Not yet.

  Planting his hands on either side of my hips he drove and drove himself as deep as he could get, dragging the fabric of my bra over my nipples, creating a fabulous friction I wanted more of. I pressed myself into his chest and grabbed the shell of his ear in my teeth, nibbling and sucking hard.

  “Addi, sweet Christ…”

  “Come on, Patrick, fuck me hard. Come in me.”

  I hissed the words in his ear and nibbled again.

  “Come, Addi. Please, come on my cock. Please.”

  His words were of a man on the edge of ecstasy, and I couldn’t stop my climax if I tried. He slammed hard inside me, and his finger pinched my clit.

  “Shit, yesssss!” I kept my voice quiet and low so only he could hear my orgasm. My body spasmed around his shaft, and he came hard, grunting and growling as he released his cum inside me.

  Panting, he dropped his head to my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him and held him there. It was peaceful in the wake of the turbulence. I liked having him there, on top of me, still inside me. His big body was a comfort, and…

  Well. I just wanted him there.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered. “Don’t leave.”

  “I just need time, Patrick. Soon.”

  Raising his head, he stared at me. “I love you.”

  Oh. “Patrick…”

  “I know. But I had to tell you.”

  I inhaled and was ready to push him back gently—but stopped. Bang.

  “What’s that?”

  He angled his head to listen, and his face burst into shock. Bang bang bang. “Oh, shit. That’s…”

  My eyes went wide. “Your parents?”

  “Their bed at least.” Bang bang.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Holy crap.”

  Patrick stepped back, and I felt his loss. He grabbed my waist and helped me down, offering my pant leg to me so I could get dressed. “Oh, shit. I hope he doesn’t—”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. A tremendous howl came from the room above us.

  “Well.” I managed to not laugh. “Let’s get the table wiped down from our sex, at least.”