Running with Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 1) (9 page)

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.

Her mom just shook her head at him, her mouth in a straight line, totally furious. Greta closed her eyes, trying to contain her rage and total humiliation.

This is your fault too, mom
, she thought.
You know he doesn’t know the difference you ribbing me in private and making an awful joke in front of the whole fucking pack.

Greta squeezed her eyes shut, and she could feel the rage-tears start pricking behind her eyeballs. Her wolf sighed sadly, and she had to fight the urge to shift to escape all the complicated feelings of the moment.

Her mom squeezed her knee and leaned into her, her voice taut with anger.

“Sweetie, he didn’t mean it,” she said. “Don’t cry.”

It was the last straw.

“Meeting dismissed,” said her dad, and he ambled away from the front of the room, walking toward Greta. The look on his face said that he knew he’d fucked up, but had no idea how.

Greta leapt up and ran out of the barn toward her car, parked a few hundred yards away in a field. The night air felt good on her skin and made the pricking behind her eyes go away, just for a moment. It felt good in her lungs, and when she was well clear of the barn, she stopped and walked.

Fuck him
, was all she could think.
How could he do that? “I could give you something for your trouble.?” Who said that about their own daughter?

Her car was close.
Her
car, that she’d bought with
her
money, from
her
bar, the business she’d opened and ran
on her own, thank you very much
.