New Beginnings: Hollow Crest Wolf Pack Book 1 Page 8

  I glared at him angrily but he didn’t seem affected. “If I gave my life for someone, I wouldn’t want them to spend the rest of their life mourning me,” he continued, his dark eyes intense on mine. “I would want them to go out and live the best life that they could to honor my sacrifice.”

  My anger towards him softened because a tiny part of me knew that he was right. “I can’t just turn it off,” I burst out in frustration. “I can’t just make myself stop being angry and sad.” My tears started flowing again. “The truth is, I can barely make myself keep going most of the time,” I whispered. “When I’m around other people I can hold it together, but once I’m alone…” I shook my head, unable to continue. If I didn’t have the constant gnawing hunger and the desperate need to escape the pack, I probably wouldn’t have made it even this far. I would have wanted to just lay down somewhere and hoped to die.

  “You’re not alone now,” Kannon murmured into my hair.

  I took a wobbly breath and tried to give him a smile. “Thanks, Kannon.” I helped myself to more of the napkins that he held in his hand and tried to clean up my tear streaked face and snotty nose.

  “I’m not saying you can’t mourn,” Grayson murmured. “Losing someone you love isn’t easy. I just don’t want to see you destroy yourself with guilt over something that you can’t change.”

  Grayson’s words seemed harsh to my heart, but the rational side of my brain realized that he was just trying to help. “Maybe it’s a little soon for this conversation?” I suggested with another hiccup. “I think I just need a little time to come to terms with everything that happened. I’ve been on the run so long that I haven’t had time to just sit down and process everything.”

  Grayson blinked in surprise. “Of course, take all the time you need.” He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.

  “We never had it as bad as you did,” Corey murmured. “But we ended up in a shitty pack that didn’t treat females right.”

  “It never sat well with us,” Wyatt added. “But we were just a bunch of kids from a smaller pack that was defeated and absorbed by the victors. No one cared what we thought.”

  “So you ran from your pack, too?” I asked hesitantly, my voice still shaky.

  “Not exactly,” Grayson said, rubbing a hand through his hair. “We tried to stage a rebellion, take back leadership. Things didn’t go our way.”

  Corey gave a dark chuckle. “Which shouldn’t have surprised us, considering we were just a bunch of kids. We had no idea what we were doing, we thought we could reason with them. But before we could get enough people on our side we were betrayed.” He shook his head bitterly.

  “We were banished,” Kannon told me mournfully. This time it was my turn to give him a comforting squeeze.

  “We were lucky to escape with our lives,” Grayson said seriously. “Our new pack master probably should have killed us, but he didn’t want to risk all of the others rising up against him.”

  “We agreed to go quietly, to leave and never come back,” Kannon said sadly.

  All five of us sat there quietly for a minute, trapped in our own regrets.

  Grayson was the one to break the silence. “Obviously, we aren’t going to send you back to that.”

  Wyatt nodded. “You’ll stay here with us, where we can keep you safe.”

  “And if her pack comes after her?” Corey asked with a frown.

  “We protect her,” Kannon told him adamantly.

  Corey shook his head. “This isn’t going to end well,” he muttered.

  I pulled away from Kannon and sat up straight. “I can protect myself,” I told him. “If my pack comes after me, I’ll handle it.”

  Corey laughed while Wyatt shook his head. “And if our former pack comes after us, you’ll leave us to deal with them?”

  “Well, no,” I said with a frown. “Obviously I’ll fight with you.”

  All of the guys traded looks as they used their pack bond to communicate. I waited anxiously to hear what their decision would be.

  Grayson rubbed his face. “We’ll stand together, against anyone who might come for any of us,” he said decisively.

  I smiled at him. I had always wanted to be in that type of pack, maybe we could make something good here.

  “So I can be in your pack?” I asked softly, feeling hopeful and nervous at the same time.

  “We don’t have a pack,” Corey grumbled.

  “We didn’t have a pack,” Grayson corrected. “But we have a female now.”

  “Whoa,” I held up a hand. “I didn’t agree to be your female, or to mate with any of you.”

  I saw a smile break across Grayson’s face. “There will be no mating,” he assured me. He looked around the table. “I think all of us can agree to keep our hands off Lori?”

  He got a nod from each of the guys.

  “I want to be respected,” I demanded. “As an equal member of the pack. I’m not going to be a silent female that’s just kept around to cook, clean, and do your laundry.”

  Wyatt leaned forward. “Then let’s negotiate.” I saw a gleam appear in his eyes. “We agree to share our home with you, and in return you will share equally in our responsibilities.”

  “Such as?” I got the distinct impression that this was the kind of thing that Wyatt enjoyed. Business negotiations. The other guys were sitting back and letting Wyatt handle this, so I kept my attention fully on him.

  “We have weekly chore assignments that rotate between all of us,” Wyatt informed me.

  “That’s fine,” I answered. “As long as it’s an equal rotation.”

  He gave me a nod. “We each have a job that pertains to our strengths. I handle all the financial aspects of the business, Kannon all of the tech, and Grayson is the expert mechanic.”

  “And Corey?” I asked curiously.

  “A mechanic in training,” Wyatt answered smoothly.

  I wracked my brain for what I could do to help. “I could run the front office?” I suggested. “I’ve gotten to know a bunch of people in town, so I know which ones are interested in being customers and which are angry that you’re in their town.”

  “People are angry?” Kannon asked with a frown.

  “Well, yeah,” I answered. “You came into a small town. A lot of people see you as outsiders trying to put one of their own out of business.”

  “That’s not our intention,” Grayson grumbled.

  “I know that,” I told him. “But not everyone sees it the same. You guys can charm most of the wives and do bro stuff with the guys, but it might help to have someone sweet like me to smooth things over. Plus, I took a marketing class last year, so I can help with that.”

  “Maybe,” Wyatt said ambiguously. “We can start you out with working the front desk and answering the phone.”

  I crossed my arms. “To start, but you’re going to see that I can do a lot more than that.”

  “I look forward to it.” Wyatt sat back in satisfaction, so I guess that completed our negotiations.

  Grayson frowned at me. “That’s settled, but what are we going to do about school for you?”

  “She’s eighteen,” Corey said. “Why does she need school?”

  Grayson shook his head at Corey before turning his gaze to me. “You were supposed to start your senior year in high school this fall?”

  I nodded, trying to keep from being too hopeful. “I wanted to go to college,” I said softly. “My grades were really good and I was at the top of my class.”

  “What if she took April’s place?” Kannon asked eagerly. “Didn’t you get things set up for her to come with us?”

  I could have heard a pin drop in the silence when everyone froze as the name ‘April’ was mentioned.

  Grayson let out a low growl before Wyatt punched him in the arm.

  “April is Grayson’s cousin,” Kannon whispered to me. “She was supposed to come with us if things didn’t work out with changing the pack for the better. But…”

  “B
ut she was the one that betrayed us,” Corey spat out angrily.

  I watched them with wide eyes.

  “She became the pack master’s mate,” Wyatt explained. “We think it was in exchange for turning us in.”

  “Shit,” I said, not sure what I was really supposed to say here. That must have been enough because Grayson nodded at me and took a deep breath to calm down.

  “Shit is right,” Grayson said to me. “But we did negotiate for five, not four.”

  “So let’s just tell them that April joined us after all,” Kannon said happily. “Emerys can make a fake identity for her, just like the rest of us. And then she can go to school with me.”

  “Except I already have a fake ID,” I said slowly. “And the entire town thinks that I’m in a summer program at Hollow Crest Prep.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “People transfer schools all the time. We can just put out a rumor that you liked the town so much you decided to stay here.”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. From the way that the people in this town talked about the private school here, no one had ever transferred before. Kids at Hollow Crest Prep and Hollow Crest University did not mix with the kids in town or in the public school here. Now that I knew that they weren’t human it made a lot of sense. I had been pretty vague about the ‘summer program’ I was in, just saying it was something to help me get into college and I had tried to avoid talking about myself. But just how much would the people of this town believe before things started to sound ridiculous?

  “I’ll talk to my contact at the school when I go over there tomorrow,” Grayson offered.

  “So we’re telling them about her?” Wyatt asked.

  “I think we should if it will get her a new identity,” Grayson said. “Vote?”

  Wyatt, Grayson, and Kannon raised their hands. “I abstain,” Corey said with a frown.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Typical,” he grumbled under his breath.

  “All of this sounds great,” Corey said sarcastically. “But has no one thought about why an eighteen-year-old girl in high school would suddenly change schools and move in with a group of guys?”

  Everyone just stared at him. “Humans aren’t like us,” Corey said. “They don’t send a female to join a new pack when they get old enough. Females stay with their families until they grow up and go to college or get married.”

  “You might have a point,” Wyatt said thoughtfully. Corey gave him a smug look and sat back with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “He’s right,” I admitted regretfully. “People in this town love to talk, and they could make this sound pretty scandalous.”

  “We can worry about this later,” Grayson said impatiently. “Let’s just see if we can get her an identity first.”

  “We need to worry about it now,” Corey insisted. “Her identity should be related to one of us. Humans would accept her moving in with a male relative, that’s rare but not alarming for them.”

  “Who would be related to her?” Kannon asked worriedly.

  I shrugged. “Does it matter if it’s just fake anyway?”

  Corey laughed. “It matters to them.” He gestured to include everyone in the room. “Every one of these idiots is hoping that you will pick him as a mate. And they won’t be able to hold your hand in public if the humans think you’re related.”

  My jaw dropped. Wyatt and Grayson avoided my eyes but Kannon just gave me a hopeful smile along with a blush. “I’d like to be your mate, Lori,” he said quietly.

  Grayson cleared his throat. “We already agreed that there would be no mating.”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “No mating.”

  “You’re both too young to be permanently mated, anyway,” Grayson added. “Lori just turned eighteen. Kannon, you still have a month to go before you’re officially an adult.”

  Kannon nodded reluctantly but I looked at Grayson curiously. There wasn’t any permanent mating that had gone on in my pack. Males used the females when they wanted, and then the pack master would select a male to breed with a female when she went into heat. There was no romance like in the human books and movies that I loved so much, and there was definitely nothing close to the marriages that humans had. Had Grayson’s last pack been different?

  I looked shyly at Kannon. Was that what he had meant when he said that he wanted to be my mate? Kannon was so sweet that I already felt safe around him. Could I fall in love with him like how the humans did?

  I blushed when Kannon looked in my direction again, worried that he might have picked up on my train of thought.

  “Let’s get as much work done as we can today,” Grayson interrupted my thoughts. “We got behind from taking a break so we need to catch up.”

  Corey gave me a dirty look, but the others all stood. I glanced at the clock on the stove. “Um, I can help out for like an hour, but then I need to be at work.”

  Grayson nodded. “Why don’t you take a break before work, get settled in here.” He glanced at my lonely bag filled with my meager belongings. “Kannon can help you pick a locker and get a bed set up.”

  Kannon picked up my bag. “The bed next to mine is empty,” he said enthusiastically. “And I have an extra blanket. You can use my pillow for now.”

  “Oh, um. I don’t need your pillow, Kannon,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve been sleeping in a cave made of rocks for the last week.”

  Corey snorted. “Good luck with that.” He sauntered out into the garage, leaving the door open behind him. “Let’s go!” he shouted at the others.

  Wyatt grumbled but followed his brother. Grayson stopped next to me and I was startled when he wrapped me in a tight hug. “I’m glad you decided to stay,” he murmured to me. Heat flooded through me at the feel of his hard body pressed against mine. For the first time ever, I didn’t feel threatened by a male’s touch. I felt something new. Something good. I stared after Grayson in confusion as he released me and walked out into the garage. I pushed aside the swirl of emotions that I wasn’t sure what to do with and focused on Kannon.

  Kannon grinned at me. “Let’s get you set up.”

  I followed him through the kitchen towards the stairs. I admired the tight spiral staircase as we climbed, running my hand along the metal handrail.

  “Nice, huh?” Kannon said as he noticed my fascination with a backwards glance.

  “I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t a fire pole, though,” I joked as I raced up the stairs to catch up with him.

  “Right?” Kannon gave me a rueful grin. “That was the first thing I asked about when I got here.”

  I laughed. “I would have done the same if I hadn’t been so distracted by… everything.”

  “The firefighters said that they had to take it out due to it being a safety hazard,” Kannon said sadly as we walked through their living room.

  “They take away all the good stuff,” I commiserated. “We used to have a really awesome park in the town where I grew up. It had a super tall metal slide and a merry-go-round. But they took it all away when they decided that it wasn’t ‘safe’ for kids to play on anymore.”

  Kannon laughed. “I know exactly what you mean. Corey and Wyatt would have me climb on a merry-go-round when we were kids. I would hold on tight while they ran around and spun it as hard as they could. They would jump on once they got it going, but I flew off it more than once.”

  I giggled. “My cousins did the same to me. The slide was pretty awesome, too. It had to have been at least twelve feet tall and you could get some really good speed going on the way down.” I got a huge grin on my face when I thought back to those days. “Although, I did get burnt by it once or twice on hot days, and I had some pretty rough landings. But it still sucked when they replaced it all with little plastic stuff.”

  Kannon nodded at me sagely. “It’s probably for the best. Humans can’t heal like we can.”

  “True,” I admitted. I would usually bounce back pretty quickly every time I got hurt, but it wasn’t that easy for some
of the kids with more human blood in my pack. It would sometimes take them weeks to heal a broken bone.

  We stepped into the bedroom and I looked down the line of beds, deciding which one looked the most appealing. Kannon grinned and patted the one next to his. “This one looks pretty comfy.”

  I laughed and plopped my butt down on it, bouncing up and down a couple times to test it. “I don’t know…” I moved down the line of beds and tested them all one by one. Kannon leaned on the footboard of one of the bed frames, watching me with a slight smile.

  I went back to the third one that I had tried. “I think I like this one,” I told him, giving a bounce to demonstrate. He laughed but came over to bounce on the bed next to me.

  “I guess this one’s alright,” he said with a sly smile. “But don’t you think the frame is a little wobbly?” He rocked it back and forth.

  “I see what you mean,” I said with a frown.

  “Why don’t we move this mattress to the bed frame next to mine?”

  I shook my head with a giggle. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Nope. Grab the other side and we can get this moved for you.”

  I shrugged but stepped to the head of the bed so I could lift my half of the mattress. We carried it over to my new bed frame and I helped Kannon tug the old mattress out of the way. “So, how long have you guys been here?”

  Kannon gestured for me to pick up the good mattress again. “Um, in the firehouse? A little less than a month.”

  “What about before that?”

  Kannon grimaced. “We spent three months living behind the iron gates of Hollow Crest University. It was terrible. I’m glad we finally got our own place.”

  We moved the mattress into place and I eyed our work with satisfaction. “How did you find this town?”

  “We spent a lot of time moving around the country, looking for somewhere to settle. Eventually we met a guy, and that guy knew another guy, who got us in contact with someone,” Kannon told me seriously.

  “Well, that explains everything.”

  Kannon smirked at me. “Honestly, Grayson told us that he found a place for us, but it was going to cost us.” His gaze sobered. “He made sure that the majority of the burden rested on his shoulders, but I don’t think this is going to work for us long-term.”