Chapter Ten
Nico
Shilo didn’t have much use for me at his work until I had my paperwork in. My ID was supposedly in the mail, and against my better judgment I’d made his address mine. It did make me feel better that he set me up with a salary, a bit of money and a job to do—managing the community center.
Several females in the pack stayed on rotation to care for kids after school, but they needed someone dedicated. It was only eight or nine kids, but they needed supervision. Getting to spend time with Kenny was nice, though. The other pups took care of him as best they could—omegas were precious. Instinctively wolves knew that.
As I went about gathering up the toys to dunk in a sanitizer bucket for the day, the last two kids straggling with an evening snack, I registered male voices down a hall from the playroom near the communal kitchens. There, a few nights a week, several pack members made dinner for us all to share. I really like these evenings.
With that night being dinner, I could barely make out the scent of strangers above the spices of taco night. And the two pups I watched lay on mats getting their evening nap in, twins under a year old. Both their parents worked late on Tuesdays, so it was no problem. I loved keeping an eye on the little girls and putting bows in their blonde curls.
One woke with a grunt of displeasure and squealed for a breath before settling back on their own, and I put my bucket of sanitizer down right as three males walked in. My father, Alpha Silvermoon, and some older male I didn’t know.
“Nico. There you are.” My father’s curt tones drew my attention first as I stared at them with confusion.
“Father?” We’d never been close. An alpha’s pups were raised and loved more by betas than the alpha himself.
“Horace and I had some time to discuss things and came to an agreement that you can wait for his other alpha son to come of age.” He rocked on his heels and gave me this expectant look, as if I were supposed to nod and do as I was told.
“Oh, sorry. I’m staying here, Father. I’ve already been accepted into Pine Warren.” I gave a polite nod as his expression went hard, as if the news were a new thing, but he didn’t disagree with me.
“We did have an agreement, Godfrey,” Alpha Silvermoon said, giving me a long stare.
“As I reminded the two of you, the agreement you made was not in the best of faith. Need I remind you two that arranged matings are frowned upon.” The male behind them spoke in quiet tones that made my father stiffen but not rebut. The strange alpha raised a hand holding a folder and shook it.
“And as I stated before, he was willing and signed the papers. He had already consented to be made Silvermoon.” Horace cleared his throat and earned a doubtful glare from the third male.
My father’s light features were a mirror of some of my own, save for his golden eyes. I got those from my omega father. Alpha Silvermoon was all mealy brown—spread thin. Nothing about him seemed substantial, all plain features reminiscent of the shallow gene pool I imagined. The third male was clearly arctic. He had strikingly dark hair, jet black, and eyes far icier than my own. I wondered, idly, if we shared blood.
“I didn’t sign anything.” I blinked up and earned a glare from my father before Alpha Silvermoon turned his head to him angrily. “I verbally consented to be mated to his son and join the pack. In that order, I’d imagine. I was never mated to his son, so…”
“It was an expectation of you to join after I released you.” My father said, each word grinding out tersely.
“Apologies, Father, but I’ve met my mate. Also, it would have been hard to sign anything as I was stuck in my wolf fo—” I started, but he tensed and huffed sharply as Alpha Silvermoon cowered. It was too late as the third male growled low.
“Let me call Alp—Warren…Shilo. My—we’ll be mates soon.” I pulled out my phone and strode past the men to the hall, waving down one of the women on her way to the kitchen. “Can you watch the pups? Pack business. They need to wake and eat in about…thirty.”
My father’s presence didn’t do me any favors, but the anger emanating from the new male and the crazy look of Alpha Silvermoon, who had all the markings of a cornered beast, made my insides crawl. It was all I could do not to shift and submit.
She nodded and patted my shoulder as I gestured the men into the hall. I called and Shilo answered on the second ring. “I’m on my way. I know. Do not leave with them—unless you want. I mean—”
“Yeah. Don’t want.” My wolf whimpered in my mind.
“Good. Three minutes.” He hung up, and I stuffed my phone back in my pocket.
“This is a very poor pack, Nico. Are you sure you can be happy here?” My father’s low tones gave me the encouraging sort of warning a parent would use to get their way. But since he wasn’t my alpha, had already excised me—it wasn’t my issue.
“I’m very happy, Father. Alpha Warren—Shilo is very kind to me. He is different from other alphas.” I smiled and earned a scoff of doubt from Alpha Silvermoon.
“I can tell. He lives in a hovel, has no security for his packland and no progeny. A lone alpha might as well come in and—” Alpha Silvermoon started.
“And what?” Shilo rolled in, his face a storm of emotion as his gaze locked on the third male. “Councilman Ares.”
“Shilo.” The new alpha nodded in return, and they shook hands. “It appears you’ve found a male that interests you and the Silvermoon pack is contesting it.”
“I never signed any paperwork to join—” I raised my voice and flinched when Alpha Silvermoon raised a hand sharply to silence me, a gesture that would have finalized with a slap if I were any younger or part of his pack. I knew right then and there if I eventually went with him, I’d become intimately familiar with the back of that hand.
“I have paperwork here that says otherwise,” the stranger, Ares, said as he opened his folder and handed a sheet of paper to Shilo, like his word decided my fate.
Shilo’s brow furrowed as he tapped the paper. “He couldn’t have signed this.”
“How so?” Horace stiffened and Shilo offered the paper back to Ares.
Godfrey stood a little taller.
“Neither you nor Godfrey have seen him since the wreck.” Shilo glanced at me to confirm, and I nodded. “Also, you didn’t even know he was alive on this date.”
“I’ve known he was here since the day after the incident. I’m not sure why you’d dispute that.” My father gave Shilo a warning glare that warned of war and violence.
“But he wasn’t here,” a familiar voice spoke up, inundated with bitterness. “He was stuck in a fucking dog pound.”
“Blake,” Shilo warned, but Blake had his phone out, flicking through something.
He held up his screen and on it was a rather pitiable picture of me in a piss-soaked cell, my gray fur streaked with foulness. My first instinct was to swat the phone away to hide the indecent picture, but Shilo circumnavigated the other alphas and rested a hand on my arm. “Do you want to be here or go home and wait for me to handle this?”
I swallowed hard. “I’ll stay.”
“And do you want to stay here? On my land, with me? For me to be only yours, and you mine?” Shilo leaned in and his lips brushed the shell of my ear. His warm breath made me shiver.
“Yeah. I want that.” Shilo pulled back and looked me in the eyes before flicking his gaze toward Councilman Ares and back to me.
“Unless we’re mated, it may be a bit of a fight for this, or may get expensive.” Shilo met my gaze and leaned in, making my heart flutter over the softest of kisses.
The gravity of what he asked didn’t hit at first as he ran his lips over my cheek to my ear. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” My whisper cut short as, in a flash, he pushed his face into the tender line of my neck, mouth opening. I had the barest warning before half-shifted teeth bit down over my neck. I cried out with sharp pleasure and trembled.
I’d heard mating could be intense, that the union would make us stronger, give us power. It made alphas calmer, omegas stronger, and packs more loyal. He was no longer a single, unmated alpha leading the many, but a male lifted by his mate, given something to build and protect. My breath petered out in a soft whimper. “Oh goddesses…”
“You can’t just—” my father shouted, earning a snarl from Alpha Silvermoon.
“You have any idea how costly of a mistake you just made?” My father pushed Shilo away from me and tensed his shoulders, but he hadn’t been a dominant brawler in many years. Shilo was young, still in his prime, and something neither of the others were—mated.
“Tell me, Godfrey. Explain to me how I have slighted you. Explain to Councilman Ares—” Shilo turned, his lips tinged red, fangs still out as he licked his lips.
“I can wait for that explanation. What I cannot wait for is an explanation of what exactly happened. The report we received stated that he’d been in Shilo’s care for months.” Ares stifled a growl in his throat.
I shivered on the spot, my knees weak as Shilo pulled me into his side and gave me a soft kiss. “Blake, take my mate to the kitchens. Councilman Ares and I have some talking to do. And I imagine I’ll be making a peace offering to one of these two misinformed alphas over this communication error , correct? I’m sure nobody purposefully lied or broke the law.”
Alpha Silvermoon paled as my father’s jaw clenched. Long seconds passed before he relented with a short nod. “Perhaps there were a few miscommunications we could rectify . I certainly wouldn’t want to be in bad standing with the council. Nor would you, Horace.”
“Cool. You four talk it out. Maybe talk to Alpha Silvermoon about his policies on omega pups and find out why he’s so desperate for them.” Blake sneered and took my arm, muttering something along the lines of training omegas and the cost he still bore, paying for their departure.
As they led me away, I glanced back, my mind spinning. Shilo gave me a nod and the brief glance I caught of the councilman’s face told me something grim.
We stormed our way to the kitchens, where Blake handed me off to another beta, determination in his gaze.