Chapter 16 Mo
Mo
Iscan the gathering, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
A child screams with laughter, and I flinch. The sound is too sharp, too sudden. My body parses it as a threat before my brain can override.
There are too many people, too many sounds, too many smells. My wolf, the traitorous little heathen, is practically prancing with glee. If she had her way, she’d be out there playing wolf tag with the pups, biting tails and being an idiot.
“Here, sweetheart, have another cookie,” Elias says, shoving a plate under my nose.
I eye the treats. I’ve already had two, and the sugar high is going to hit any minute. “You trying to fatten me up to eat later?”
He laughs. “Oh, definitely.”
Darius’s grandmother shuffles over and ruffles Elias’s curls, then turns her attention to me. “You’re skin and bones. Our strong alphas need a well-fed omega.”
Fuck that.
Is she going to comment on my hips next? Tell me they’re too narrow for childbearing? But when I look up at her eager smile, the retort stalls in my throat. She’s not being cruel; she’s being a caring grandmother. I’ve just forgotten what that looks like.
I take the cookie and smile at her instead.
I watch the others lounging around the fire.
Trading jokes, shoving each other, passing food around.
Kids chase each other across the grass, shrieking with laughter.
A couple of women share a bottle of wine on a blanket.
Normal life. The kind of thing I used to watch from the trees when I spied on campers.
“Blue!” Lily bounds over and grabs my arm. “Come see my cottage!”
I let her drag me along, aware of the alphas’ eyes on my back. Darius, Elias, Silas, and Archer, all of them watching every step I take.
But my usual venom isn’t there. I know my wolf loves it here. She made that humiliatingly clear yesterday. And a part of me, a part I keep trying to smother, wants to belong. But can I trust alphas again? After everything?
Lily’s cottage is small and cozy, full of knitted blankets and mismatched furniture, and the kind of cluttered warmth that takes years to accumulate. Lived-in and loved.
“I live with my grandmother,” she explains, waving vaguely at the doilies on every surface.
“What about your parents?” I ask. “I haven’t seen any of the alphas’ parents around.”
Lily’s smile falters. The brightness in her eyes dims for just a second before she covers it. “They’re gone.”
“What happened?”
“You should ask Darius about that,” she says, and the quickness of it tells me this isn’t a conversation she wants to have right now. Fair enough. I know what that feels like.
She disappears into a back room and comes out holding a puffy winter coat, overstuffed and ridiculous, and exactly the kind of thing I’d kill for when the temperature drops.
“Here,” she says, thrusting it at me. “It’s my old one. You can have it.”
I run my fingers over the fabric. Soft, down-filled. My throat goes tight, and I don’t understand why a coat is making me feel this way.
“Why are you all being so nice to me?”
“Because you’re pack now,” Lily says. Like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
I want to argue. I want to tell her I’m not pack and never will be. But the words stick in my throat, lodged behind something I can’t swallow down.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
Lily beams. “Come on. Let’s grab seats near the bonfire and snag some s’mores before they’re all gone!”
As she tugs me back outside, my mind races.
All this kindness has to be a trap, right?
That’s how it works. They give you things, feed you, make you feel safe, and then the other shoe drops, and you’re right back where you started.
Except now it hurts worse because you let yourself believe it could be different.
The scent of burning wood hits me as we near the bonfire. Warm, smoky, familiar in a way that makes my wolf settle. I’m reaching for a chair when someone slams into me from the side, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Watch it, bitch!” A shrill voice right in my ear.
I steady myself and come face-to-face with a snarling blonde. Pretty, in a mean sort of way. Blue eyes, sharp features, a body she clearly knows how to use. She’s radiating hostility, her scent sharp with jealousy and something territorial that my wolf recognizes immediately.
“Back the fuck off, Elias,” she spits. “He’s mine.”
I laugh. Genuinely laugh, which only makes her angrier. “You can keep him. I’m not interested.”
Her face twists. “Liar! I see how you look at him.”
“With disgust?” I roll my eyes. “You seem perfect for each other. But just so we’re clear, let me spell it out. I. Don’t. Want. Elias.”
She lunges at me, nails out. I sidestep easily, my wolf itching to put this girl on the ground, but I hold her back. Starting a fight at a community bonfire on my first day out probably wouldn’t help my case.
“Bitch,” she snarls. “He’s mine.”
“Are you slow?” I ask her. “I just told you I don’t want him.”
I say it very slowly, like I’m talking to someone who’s having trouble with basic comprehension.
But before I can walk away, Elias jogs over, all concern and honey-sweet bullshit.
“Pam, what’s going on?” he asks, then spots me and flashes that irritating grin.
“Tell this slut to stay away from you!” Pam shrieks.
Elias has the decency to look sheepish. “Pam, you and I, we were never really together. It was just a fling.”
My eyebrows shoot up. This is getting interesting.
“Besides,” he continues, slinging an arm around my shoulders, “I’m with Blue now.”
What. The. Fuck.
I shrug his arm off. “Excuse me?”
Elias gives me a look that’s probably supposed to be charming. And maybe it is—a little. I bury that observation deep where it can’t do any damage while my wolf pants inside me like a lovesick idiot.
Traitor.
“Sweetheart,” he says. “I want to court you properly.”
“Court me?” I stare at him. “I’d rather fuck a cactus.”
Pam looks ready to explode. Elias is grinning like the idiot he is. And I’m done with every part of this.
I turn on my heel and drop into the seat Lily saved for me.
Alphas. Can’t live with them. Can’t bury them in shallow graves without someone noticing.
I stuff a s’more into my mouth.
Fuck, that’s good.
The marshmallow is warm and gooey, and the chocolate melts on my tongue, and for one perfect second, I forget about Pam and Elias and the fact that I’m sitting at a bonfire surrounded by people I don’t trust, wearing a coat given to me by a girl I barely know, eating food I didn’t have to hunt or steal.
Lily nudges my arm with her elbow. “You handled that well.”
I lick chocolate off my thumb. “She’s lucky I didn’t handle it with my fists.”
Lily grins. “Pam’s always been territorial about Elias. They hooked up a few times, and she decided that made them soulmates.”
“Her problem, not mine.”
“Sure.” Lily gives me a look that says she doesn’t entirely believe me. “Another s’more?”
I take it, then three more after that. The fire is warm on my face, and the sugar buzzes through me.
Lily chatters on about the pack, the cottages, who’s sleeping with who, and which of the betas makes the best bread.
I don’t respond to most of it, but I don’t shut her out either.
I just sit there, eating s’mores, watching the fire, listening to someone talk to me like I’m a person.
It’s so normal, it hurts.
Across the fire, I catch Darius watching me.
His face is half in shadow, half lit by the flames, and his expression is unreadable.
Then Silas moves into my line of sight, blocking the view, and sets a cup of hot chocolate in front of me without a word.
He sits down next to Lily on the other side, and the three of us sit there, quiet, while the bonfire crackles and the pack moves around us.
I wrap my hands around the mug and let the warmth seep into my fingers.
I won’t get comfortable. I won’t settle in. I won’t let myself believe this is mine.
But I drink the hot chocolate. And I don’t leave.