Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Maddox
“C’mon,” Elias begs sweetly, “Let’s take the quads out one last time!” He grabs his favorite baseball cap and puts it on backwards, already heading for the door.
I shake my head, but before I can open my mouth, Gael pops into the kitchen. “We have at least a week before it starts snowing.” He drags a hand through his wavy red hair as he sits at the counter next to me.
“See? Plenty of time. If I don’t get this report to Ethan by Friday, he’ll have my tail.” I frown at my laptop screen. Second in command pack for Elmway, the largest population of werewolves in the US, is not as easy as Eli might think. Spoiled social media star, I think fondly.
“Fine, whatever, I’ll go alone,” he says in a fake dejected voice as he turns to grab his coat.
“Stop, you’re so dramatic,” I grumble. “Get over here.”
Even though we’re all alpha wolves, some of us are more naturally dominant than others. A sly grin crosses his face, and he comes over. I pull him between my spread thighs. “You’re just begging for some of my attention, aren’t you?”
He leans in and kisses me. He starts to pull away, intending a peck, but I wrap my hand around his neck, into the blond curls that peek out of his cap. I deepen the kiss, our tongues touching.
“It’d be sickening if he wasn’t such a brat,” Julian says, opening the fridge. “So, anyway, quads?” he asks, emerging with an energy drink. His short, black hair is under a black knit cap with a famous EDM artist’s logo on it.
“Yeah,” I answer, faux annoyance in my tone, “let’s go.”
Jules leans back against the counter, his tall, trim form on display. “Should we ask Corbin?”
I stand, moving to grab my coat. “Sure, we can swing by the shop on the way to the garage, but I doubt it. I know he has several big clients waiting.”
“Woah!” Jules yells from next to me as the branches flap against the top of the quad. “Too close, Mads!”
I chuckle. “Told you to grab goggles, just in case.”
“I would have, if you had told me you were planning on getting up close and personal with the trees.”
The trail widens out, and I hear the quad behind us rev the engine.
Sure enough, Eli and Gael zip by, cam attached to the front of the quad.
I roll my eyes. I know that Eli blurs us out, but I dislike it anyway. It’s only a matter of time until some unhinged human finds us. He swears it’s great werewolf publicity. He’s right, of course. And he makes a fuckton of money doing nothing.
“Ah, shit,” Jules mutters, looking at his phone screen. He grabs the walkie talkie. “We got a breach in sector three.”
“Probably an elk,” Gael radios back. “We haven’t been out—in fur—in that area recently, so our scent is probably weak.”
Julian responds, eyebrows furrowed, “Probably, but we’re checking it out, regardless.”
I take the next split, headed for the other side of our compound.
My parents’ pack provided our pack dowry, gifting us a nice sum and their name.
I was their only alpha child, so it was easy to spoil us a bit.
They live down in San Fran, and had hoped we’d settle there, but we wanted to stay where we had all gone to college: Elmway.
It had been back when we were in college that the demons came above ground.
Overnight, werewolf society that had been kept hidden was revealed.
Humans didn’t cope well at first. To put it gently.
While there were several colleges that had been low-key “were” colleges, but for whatever reason, Elmway became the place for packs to seek refuge. Perhaps due to being fairly rural while still being a day trip from two big cities.
“Next left,” Jules mutters, eyes on his phone. An incredibly skilled programmer and electrical engineer, he had lived down the hall from me and Corbin freshman year. Him, Eli, Gael, and I had hit it off immediately. Corbin had sulked along with me, refusing to be parted.
It wasn’t until junior year that Corbin told me he had scent matched with me that very first day of college. But he had no idea that I hadn’t realized the match with him. So he thought I was playing hard to get. Our scent match hit me like a ton of bricks when we kissed the first time.
“Ease up,” I say to Jules. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It’s a woman,” he mutters, flipping his screen to face me for a second. The grainy view from a game cam shows a small SUV on the shoulder of our eastern entry.
“Shit.”