Chapter Five
Phoenix
I took the coffee from Kaylan with barely a grunt to say thank you and slid into the back seat without looking at either of them.
There was a brief second’s pause when I was sure one or both of them would be waiting for me to say something, but thankfully, they just got inside and started the truck.
“I thought since you stayed there all night, you’d be greeting us with a smile on your face,” Bayer said.
My wolf snarled his displeasure. The animal was obviously wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I caught the warning look Kaylan sent Bayer.
“What?” Bayer said, protesting. “I can ask, can’t I?”
Kaylan met my eyes in the mirror.
Bayer huffed sympathetically. “He was awful?”
“He had fifteen cats, and they had a litter tray each?” Kaylan obviously couldn’t resist joining in.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “He was amazing.”
That shut them both up. Or it did for about five seconds. “Then why—” Bayer started.
“You know why,” I broke him off.
“Are you seeing him again?” Kaylan asked.
“I can’t,” I retorted, but damn, I really wanted to.
It took everything I had to sit calmly in the back of the truck and not demand Bayer turn it around and take me back.
My wolf had been enraged, and it was only my single-mindedness that had allowed me to close the apartment door without ripping it from its hinges.
I was sure the walls had shook and hoped Emery hadn’t heard it.
“Gemma says he was engaged,” Bayer continued. My head shot up. “Real piece of work that dumped him for some rich older woman, but Gemma says he’s glad. It just sucks because of the job.”
So that explained why he was moving and why he didn’t look too thrilled about it.
Maybe it was good I hadn’t gotten his number if he was still cut up about the other guy.
I squirmed a little. Was that why he’d invited me in?
To exorcise his demons? I didn’t like the thought of being used casually to get anyone out of his system, but it was basically what I’d done to him.
Except it hadn’t felt casual. I could still almost taste Emery, feel the softness of his skin, and hear that throaty laugh.
“I’m assuming the Gathering is at your place?” I asked, desperate to take my mind off him.
Kaylan nodded. The huge barn on Kaylan’s property backed up to the Wenatchee Forest. It was the safest place for them to meet away from human eyes.
“Your dad finally called me when he couldn’t get you on the phone.
Apparently, he tried a couple of times last night.
” Damn, I fished into my pocket for the phone I’d determinedly put on silent when we’d entered the bar and then completely forgotten about.
Four missed calls. I was going to be so popular.
“Your dad’s called a full pack Gathering. ”
I nodded. I knew my dad could’ve just called the elders, alphas, and betas, but a full pack meant every adult shifter. Not that there were many under the age of twenty-five and none under twenty in our packs.
It took just under an hour to get to Kaylan’s, and as we pulled into a huge yard, I counted over forty different cars and trucks.
I recognized my dad’s car and then groaned to myself as I saw Simeon’s pick-up.
The beta was a pain in the ass, or a pain in mine anyway.
I hoped Matthew would be here. Although, as I hadn’t announced my betas yet, it wasn’t a given.
Someone had to stay at the pack for protection.
Traditionally when an alpha took over the pack, the outgoing alpha left his own betas in place for a year to help the transition. I actually wanted Matthew, Simeon’s nephew, as one of my betas, but I had to be alpha before I was given the option to choose.
And when Simeon found out who else I’d earmarked, the beta would probably have a heart attack.
Although that would solve one problem, anyway. My dad’s other beta, Nicholas, was good, and I was thinking of asking him to stay permanently. He would support me without question, and it would be good to get his advice.
I nodded to the wolves I recognized all standing outside the barn. Standing silently.
When I’d been growing up, the pack meetings always ended in a huge outdoor party. Kids playing, running about, shouting, laughing. This was just silent, depressing, and as I recognized every saddened face, I knew everyone was thinking the same.
“Have you spoken to Isla?”
Bayer grunted. “Of course. I called her.” He glanced at Phoenix. “You know I support you, and so does Isla, but my dad will be furious.”
I nodded. “And I spoke to Matthew.” Matthew was my cousin and barely three weeks my elder.
“Then we make the announcements today while we’re together or wait for you to take over as alpha?
” Kaylan asked, and Bayer and I nodded grimly.
I would be the alpha in a few days, but technically, it could be another ten years until Bayer became one.
The rules for the bears were different from all other shifters I knew about.
We were originally going to make our announcements separately at the pack meetings, but really, the Gathering was much better.
“I hope the pack healers will be here,” Kaylan added dryly. So did I. I hadn’t been joking when I’d said the elders might have heart trouble after what we had to say.
The rest of my pack stayed outside while the meeting happened.
We couldn’t get everyone into the barn anyway, and the barn was remarkably silent when we walked in.
I tried not to look concerned that every eye in the room was watching me.
Bayer, Kaylan, and I walked up to the five elders all sitting on the dais and bowed.
My dad smiled; he didn’t look angry that I hadn’t called him.
In fact, if anything, he regarded me curiously.
I had a second’s panic realizing I hadn’t showered after being with Emery, but as none of the pack had ever met him, they wouldn’t be able to identify Emery’s scent.
Just knowing I’d been intimate with a human wouldn’t give any of them pause.
In fact, certain wolves would probably be applauding me.
Some because—well, I wasn’t known for going forth and multiplying like my grandad cackled often, and some because they believed in Esther and the theory that hybrids may be the answer.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t think any of them would be thrilled if they knew Emery was a guy and obviously couldn’t get pregnant.
I didn’t know about my dad, though. Draven Colton was exactly the type of alpha I wanted to be.
He was as compassionate as he was fair, and he never shied away from making tough decisions.
The biggest one my dad had made for his pack had been mating my mother.
Theirs had not been a blood match. To be honest, they rarely were, and while a small part of me secretly loved the idea of a mate meant to be the other half of my soul, real life didn’t always work out like that.
Draven Colton had mated Leonora Azrael to gain the pack.
Her father was the alpha of all Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, one of the biggest pack areas in all of the US, but he didn’t have a son.
I didn’t know—nor did I wish to—what went on behind closed doors, but my mother spent most of her time in Portland, and I doubted if she’d shifted and run as her wolf for years, and as a child, I hadn’t really missed her.
Bayer’s father sat in the front row. Eschewing the elder table even though he’d been invited.
Bears were the worst kind of shifters as far as I was concerned, except Bayer and Isla, of course.
Pack was a very loose term, and most bears just existed in small family groups.
I had a feeling Micah Olsen was only here to make sure Bayer didn’t do anything to embarrass him.
Bayer didn’t automatically become the alpha when he reached thirty as Kaylan and I did, but any time up to when his father reached seventy, so technically, he might have to wait another ten years.
In all the other packs, the defining age to become the alpha was the age of the heir.
In the bear packs, however, it depended on the age of the current alpha.
If the alpha of any packs died and the son was too young to take control, the pack would appoint a council to run the pack until the heir came of age.
That was what had happened with Kaylan. He was thirty in three months, but because his father had died in a hunting accident when he was ten, the pack elders had been running things for some time.
Kaylan didn’t say much about it, but I knew he was frustrated.
The other three elders here were Seth, Kaylan’s uncle, and Nezra—the Khali of the only jaguar pack we knew of.
Esther was also included. Samir, Nezra’s son and heir, was also present.
His area was mainly California and Nevada, but as the pack was very secretive, no one really knew for sure.
Samir had originally agreed to join the Gathering when his pack started reporting problems as well.
But if anything, the jaguars’ story was the most heartbreaking.
The females did get pregnant quite easily, but no pregnancies lasted longer than seventy days.
Jaguar cubs needed to be a minimum of four months to survive, and Nezra simply said he was sick of burying tiny bodies.