Chapter 2
One month later
Abby
“Order up for table twelve!” Jessie called out. I grabbed the order and rushed it out to Briar and Memphis.
“I made sure that Jessie put extra pickles on it,” I said, setting the heaping plate down in front of her.
“You’re the best,” Briar said, never taking her eyes off her food.
“And no mayo for you,” I said, putting Memphis’s plate down.
He gave me a smile. “Thanks.”
I rushed off to refill drinks at table ten, then checked in at table eleven to see if they needed anything.
There was only another hour left on my shift, but I thought I might ask to stay for a second shift. It wasn't that I was desperate for money; the job paid well, and the shifters and magical creatures that ate here tipped well. I simply didn't want to go back to my apartment today.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my home.
Mikey, the alpha of the Lobos Gris Pack, had gotten me into an adorable studio in the same building as several other members of his pack. The rent was reasonable, and a bunch of pack members donated furniture and household items, so I never had to do without.
Within two days, I went from being a runaway selkie with no job, no home, and a car full of random items, to living a normal life, almost like a human!
The only problem was that now that I was free, I didn't want to stay at home. Working at The Pack House brought me into contact with so many friendly people that it made me feel energized.
Even when there was a rare rude customer, one of the wolf shifters was usually quick to deal with them.
“Abby, you got a minute?”
I looked over to the front door to see Bailey, a local walrus shifter, poking his head inside.
“Sure,” I said and rushed over.
“There's a couple of us going out on my boat,” he said. “We thought we'd drop anchor over by the rocks and swim around for a few hours. Want to join us?”
All thoughts of doing a second shift vanished when presented with the option of open-ocean swimming with a bunch of walrus shifters.
“Yes!” I said. “What time?”
“Meet at the boat at 4,” Bailey said, then pointed behind me. “I think someone needs you.”
“I'll see you then,” I said and turned to help an impatient human customer.
“You look excited,” Adora said as I ran the human's credit card.
“I'm going swimming after work,” I said with a big grin.
Adora’s brows wrinkled with worry. “Alone?”
“No, I'm going with Bailey and his huddle,” I said.
“That's good,” Adora said with a relieved expression. “Bailey and his group are good shifters. They take Juan and Jace out fishing all the time.”
I nodded and took the receipt to be signed back to the table. I gave them a smile, wished them a good day, then moved to my next table to check on them.
That's when I sensed a presence I never thought I’d feel again. If I lived in a horror movie, this was when the eerie music would start. With deep dread, I turned to see Archer standing in the doorway to the dinner.
“No.” I didn't realize I'd spoken until Harper was next to me.
“No?” she asked, nudging my shoulder. “What's no? No bueno? No way? No how? Come on, Abby, you've got to give me more to go on.”
I wanted to give a funny response, but I couldn't make my brain work. Archer had seen me and running wasn't going to work. I was going to have to face him, and all the progress I thought I'd made on myself seemed to vanish between one breath and the next.
My seal felt nothing but rage. Archer was her mate, and he’d refused us. She wanted to attack him.
My human part wanted to run and hide because Archer represented the colony and everything I’d left behind.
“Who’s that guy staring at you?” Harper asked.
By her tone, I could tell that she was ready to throw down with Archer. On the days she didn’t work at the Pack House, she was a bouncer for a dance club owned by a vampire. She could as easily knock someone out as serve them lunch.
“Um, someone I knew before coming here,” I said, finally finding my voice. As I spoke that one sentence, Archer walked through the busy restaurant without breaking eye contact.
“Abby,” he murmured, coming to a stop in front of me. “I missed you.”
My seal pushed me to bite him. While that was a perfectly acceptable seal response to a threat, it wasn’t going to look good, even if most of the patrons were other shifters.
“That’s a surprise,” I said, proud of how steady my voice was. “You were so good at ignoring me before. Why would you be sad that I left?”
His expression went blank. I’d seen him do it a lot, especially when dealing with his father.
“Things have changed,” he said. “We can be together now.”
“I’m sure Mayor Norris wouldn’t approve,” I sneered. God, it felt good to be rude and talk back. I’d never been allowed before, but I wasn’t that woman any longer. “I’m not good enough for you, remember?”
“Dad’s dead. Delmar killed him. Most of the old guard is dead. The colony is in chaos."
My first instinct was to feel sympathy for Archer. Mayor Norris might’ve been ruthless and cruel, but he had still been Archer’s dad.
Then I remembered all the times my father “punished” me with Mayor Norris’s full consent. All the times Archer didn’t stand up for me. All the times I lived in fear of being hurt.
I ruthlessly pushed that back and asked the one thing I’d been worried about since leaving. “What about Delmar’s mate, Nina?”
“She’s fine. They left after Delmar wrecked the town,” Archer said.
“Thanks for telling me about what happened. I felt guilty for leaving her behind,” I said. “If you want to eat here, there’s a spot at the counter. I need to get back to work.”
I turned to leave, elated at how dismissive I was able to act, even as anxiety made me want to vomit. Archer grabbed my arm to stop me, and Harper reacted faster than I could.
With a growl, she grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand off me. I turned to tell him he wasn't allowed to touch me ever again, but Harper wasn't done.
A seal shifter and an alpha wolf shifter probably had about the same level of strength in their human forms, but Harper had a complete lack of mercy on her side.
Archer put his hands on one of Harper’s packmates, and she was going to deal with him.
Even though I was a selkie and not officially a member of Lobo Gris, Harper was protective.
She used her grip on Archer's wrist to distract him while she delivered a savage punch to his gut.
Archer dropped to his knees with a wheezing gasp. Everyone close to us was a fellow shifter, and the few humans in the restaurant were at the far end and couldn't see what had happened.
Harper leaned over to speak close to Archer's bent head. “I don't care if you know Abby from before, but she's Lobos Gris Pack now. No one puts their hands on her without her permission.”
Archer looked up, eyes watering. “I only wanted to talk to her.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Harper said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I didn't realize that grabbing her was a form of speaking.”
“No, I…I…” Archer shook his head. “I shouldn't have done that.”
I let out a snort. “Someone record the date. A Norris male admitted to making a mistake. This needs to go in the history books.”
Archer lifted his head to look past Harper at me. “You've gotten mean.” A slow, sensual smile spread across his face. “I like it.”
There was a smattering of laughter from those who could hear him, and I saw Harper's reluctant smile.
“What do you want to do, Abby?” Harper asked me.
“He can stay and eat if he wants, but I'm not serving him,” I said. This would be the best way to show him that I didn't care. When he realized I was over him, he'd go away, and I'd never need to see him again.
I wish that didn't make me feel so sad.
Archer
I deserved the punch. Even more, I deserved Abby's cold attitude.
It was amusing to think that I’d believed the hardest part of getting Abby back would be finding her.
She'd done a good job of disappearing. After weeks of searching and calling in a favor with a marshal, I'd finally found her. I'd confidently believed that once I told her that we were free to be together, she'd fall into my arms.
The Abby I found in San Diego wasn't the same woman I'd known before. This Abby didn't have the same fear in her eyes. She met my gaze without sliding her eyes away and spoke her mind. She stood with her back straight and a stubborn set to her jaw. I’d seen a spark of this Abby the night she’d left. Now it was her new personality.
This version of Abby was fierce and strong.
It was a wonderful change and made my shame even worse. All the times I'd ignored the way she constantly hunched her shoulders as if waiting for the next blow. All the times she flinched at movement or a loud noise. There had been a cause, and I’d pretended as if it wasn’t an issue.
Looking back, I saw with horribly perfect clarity all the ways I'd failed Abby. I didn't deserve her forgiveness, at least not yet.
But I was determined to show her that she wasn't the only one who had changed. I wasn't the same Archer. I wasn't the boy who was sure that if he was loyal and obedient, Abby would be the reward.
I finally understood that Abby wasn't a reward; she was an independent woman who'd been treated like a possession her entire life. Even by me, the one who should've protected her.
“Well?” Harper said as I staggered to my feet. “You gonna eat or leave?”
Everyone around us was watching me. I could see their amusement, but I could also feel their power. Every single one of them was ready to intercede on Abby's behalf if I tried to cause trouble. They were shifters and probably as powerful as Harper. Abby had found a very safe place.
“I'll eat,” I said, trying very hard not to show how much pain I was in from Harper’s punch. Good lord, that woman was fast. I'd always prided myself on my reflexes, but Harper made me look like a sloth.
“Great,” Harper said, grabbing a menu off someone else's table, and shoving it at me before pointing at the empty seat at the counter. “Sit.”
“Hey, that was mine,” the guy at the table said.
Harper shot him a look. “You don’t need the menu because you always order the same thing, Ed. I don't even know why we bother giving you a menu when all you want is a patty melt.”
Ed frowned. “Maybe I was going to be different today.”
“Yeah? What do you want?” Harper asked. “I'll put your order in.”
Ed hesitated, then let out a sigh. “Patty melt.”
“That's what I thought,” Harper said. When she looked back at me, I jumped past her to sit on the stool before Harper rescinded my seat.
Abby was behind the counter, at the far end where there was a station for pouring drinks. Harper walked over to her, and I saw them talking, but couldn't hear them.
“Who are you?” I looked over at Ed, unsurprised to see everyone else had their eyes on me. “To Abby, I mean. And what are you? I smell the ocean, but you don't smell like the same kind of ocean as Bailey.”
“He's another selkie,” someone else said. “He smells a lot like Abby.”
I nodded. “I'm a selkie from her old colony.”
“You can't have her back,” Ed said, his expression going from curious to aggressive. “She's happy here.”
Before I could say anything, others chimed in.
“She doesn't talk about her life, but she was scared of everything when she first got here,” the person sitting next to me said. She was another wolf shifter, and when she talked, I could see that her canines had gotten a little longer. “Harper said she had a black eye. Did you do that?”
I shook my head as another person spoke up.
“We'll end you and feed you to a wraith before we'll let you take her back to that.”
“She has nightmares,” the man sitting with Ed said. “She stayed at my sister's house for a few days. She woke the house up with her screaming. She did better when the kids all puppy-piled in bed with her.”
I could hear the underlying accusation. She had nightmares because of her past. A past that I was part of.
“Nothing helps like sleeping in a pile of wolf-kids,” Ed said with an approving nod.
“I heard about that,” a woman at another table said. “Mikey was worried about her living alone, but she insisted.”
“It's okay, I live in the same apartment building,” the man sitting on the other side of me said. “Emma lives next to her. She’ll call Abby when she hears crying or screaming in the middle of the night. That wakes her up from the bad dream. Sometimes a few of us get up and sit with her until she feels calm enough to sleep again.”
I couldn't believe the care these people were giving a woman who wasn't even a wolf shifter. They treated her as if she was a member of their pack.
They treated her better than her own people did. It was a gut punch almost as painful as Harper's earlier jab.
“I'm glad she has Bailey to take her out in the ocean,” Ed said. “I hate the idea of her shifting and swimming alone.”
“Who's Bailey?” I demanded.
Ed sat back and crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “You don't get to ask us questions. We ask you questions and then decide if we’ll let you stay or show you what it's like to make an enemy of the Lobos Gris Pack.”
As he spoke, all eyes turned back on me. There wasn't a welcoming expression among them.
“I'm not here to take her back to the colony,” I said. “At least if she doesn't want to go.”
“She doesn't want to,” Ed said, and there were murmurs of agreement.
“Shouldn't Abby get to decide that?” I asked.
“Decide to be abused?” Harper said, slamming a plate of food down in front of me.
“I didn't order this,” I said, ignoring Harper's question.
“This is what you get, or you can leave,” Harper said, snatching away the menu I was still holding.
Honestly, I should've expected that. “I promise she'll never be abused again.”
Harper snorted. “As if I'd believe you.”
“It's not you that needs to believe," I murmured, watching Abby rush past to take a tray of drinks to a table at the far end of the restaurant. My seal longed for her to look at us, even if her expression was full of anger and resentment.
Her cold refusal to even glance my way told me how much work I had ahead of me.
Harper leaned over, filling my field of vision with her scowl. I flinched back, and one corner of her lip curved up in a nasty parody of a smile.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” she whispered. “Remember that every time you think about approaching Abby. I could easily go from making you uncomfortable to making it so you never feel anything ever again.”
It was clear that Harper wasn’t into being subtle. Not only was Abby not falling into my arms with joy, but she’d found herself a community that was fiercely protective.
I was happy for her but also frustrated. They weren’t going to make it easy for me to talk to Abby.
This was going to be much harder than I expected, but I deserved this and so much more. Maybe in the end, I’d feel as if I deserved Abby as much as I loved her.