Same Difference (Same #2)

Chapter One

“What do you say, Second?” Liam Northman, the former Alpha of the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack asked.

Beside Delta, her new mate frowned. Even looking troubled, Nate looked handsome in the muted light of the dingy hotel room they were staying in. “You mean pretend Second?”

“It’ll be real to us. Fuck the Elders, and the big hunts, and the registrations.”

Nate chewed the corner of his lip and, through the video call, stared at Liam. “Would we run it like a real Pack?”

“Yep.”

“And when all this blows up in our face?”

“Whoever wants to leave, can take their home and go,” Liam said. “But…”

“But what?” Nate asked low.

Liam leaned closer to the phone, cast a glance at his mate, Nory, and back to Nate. “I’m going to work my ass off to keep us all together. From the ground up. I’m going to build this. I need my Second.”

Nate ran his hand over his jaw and looked at Delta. His eyes had lightened to a soft gold hue. “Why don’t you look surprised by any of this?”

“Because I knew,” she admitted excitedly.

“It’s been so hard to keep it secret. We didn’t want to say anything until Nory’s offer was accepted and they closed on the land.

And Liam had to liquidate everything he owned to come up with the down payment, and it was a chaotic, stressful week, and I want to go back, Nate.

Please. I want to go somewhere they can’t take from us.

I want to be with Nory, and with those stupid boys, and I want to be under Liam, and I want your rank back.

You spin out without rank, and I am proud to be mate of the Second.

” Delta got really excited and clenched her fists and closed her eyes and did one of her tics.

She had a mild form of Tourette’s that showed up when she was excited mostly.

Unable to help herself, she did a little shake with her hands in front of her, and then she gasped out, “I want to go make a home. I want to be Rogue Pack.”

Nate puffed air out of his cheeks and swung his gaze back to Liam. He looked unsettled still. “I guess text me the address, man. We will look at it at least, and price out some home options. I’ll see if I can get my old job back if Delta really wants to do this.”

“We’re going to figure this out,” Liam promised.

“We will see you soon.” And right before Nate hung up, he respectfully said, “Alpha.”

But when the screen of Delta’s phone went blank, Nate just stared at it, and trouble swam in his lightening eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“About Nory buying the land?” Delta asked, confused. He should be happy right now. They had somewhere to go now. No more spinning out and trying to figure out where to land. “I already told you we didn’t want to say anything until it was official. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Nate just sat there, his elbows resting on his legs, blank stare for the phone that was propped up on the dresser.

“I thought you would be happy,” she said softly, baffled.

“I just wish you would’ve said something before…”

“Before what?”

“We’re supposed to be paired, Delta. You aren’t supposed to keep big stuff from me.” He stood and paced the room.

His phone vibrated in his back pocket. Again. He took a lot of texts lately but never explained who he was talking to.

Delta frowned. “But you keep things from me.”

“It’s not the same,” he told her with a shake of his head. “Mine is business. You kept something big that affects our life, and you did it easily.”

“I don’t…I guess I don’t understand why you are so upset. We get to go back home.”

“It was only your home for a few weeks,” he said, eyes scanning yet another text on his phone.

“For me, I was already moving us forward.” He scrolled through a text thread, but kept the phone angled away from her so she couldn’t use her heightened vision to read any of the messages.

He was the king of keeping his phone face down, and angling it away, and excusing himself to make calls.

Even when they’d done the video call with the rest of the Pack, he’d insisted they use her phone, and she knew why.

He didn’t want any texts popping up on the screen that she could read.

“Who is she?” Delta asked.

“What?” he asked, his eyes blazing gold.

The room smelled of fur now, and inside of her, Delta’s wolf was whining. Nate was dominant. Of course he was dominant. He had been Second of the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack.

“You’ve been talking to someone since we left Coeur d’Alene.”

“I told you, it’s business. Do you really want to go back?” he asked. There was a fire in his eyes that she couldn’t comprehend.

“I…I want to be near Nory. She is my friend.” And especially if he had another woman he was talking to. She didn’t want to be alone with what was happening.

Nate ran his hand down his three-day scruff on his jaw and grabbed her duffel bag, tossed it onto the bed, and rushed out, “Then we have to go. Now.”

“W-what?”

“You have two minutes to pack—”

“Nate, what’s happening?” she asked, standing.

He had turned to his own duffel bag on the floor and was shoving his discarded pair of jeans in there and zipping up his luggage.

“Hey,” she said, approaching him slowly. He was upset with her, and she couldn’t stand it. “We don’t have to go back if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that,” he gritted out. “We just have to go. Right now, Delta. You have to—”

“Nate, what is going on?”

“Do you trust me?” he barked.

She hesitated for a second. Did she? She’d only known him for a couple of months, and right now she didn’t recognize him at all.

“Do you trust me?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she whispered, praying there wasn’t a lie in her voice. There wasn’t. She did trust him.

“Then please, Delta. I’ll explain later. We just need to go. If your choice is to go back to Idaho, we have to leave now.”

He was rushing around the room grabbing stuff and shoving it into her duffel bag. Her instincts were blaring as she jogged to the bathroom to grab her toothbrush and facewash.

Nate grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door, and she had a moment as she looked down at their connected hands. It was the first time he’d held her hand like this.

“Shoot, I forgot my shampoo in the shower,” she said, halting.

“Leave it. I’ll buy you more,” he gritted out. There was a growl to his voice, and she didn’t understand. She really didn’t understand.

She hadn’t seen him like this before.

Breath hitching, Delta climbed up into his truck as he tossed their bags into the back.

She watched him climb behind the wheel and start the engine of his truck. His eyes were glowing so bright, but he wouldn’t look over at her.

Something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” she asked low.

“I hate when you ask me that. I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

The response stung her. It was his go-to response that always put her at a distance, and while she’d tried to be patient with the walls between them over the past couple of months, tonight the ‘I’m fine’ response felt unacceptable.

Clearly, he wasn’t.

He hit the gas, and her heart felt like it pushed into her throat as she scrambled to buckle her seatbelt.

He sped out onto the main road that would lead to the highway, but he kept checking the rearview mirror, and his eyes darted this way and that to each car that passed them.

“Is someone after us?” she asked.

Nate didn’t answer, but as another minute passed, he relaxed his stranglehold on the steering wheel and seemed to let out a breath of relief as they came to a stoplight on the edge of the small town they’d been passing through.

“Nate?” she asked softly.

“Everything is going to be all right. We will go back to Coeur d’Alene and see what Liam is on about, and everything will work out how it is supposed to work out. You can be near Nory.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Delta.

She shook her head, unsure of what to say.

Nate was lost in his mind right now and didn’t seem to want to share whatever was going on.

She hated this part of the Arrangement. They hadn’t known each other much before they’d signed their contracts and paired up.

Not really. They’d met a couple of times and seemed to want the same things.

He wanted a mate, and she wanted…well, Delta wanted to be anywhere but in her old Pack.

She’d needed an escape, and Nate had offered it to her, and she’d gone into this pairing with the best of intentions.

Sure, it was a symbiotic relationship where they both needed each other to move forward, but she had also always wanted to be paired, and somehow, someway, she’d been chosen by Nathan Donn, seventh son of the notorious Rake Donn, of the infamous Donn Pack of Louisiana.

Handsome, confident, respectful to a fault, caring in his own way, bullheaded at times, and unfortunately for her, the king of distance.

He could protect her though. Being a submissive werewolf was the worst. She needed someone strong to keep her safe so she could move through her life with as much peace as she could muster.

Over the past two months, his distance had been punctuated by sweet moments that had attached her heart to him and dredged up a deep care inside of her.

Someday, she was going to earn his trust and break down his walls. This man was a slow open, and they were still newly learning each other, but God, she wished he would tell her what was happening.

His phone buzzed, and a familiar name came up on the Bluetooth of his truck. He hadn’t even plugged his phone in, but his phone had attached to the truck.

“Fuck,” he gritted out, poking buttons and trying to unlink his phone from his pickup.