Chapter Six
“I think you should move,” Vic said.
“I just did,” Liam ground out. “Yesterday.”
“Well, this place isn’t good for you. Moving to a human apartment complex was never the move,” Tabian said.
He was middle of the Pack but had always been comfortable speaking his mind.
It was part of why the last Alpha, Oren, had always been angry with him.
Oren hadn’t liked anyone’s opinions that collided with his own.
Liam was determined to do things differently.
He was open to debate if it helped the others realize why he made the decisions he did.
“I can’t keep living on couches. My wolf has always liked his own space, and the week with Nate and Delta made me feel like my skin was on fire.
I was pissy with every single one of you. ”
“It was understandable,” Nate said low from where he sat to his direct right at the dining table. “Your house just burned down.”
“Say it right,” Vic said. “Oren burned it down.”
“We don’t know that,” Tabian said.
“The timing is a little suspicious,” Nate gritted out. “Two weeks after he loses the Pack to Liam, and now Liam’s den is gone? It was Oren and we know it.”
“Police said it was faulty wiring,” Dodger pointed out.
“Yeah, and since when did a werewolf listen to anything a human had to say about it. Oren’s scent was all over that place.”
“All of our scents were,” Dodger said. “We were over at Liam’s place all the time. Remember? Or was last month too long ago for any of you dumbasses to remember.”
“Bridger?” Liam said softly. “What do you think?”
Bridger’s place was always the go-to for Pack meetings.
He had the room, but usually, just like now, he sat in silence at the other end of the table.
He’d never been happy in this Pack. Most of them hadn’t.
Bridger inhaled deeply and stopped ripping up the napkin in front of him.
He leaned back and just stared at Liam. “I don’t care enough to think. ”
“You’re such a fuckin’ dick,” Dodger barked.
“Want to go outside?” Bridger asked automatically. And there it was, the same stuff, different day.
“Or,” Liam said, “We get through one meeting without a fight. Can you do that for me? I’ve had a rough week—”
“We all have,” Bridger barked out. He stood so fast, his chair fell backward onto the wood floor, and he left, tossing a middle finger up into the air as he did.
“You have to punish that,” Nate said.
“Like Oren used to do?” Liam asked. He leaned forward on his elbows. “I can’t fight you guys every time you get an attitude. I won’t run this Pack like that. Not for the small stuff. I want you to eventually want to make things smoother with me, and I can’t do that if you don’t respect me.”
“Respect comes from bleeding—”
“Respect comes when you build loyalty in your ranks,” Liam said sternly. “The way Oren ran this show didn’t work. How many members did we lose over the years?”
The table went completely silent and still, and the faraway looks as they remembered lost members filled Liam with a hollowness. “How many have we lost to fights? How many of those fights were over some dumb shit that was a waste of life?”
Nate was the one to look up at him first. “We need females to balance the Pack.”
Vic gestured to Delta, sitting silently next to Nate. “You paired with her, and I don’t see any improvements for us.”
“Heeeey,” Liam warned. Delta was submissive, and he didn’t like submissives being picked on. They served a purpose in all werewolf Packs. “Delta is new and that’s a big pressure to put on her. She’s still getting to know Nate, much less the rest of you.”
“I’m just saying,” Vic said louder. “Oren had Ida, and she didn’t fix anything.
She aimed him at us. So, the point was a new Alpha taking over the Pack, from the outside who was deep into a pairing with a valuable female, and instead, you Challenged him on a whim and took over our Pack unpaired.
” Vic crossed his arms over his chest. “And now you’re fucking up the Arrangements.
Tell me how any of this is better than Oren running this Pack? ”
“Oren had my throat,” Tabian said low from where he sat at the other end of the table. “If Liam hadn’t been there to Challenge him, I would be dead.”
“Yeah, we’ve heard that part of the story before,” Dodger said. “Only you left out the part where you explain what you did wrong to get a death fight from our Alpha—”
“Oren is not Alpha anymore,” Liam yelled, slamming his fist onto the table.
He stood and locked his arms on the table.
“You want to know the rest of the story? That you could’ve literally asked about at any point in time, but none of you communicate worth a damn?
I was there. Hear the truth in my voice as I tell you word-for-word what Dodger said to get Oren Changed and on his throat, while Dodger was in human form!
He said, and-I-quote, “Hey, is it okay if I’m fifteen minutes late to the Pack meeting tomorrow? I have a job interview.”
The table went still, and one by one, the others lowered their gazes to the table.
Liam continued. “So as tempting as it is to go be a replica of our last Alpha, whom all of you have scars from, surely you can understand that one, it was never in my plans to take over this Pack like that. I couldn’t watch Oren kill Dodger for fucking no reason at all, and two, I want to build loyalty and hell, maybe even friendships here so we stop bleeding each other, stop losing members in the night, and so that we can regain some kind of reputation in the werewolf community that we will be invited to the big hunts someday.
That our Pack will be seen as valuable, and not a loose knit band of the worst in our society who can’t fuckin’ figure it out.
I’m sorry I wasn’t paired before I Challenged Oren.
I wasn’t planning to pair up ever, because I was not interested in chasing ranks in a Pack.
You guys are all local. I am not. I was in another Pack for a long time, and while you see the system you are in and feel like this is normal, I assure you, it isn’t.
We can all do better. We should be doing better.
We are the bottom of the barrel, boys, and I promise you, even if things have to get worse before they can get better, if you just let me try, we can be at a better place in a year. ”
Bridger had returned and was leaning in the open doorway, arms crossed, glowing eyes downcast.
“The Elders are going to disband us if you don’t pair up,” Dodger said.
“I’m aware. My phone is full of threats.
” Honesty was best right now. “Look, we’re all good at fucking women.
” Liam shrugged. “That’s what we’ve got.
That’s the talent. We have that animal magnetism, the ladies like it, that is just how it is.
But I don’t know how to make a female happy, or talk to them, or have any kind of relationship that last more than a couple of weeks.
That’s also natural for us. Pairings are rare and for high ranks for a reason. We suck at relationships.”
The guys chuckled, and there was a murmur of agreement that filled the room.
“It’s easy for you to say, ‘just pick one,’ but I saw how Oren and Ida were, and I don’t want that for me, and I certainly don’t want it for you.”
“What happened last night?” Bridger asked from the doorway. “With the Arrangement.”
“I’m assuming you have already heard.”
“She went right to the Elders, and the rumors spread fast,” Tabian said.
Liam offered an empty smile and sat back down.
“That’s a deal breaker for me. Rat behavior isn’t something that I’m attracted to, nor do I want the job of curbing that behavior in a grown female.
Before that though, she was already one high heel out the door.
Hated the place I took her to, hated being around the humans, hated what I wore, hated the food, hated all of you.
She brought up ‘upgrading’ the members of our Pack. ” Liam used air-quotes.
“Ew,” Nate muttered.
“I’m not going for Ida 2.0. If I have to pair up and get us to where I know we can get to, I need someone who sees the potential here like I do.”
“You have agreed to go on a second meeting with her though,” Vic said.
How much did he tell them about the reasons he’d changed his mind about that on the drive over here?
He couldn’t admit to his Pack that the hurt in Nory’s eyes when he’d told her he was going on another date with Laken had gutted him.
He didn’t understand what was happening on that front yet, or why that little human affected him so much, but he knew one thing…
if he introduced Nory to the Pack, she wouldn’t ever think they needed to upgrade members.
He knew she would be quiet, like Delta, and watchful, and then she would find some good in each of them.
God, he wished Nory was a werewolf.
Instead of explaining all of that, he sighed. “The Arrangement felt threatened by a human at the bar. You’ve probably all heard that part.”
“Yep,” a few of them said in unison.
Delta looked up at him for the first time and held his gaze. She was curious, he could tell.
“There is a human woman who lives in the same apartment complex. I met her yesterday. She’s funny. Entertaining. I had a couple of conversations with her, and she made me laugh, and it’s been a while since I did that. Hell, it’s been a while since any of us did that.”
“Do you care for her?” Vic asked. There was a growl to his voice.
The answer was yes, but they needed to hear ‘no.’ Werewolves could sense a lie though, so instead of answering the question, he dodged it. “I want to fuck her,” he said.
Tabian snorted. “You owe me twenty bucks,” he said to Vic, who pulled a twenty out of his pocket and threw it at him. The money fluttered clumsily onto the floor.
“You’re making bets?” Liam asked.
“Everyone has wanted to fuck a human at some point,” Dodger said. “There are pornos about it. I watched one called Railed by the Weremoose—”
“Dude, you could just stop talking any time you want, you know,” Tabian said. “There’s free will floating around in your body.”
“Hear me out. It wasn’t really about a moose, they just called it that because mooses have big peckers, and even in their human forms—”
“I think the plural for moose is moosies,” Vic said.
“Moosi?” Tabian guessed.
“Anyway, this werewolf named Moose is all dressed in this delivery driver uniform, and he gets into this elevator with this human chick—”
“Wait, was he Changed when he boned her?” Vic asked, face all mortified looking.
“What? No. Gross, man.”
“Where is the website we can watch this,” Dodger asked, poking around on his phone.
Liam pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for patience.
“This right here is why we don’t get invited to the big hunts,” Nate muttered.
“Look, my point,” Dodger said. “Pick an Arrangement, fuck the human. Who cares, just mind the rules and get the Elders off our backs. Nobody wants good morning texts from Aro Lorsdacado first thing in the morning reciting the laws of the Pack, like we’re kids who forgot the rules. Pisses me off. We’re all busy. Fix it.”
“Ummm, we also aren’t supposed to be fucking humans,” Nate pointed out.
“Yeah, but that’s a loose law,” Vic said, chewing on a toothpick. “Liam’s house burned down, and he’s got to deal with this shit show. I would fuck a human too if it gave me an escape. Hell, maybe I have.”
“You have not,” Dodger said.
“I might have,” Vic said, his eyebrows arched high.
“Dude, gross. They’re fragile. What if you fucked it to death—”
“Fucked it to death?” Tabian choked out. He looked at Liam. “Can that happen?”
“Why are you asking me?” Liam demanded, grossed out by the turn in conversation.
“Because you’re the human-fucker.”
“Oh my God, I have never fucked a human in my entire life, don’t call me that.”
“You just admitted you’re going to fuck the human,” Tabian pointed out. “Oh my gosh, you could video it and make a million dollars.”
“Is she hot?” Vic asked. “What does she look like?”
Nate opened his mouth to join in the joking, but Liam pointed at him and told him, “If you say she’s a six, I will bust you right in your mouth.”
“Wooo, defensive,” Vic joked.
Delta was looking back down at the table again, but Liam could see a little smile on her face.
“I hate all of you,” he griped as he stood. “I’m leaving, meeting dismissed, I’ll keep you all updated on whatever the Elders come up with for a pairing.”
“Off to see your human?” Tabian sang in a stupid, baiting voice.
“No, I’m not going to see the human I just met literally less than a day ago.
I’m going to my den to sift through rubble for a few hours looking for any of my old life that is salvageable, and then I’m going to get some work done.
Don’t fight today, please. I don’t want a single text saying so-and-so just got killed for whatever dumb shit you come up with to fight over. I’m tired.”
“Hey, Bridger, want to fight?” Vic called.
“Yes,” Bridger said immediately.
He really would. “First official order, as your Alpha,” Liam said, turning on them.
“No fighting today. No fighting,” he said to Bridger.
“No fighting,” he said to Vic. He repeated it to each of them but Delta, who could barely muster a whisper to them, so they were all super safe from her wolf starting a fight here.
“Oren would’ve let us fight. I miss him,” he heard Vic say as he left.
Liam rolled his eyes closed and heaved a sigh. There had been a lie infused in Vic’s voice as he’d said that, and Liam knew he was just saying it as a joke, but sometimes he did miss Oren. The old Oren before he went crazy on bloodlust. Liam didn’t miss what he turned out to be.
Pick an Arrangement. Fuck the human.
The bright sunlight hurt his eyes as he made his way across the yard to his truck.
Only one of those things sounded appealing.