4

The next morning, I’m sitting at the dining table in a cozy red and gray Shaker-style kitchen with six shifters, including Mack and Bennett, and I can’t stop thinking about how small this pack is.

Back in the Boones, my father’s pack, we viewed six as a small family, not an entire pack. But, given that I was a rare exception, the sole child in a family of two, just my father and me after my mother died, I think I recovered more quickly than any other shifter would have to learn a pack could be this small.

If I hadn’t been an omega, I’d have been raised with the other children my age, but because of what I was, I was mostly alone or with my father’s beta, Moses.

No one really knew what to do with me, or where I fit in. I thought that would change when I met my mate. I spent years dreaming and daydreaming that I’d find a place that I belonged, and where I would fit, but it was worse at the Dacre pack. A lot worse.

Don’t think of that here, Aerin. No one wants an uninvited guest crying at the breakfast table. Not when breakfast has barely even started.

Although I’ve mostly been keeping my gaze fixed on my plate so I don’t draw any more attention than I have already; the Winter Lake pack has been darting glances as filled with as much curiosity about me as I must have about them.

Tina, the girl with the sunny smile and gold hair sitting beside the gruff-sounding, dark-haired guy she introduced as her mate, Warren, seems the friendliest so far. He has to be even taller than Bennett, but his sweet smile convinced me that their height and size are about all they have in common.

The other two pack members haven’t said a lot. The guy that Mack introduced as Chris glanced at me once and hasn’t again. Either he’s starving because he’s barely looked up from his plate, or he’s just not that interested in me. Penny, the red-headed girl sitting beside Mack, is the one who seems the most curious about me since she’s the one peeking at me more than the others.

They seemed nice when Mack introduced everyone to me. Quiet though. I’m not sure if it’s because Bennett, the one shifter whose name I have no trouble remembering, has warned them against talking to me.

It wouldn’t surprise me if he had, since he barely looked at me, much less grunted good morning before slumping into his seat opposite, dressed in a pair of stained and worn blue overalls that tells me he wasn’t just filling the truck at the gas station. He works there. Out of everyone at the table, he also looks the oldest, or maybe it’s the heavy scowl on his face that makes him appear so much older than the early twenties everyone else seems to be.

Mack has set a place for someone else in the seat beside mine. Who this person is is a mystery because, from the conversations I’ve been eavesdropping from my table mates, I haven’t heard even one mention of who it might be. All I know is, it has be another member of this tiny pack since Mack said there were seven of them.

But I don’t dare ask because if there’s one thing I’ve learned during my runaway and the many hours I’ve spent on buses, it’s that questions lead to more questions.

Mack, however, is proving to be an exception to that rule. Every question I’ve asked hasn’t led to him asking one back, which he’d have every right to do since I’m a complete stranger, and potentially a threat.

A threat? Maybe if you’d stop hurting yourself then someone would consider you a threat, but right now? Not so much.

Considering I’m a strange shifter who’s wandered into another pack’s territory, I’m lucky to be alive. If Mack wandered into my father’s, or Shane’s pack, he wouldn’t last five minutes. But here I’m being cared for. I’m being treated better, at least by Mack, than I ever have at my father’s pack or my mates’.

The other day, Mack brought up a meal for me. Somehow, he guessed I loved tacos, how I don’t know, but when he walked in with a plate of both chicken and beef tacos, I could’ve kissed him.

After he handed me a clean t-shirt to wear, turning his back so I could tug it over my head, he helped me sit up as painlessly as he could and set the tray in my lap.

While I ate, he leaned against the wall beside the open window and chatted away about the people of Winter Lake, like how Mr. Pilsner who visits the library every Monday will fake having weak knees so Nancy from the flower shop will come out and help him down the library stairs. It was strangely entertaining, even though I had no idea who he was talking about.

For someone who’s spent days—years, if I’m honest—eating alone, being always alone, it was a pleasure I’d never had before. So I ate slowly, hoping to draw the moment out until I reached my last mouthful and had to stifle a massive yawn.

Mack reacted at once, straightening from his lean and setting to work. After he cleared the tray away, he helped me lie down. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was him pulling the sheets over me. Then it was morning and Mack was gently waking to ask me if I wanted to come down and meet the rest of the pack at breakfast.

Although I wanted to tell him I would’ve preferred to stay alone in bed, I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with the memory of everything he’d already done for me still so fresh in my mind.

So, I accepted the invitation to breakfast, his offer to carry me to the bathroom, and then his help to slip into a pair of his sweatpants and another clean t-shirt before he carried me down the stairs.

“You want more bacon, Aerin?” Mack asks when he notices I’ve eaten the five pieces on my plate and I’m just now turning to the scrambled eggs.

I eye the massive pile of gloriously crispy bacon on the other side of the table on a large white platter. I tell myself I’m being greedy since no one else has gone back for seconds yet. And even though I know no one will think it anything out of the ordinary if I wanted seconds, or even thirds, since we shifters eat a lot, I hesitate. “Umm.”

“So, yes then?” Mack grins at me.

After another pause, I nod once.

Mack turns to Bennett and snaps his hand out. “Bennett. The bacon.”

I forget all about the bacon and lean back from the table, my body tense and ready for the inevitable explosion I imagine is a hairbreadth away.

But when Bennett lifts his head from his plate, calmly picks up the platter of bacon, and hands it over to Mack without a word, I’m more confused than ever.

I shift my focus to Mack, who has his hand out expectantly, waiting for the plate.

He doesn’t look like he’s about to dive to the floor, which I would fully expect anyone to be in the process of doing if they gave an order like that to an alpha. But he’s not the only one acting like it’s perfectly normal for a beta to speak that bluntly to an alpha. The rest of the pack are still quietly chatting among themselves as they eat their breakfast and sip their orange juice or coffee.

Maybe they’re keeping their head down to avoid attracting Bennett’s attention.

My gaze goes back to Bennett, as I wait for the alpha of the Winter Lake Pack to pull Mack up about ordering him about. If anyone from Shane or my father’s pack ever spoke to them like that, they’d be lucky if they were still breathing after.

Once Mack takes the platter from a nonplussed Bennett, he’s forking bacon on my plate when he must sense I’m distracted. He glances into my face. “You okay?”

I snap my mouth shut, which is when I realize I must’ve had it hanging half-open all this time. “Uh, sure. Just surprised.”

For a second confusion clouds Mack’s face, and then it clears away as if he’s just realized something. “You mean about the way I spoke to Bennett.”

“Uh, well, yeah actually.”

“Oh, it’s just the way we are.”

I glance over at Bennett to confirm if what Mack is saying is the truth or if he’s merely waiting for Mack to lower his guard before lunging across the table at him. My wariness is more about self-preservation because I’m sitting next to Mack, which means there’s a strong possibility that I’ll be a casualty if I don’t get out of the way quick enough.

Bennett just looks confused.

For the first time, he talks directly to me, like I’m stupid, but he talks to me. Which I guess is something. “I don’t understand why. In your pack doesn’t your al—”

“What Bennett means,” Mack interrupts, making my eyes widen with shock because a beta interrupting an alpha like that is practically unheard of, “is that there are different dynamics in all packs. His role doesn’t mean he’s always the only one giving orders.”

I stare at him in confusion. “But that’s what an alpha does. Gives orders.”

Penny has a coughing fit and Mack turns to clap her on the back. Once she’s stopped, he continues speaking. “Things are a little more fluid here.”

Since I’ve never heard, or seen any pack dynamic like this—where the beta can order the alpha to do something and there’s no pushback, I shift my focus back to Bennett to see what he’s making of all this.

Bennett’s expression is completely blank. “Alpha,” he murmurs.

“Alpha,” Mack repeats with a wide smile. “Now, did you want more bacon, Aerin?”

I lower my gaze to the pile of bacon on my plate. The towering pile. It’s far more than I can ever hope to finish, and I wonder if Mack didn’t get distracted and keep adding more to my plate than he realized.

“No, uh, thanks but I think I’m good.”

I go back to eating, but I can’t help but notice there’s some weird tension in the air I can’t quite figure out. While Mack is the only one who doesn’t seem the slightest bit aware of it, the others keep shifting their glances between me, Mack, and Bennett, only I don’t understand why.

When I peek up at Bennett, he’s busy shoveling food into his mouth and chewing mechanically, like he’s just going through the motions. Looking at him, I’m getting the impression he’s not even tasting the food. Like he’s just trying to clear his plate as quickly as possible so he can leave.

Maybe this is all perfectly normal for this pack, but my instincts are telling me that there’s more going on than I’m seeing, or that I understand. My doubts about Mack’s role in the pack resurface, and I steal a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. Out of anyone at the table, Mack looks the most relaxed as he eats his breakfast at an easy pace, making me wonder if I’m just imagining things.

As if he feels my attention, he turns his head in my direction and I jerk my head back to my plate.

Then, at the sound of the front door being pushed open, there’s an almost palpable easing of the strange tension, as if in relief. And I start to get a bad feeling, only I can’t figure out why.

Mack turns to grin at someone entering the kitchen behind me. “Adela, pleased you could come. Let me help—"

“Don’t be silly. I’m old but not that old yet. I’ll just sit here next to our guest.” Hearing the warm and soothing voice of an older woman, I lower my fork and turn to her with a smile.

But then I catch sight of the woman with white hair and a long, lavender floral dress with probing blue eyes as she sinks into the seat beside me. My fork slips out of my hand and clashes loudly against my plate before falling to the ground.

Before anyone can offer to get it, I twist as much as I’m able to without falling off my chair and duck my head down beside the table.

Mostly hidden, I close my eyes and silently curse the universe because it’s proving that it not only hates me, but it’s also determined to make me suffer in every single way it can.

Crap. This is bad. This is so, so bad.

“Aerin, you need to be careful with your leg. Here, let me.” Mack grabs the fork with one hand and helps me back up again with a firmness that I’m not expecting.

Smiling weakly, I take the fork gratefully from him. “Thanks, I…uh, I just didn’t think.”

“Well, you should be more careful,” he says.

“Not to worry, I can take a look at her leg after breakfast,” Adela offers.

I turn with an even weaker smile, hoping her old age means she’s blind to what I am.

“Yeah, this is Adela. As our resident fixer-upper, she wrapped your leg for you after the accident.” There’s no hiding the genuine warmth in Mack’s voice, and it’s clear that he not only respects her but regards her as a friend.

“Former nurse is what I am,” Adela corrects with a smile that she aims at Mack.

“But that’s not all she is. She’s also our omega.”

Which is the problem. Because if anyone is going to be able to penetrate the hasty shields that I’ve thrown up around myself to hide what I am, it will be this woman. This omega. And if she reveals it to Bennett, no matter what Mack promised me, there’s no way they won’t try to keep me.