Page 12 of Pack to the Wall

“Now, I have two more kids to take care of,” she said, looking at Izzy and Milo. “If you let me help mother them, I’ll have your back. That’s all I want.”

Good. I’d probably need someone watching them if I was going to have my hands full with a pack of wolves. “Thank you,” I said earnestly. “I’d appreciate that.” I looked at Tyson. “Anyone else?”

“Petra and Winnie. If you can keep them away from Tank and Sonny respectively, you’ll probably earn their undying gratitude, but that won’t be easy. Petra is pregnant with Tank’s kid and Winnie is Sonny’s daughter and needs to act loyal to him no matter how she may feel.”

Wow, this pack was truly messed up.

And that’s when it sank in. Theyweremessed up… and they weremyproblem now.

“Fu—” With my kids in the room I didn’t want to swear. “—n”

From the sounds of it, there were more women in the group than I’d expected. I’d not really taken a good look at the bikers when they’d passed by and I’d assumed most of them were men. It sounded like roughly half were women. Interesting.

“So…” I went through the list again in my head. “It sounds like only four will be a problem?”

Tyson sighed. “Yeah, but… that’s the thing. Those four are used to bossing around the rest, and the rest are used to being bossed around by them. Without them on board, they’ll keep trying to assert control over the others.”

“Okay, so how do I get them on board. Is that possible?”

Tyson shook his head. “I don’t think so. They were loyal to Harley and you killed him. They’re going to hate you for that.”

“Great.”

“Sonnymightbe convinced,” Kira said, but she didn’t sound hopeful. “Of the three betas he was the last to come along and the least aggressive.” She shook her head. “But still, Harley was good to him. It would take something close to a miracle to get him to forget Harley.”

“So… what do I do?” I asked. This sounded impossible.

Tyson looked over at his mother and she nodded at him. Something in him strengthened in that moment and his voice was resolved when he spoke next.

“I was next in line to rule the pack,” he said slowly. “Harley had no kids of his own and was grooming me to be the next alpha. I might be able to keep Tank, Sonny, and Brick at bay while you try to pull the others away and run the pack your way. And I’ll have help. Bronn and Colt were to be my betas. I could probably convince them to join me as your betas, if you’ll have them. That would be even more of a buffer between you and the previous betas.”

“My pack, my way? What does that mean?” I asked, confused.

It was Kira who answered. “You haven’t been brought up in this life. It’s rough and it makes people hard. If you try to be an alpha like Harley, you’ll fail.” She looked me over with detached appraisal. “You’re too soft. There’s no way we can make you hard enough in one week. So play to your strengths. Be yourself. Be the leaderyouwant to be. Hopefully the pack will want what you’re offering.”

“And what do you think I’m offering?” I asked her.

“A life without needing to be hard all the time, without fear of reprisal because of some minor slight. You’ll still need to have mettle in your bones if you’re going to do this, but if you show them they can have a different way of life, I think most would want that.”

“And you?” I asked her directly. “Do you want that?”

She hedged, humming and hawing, the first hint of awkwardness I’d seen from her. Eventually she said, “I’m fifty-five years old.”

I raised my brows. She didn’t look a day over my own age of forty-four.

“I’ve lived this way all my life,” she continued. “I don’t know how easy it would be for me to change.”

“Ah,” I said, surprisingly disappointed.

“But…” She drew out the word. “Like I said. I do this for the kids. And I’ve seen too many kids made hard far too early. It might be nice to get to see some pups grow up without fearing their alpha.” She laughed. “I just have no clue what that looks like.”

Wow. I couldn’t imagine what she might have seen. It sounded horrible. I swore I wouldn’t be that sort of alpha. My kids knew their boundaries — or so I hoped — but I didn’t think they feared me. They just knew that certain actions had consequences.

I sighed and made my way over to the dining room table to sit with Tyson. “You really think we can do this? ThatIcan do this?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “But I’m going to have to turn you into one of us, and soon. Luckily, the full moon is tomorrow. You’ll have your first shift then and it’s not going to be nice. But after that, you can start to understand what we go through. That will give you five more days to figure shit out.”

The thought of being ‘turned’ terrified me, but I nodded in agreement. I got the feeling that part wasn’t negotiable. If I was going to run a wolf pack… I’d need to be a wolf.

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