Page 61 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

Baer nodded. “Two wolves a pack they do not make.”

“What?” I asked.

“She needs a pack, and the two of you alone aren’t that,” he stretched his arms up and groaned loudly with the motion.

I could hear Aurora giggle as she looked back at her mate, smiling at the sound he made.

“I’ll talk to Rory. I’ll see if she knows anything about the stuff you told me and if she doesn’t, I’ll push her to talk to Sasha.”

I nodded and felt the appreciation growing in my chest.

“Thank you, Baer,” I said.

“You don’t have to thank me, Ayden,” he said firmly. “We’re family. Pack. It’s what we do for one another.”

I watched him trot off ahead and wrap his arms around Rory’s waist, my feet refusing to pick up my own pace and catch up with them.

He was right. I hadn’t even noticed it happen, but we had become a pack. I had been foolish to think that I was simply marking my mate, but it was more than that.

These past few months of travel have brought us all closer than we had been before. Even for four people who had grown up together. Who had competed with one another all our lives until graduation. Somehow, we had grown beyond that.

I didn’t see Baer as the fellow alpha king anymore. He was my brother. And Aurora, though still Sasha’s cousin, had also become a sister to me in my eyes. The two of them had stuck up for me from the very beginning of this combined quest. They had vouched for me to join them and encouraged both Sasha and me to explore our bond more than either of us had been willing to do before.

I thought then about my family and pack back in Montana. It wasn’t exactly that I was closer to these three than I was to my own flesh and blood, but the bond seemed to be stronger than that of blood ties.

While I had been born into my family, the bond I formed with Sasha and the others was one crafted out of metal. Much like the city we had found here, with its buildings of the reddish metal that withstood time and space.

I didn’t only trust them all to have my back if I needed it, but I also trusted them to trust me with any choice that I made.

Memories of my mother’s voicemail resurfaced as I thought about the faith I had in my newfound pack. The faith I knew they held for me.

Had it been them as they are to me now, and I told about my desire to hunt down the witch who stole my uncle’s magic, they would have joined me without a second thought. There would have been no plea for me to give up on wild goose chases. No threats of coming after me if I didn’t return home. They would have leaped to ask what they could do to help me.

One more distinction between this new pack and the one I was raised in is that there was no requirement for me to assert dominance. We were all equals in our pack. Each of us bringing with us a strength that the others lacked.

Granted, we all had our moments of our alpha instincts reacting to the instincts of the others, but there was more cooperation than push back. It was genuine teamwork above all the other bullshit.

‘We are a family,’my wolf said then.‘Just as Baer said.’

I nodded. “A perfectly blended family. The Fates themselves couldn’t have weaved a better fate themselves.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sasha

IwatchedasBaerwhispered something into Rory’s ear. Usually, I would look away and give them some sense of privacy, but whatever he had said to her put a frown on her face as she looked back over at me.

“What?” I asked. It was clear that whatever he had said had something to do with me.

I looked back to where Ayden was trailing behind us with his mystery book, a similar frown on his face, before he caught me watching him. I looked back at my cousin and her mate.

“Okay, seriously, what is going on?”

“Are you feeling okay?” Rory asked me.

I looked between her and Baer, my brows furrowed as I did. “Have I said something to make you question that? Or has someone mentioned something to say otherwise?”

My eyes narrowed again at Ayden as he suddenly jogged ahead of us and avoided my eyes.

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