Page 106 of Resisted

“Your onion rings, sir.” I placed the plate of fried rings in front of Boyce before looking to my other mates. “And your fries. With mayo.”

Vincent’s face pulled with disgust. “We never ordered mayo.”

Normally, I got one mate, sometimes two. Today? All three sets of eyes were watching and waiting, expecting to sweep me up the moment the clock struck nine and carry me off to our castle of a home, determined to have their way with me like a bunch of insatiable barbarians. But they were my insatiable barbarians.

I plopped myself down next to Silas and grabbed a fry before dipping it into mayonnaise and shoving it into my mouth. “I ordered mayo.”

“Those aren’t even your fries,” Silas argued, but I cut him off.

“Whatever happened to ‘what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine’?” I questioned.

“That’s all well and dandy, baby, but unfortunately, as far as you’re concerned, what’s ours is yours and what’s yours is also yours.”

Vincent wasn’t wrong, but I would not confirm his point. “Do you want me to eat your fries too?”

He shook his head, making a zipping motion across his lips before turning his eyes to his burger. Smart man. I’d already trained that pup well. I reached over and snagged an onion ring from Boyce, and instead of arguing, he only smirked. He was a fast learner for sure.

Vincent swallowed his fry. “I talked to Gage today.” Nothing new about that. Those two were joined at the hip when they weren’t working. I was starting to think Gage was part of my subpack, for as many times as I’d fed him. “You remember that girl that was rescued from the last cage when the poachers ran through our town?”

“How could we forget?” Boyce replied. “I remember every fucking one of them.”

I’d never thought about the toll the job must take on them until that moment. What a burden it must be to remember the face of every single victim you helped to safety, and those you couldn’t, then still go about your day as if nothing had ever broken you.

“Me too,” Vincent said under his breath before continuing louder, “Well apparently, the rescue was pleasing to the Alpha of Eclipsing Sun Pack. They’ve offered Roth a daughter to take as his mate.”

Silas snorted. “Roth would never agree to that.”

“He has.”

Boyce nearly choked. “No way. He’s too uptight. Too by the book. They would never take someone who didn’t belong to them.”

All this might’ve been true, but some wolves waited their entire lives and never found their mate. To be an alpha of an entire pack and still produce no heirs? The pressure had to be strong. Plus, despite the fact that Roth had the humor of a muddy wet sponge and the personality of a yellow number two pencil, that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve love. Even the expired condiments in the back of the fridge once held potential, right?

“Well, with a little polishing, I’m sure he can be very loveable.”

“Is their polish strong enough?” Lynn added as she walked by us.

“Lynn, that’s your son!” I burst out laughing.

“Doesn’t change the facts,” she shot back, right as the bell to the door rang, and I swear all the chatter in the diner stopped. A woman and a teen walked in, exhaustion covering their faces as they looked around. As if the fates summoned her to be their savior, Lynn appeared in front of them, already seating them before I could get up.

“I’m trying to figure out what she’s paying you for, Belladonna. I wish I got paid to eat fries.”

I slugged Silas’ arm, knowing he was joking, even though Lynn was doing my job for me. I stood, following Lynn toward the back of the kitchen. Something was wrong, I could feel it. Lynn’s stride had changed when she left that table, and though I would love to eat fries on the clock, I needed to know what was going on and alert the boys if need be.

The moment I walked through the kitchen door, Lynn shoved a cup at me. “Root beer.”

I took the cup, filling it will ice, then placing it under the spigot to fill it with root beer. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? What? Nothing.”

“Lynn, I may be the youngest one in this place, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

She swallowed before stretching her neck to look at the newcomers. Human. We didn’t get a lot of them around here. “That’s the one.”

“I’m sorry? The one what?”

“She’s in trouble,” she said, not bothering to answer my question.

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