Page 45 of Forced Knocked-Up Mate

Please, Lucy. Stop.

“Jack, your idea, please?” Bailey asks, changing the subject.

“You could work at my warehouse,” Jack says. “Nothing too difficult, just unpacking pallets and stuff. Whether you choose to work with me or Bae, it would be a few hours in the afternoon, so Lucy can come along until the tether is broken.”

“So, I’d just have to sit and watch?” Lucy asks.

Gina laughs. “I’m sure we can find you a job to do,” she says.

“Yeah, okay,” I cut in. “I don’t mind the warehouse gig, I guess. That will do until I can get out into the woods.”

“Our work isn’t easy,” Kelta says. “Sometimes we run hard for days, with little food. Often, we don’t take clothes up to the peaks. You have to be extremely resilient.”

“I’ve handled worse,” I mutter, glaring at her. She just smiles at me as if she’s throwing down a challenge.

Bring it on.

“I had another idea,” Rider says. “We could use a coach out at New Hope. For three days a week. Just to teach the kids sport, teamwork, that kind of thing.” Rider looks over at me and smiles. “It was Caleb’s idea.”

To my surprise, this is the most appealing idea so far. Hanging out with the alpha—or the beta, for that matter—sounds extremely stressful.

“What happens if we can’t break the tether?” Lucy asks.

Bae shrugs. “Eventually, you’ll have to come out for pack runs and stuff like that. Peter can’t miss them forever.”

“Pack runs?” she asks, confused.

“When we go to the mountains on a full moon. It’s not every full moon, but almost. We also go on regular hunting excursions. These keep our wolf bonds strong.”

“Do you have to go out and run all over the mountains at night?” Lucy exclaims. “That doesn’t sound like fun to me.”

Gina smiles, trying to smooth over the situation. “We can figure out somewhere comfortable for you to wait. Don’t worry about that.”

“So basically, I’m going to be sitting in the dark, freezing my ass off, just because you guys get a kick out of running around howling at the full moon?”

“Lucy!” I shout, my temper finally bubbling over. “I can’t believe you’ve lived with a wolf for so many years and don’t understand any of our basic concepts. The moon is tied to our blood. Running as a wolf, especially with a pack, satisfies a primal urge. Without it, we can wither and die.”

Lucy stares at me, her mouth hard. “Fiona went out at night sometimes, but I never knew. She never told me.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Is there anything else I should know? You said hunting expeditions. Am I going to have to watch you guys tear an elk to shreds?”

“Yes,” Kelta answers with perfect calm.

Lucy’s eyes widen, and her face goes white. “I’m not doing that!”

“Lucy, please!” I grab her hand and make her look at me. “We can talk about this later. I can explain it all to you and work something out. Just stop asking questions.”

“I need to know!” she says, snatching her hand back and crossing her arms. “This is all just bananas.”

Before I can stop her, she gets up and strides out the door. I’m forced to follow her, so I turn my back on the others quickly, not wanting to see their faces.

“Lucy!” I yell as I come out the back door. “What the hell was that?”

“This might come as a shock to you,” she says sarcastically, “but this is all kind of new to me. Sitting out in the freezing cold while you guys gut defenseless wildlife isn’t my idea of fun.”

“We’re wolves! Fiona will have hunted many times in her life, and she’s still your friend.”

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