Page 46 of Pack Obsession

"I almost ended up in the system. When my parents died." I pause, staring at his hands tighten on the steering wheel. "My brother was nineteen. He fought hard for guardianship and won."

Nash nods slowly, his glasses catching the afternoon light. "Your brother sounds like a good man."

"He is. Gave up college to work two jobs, kept me in my school." The memory makes my throat thicken. "We ate a lot of ramen, but we stayed together. Our parents didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, it turns out."

"Sometimes one person is all it takes," he says softly. "To change everything."

The scar near his temple catches my attention—I’ve been wanting to ask about it but wasn’t sure how.

He sees me staring at his brow. "Foster dad’s ring," he explains, touching it briefly. "I got between him and a younger kid. Worth it."

My chest aches. Without thinking, I reach out and touch his shoulder. He stiffens for a moment, then relaxes under my hand.The contact sends warmth through my fingers, and I have to fight the urge to trail them down his arm.

"You protected others," I say, withdrawing my hand reluctantly. "Even then."

A grin stretches his lips. "Somebody had to." He stares at me. "What would you have done?"

"The same," I admit. "But I would’ve kicked him in the balls first."

His laugh fills the car, and I love the sound of it. This brooding Alpha needs to laugh more often. It transforms his face, softening the hard edges.

"I bet you would’ve." His eyes crinkle at the corners. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"Too late," I tease, but there’s no bite to it. The tension from earlier has shifted into something else, something that makes my skin prickle with awareness every time he looks at me.

I remember how easily I lost control with Logan in the woods, how my instincts had overwhelmed my common sense. I can’t let that happen again. I need control, not to complicate my situation further. But it’s not just Logan. The way my body responds to the three Alphas unsettles me more than I want to admit. Attraction to more than one Alpha isn’t unheard of—hell, we’ve all been told it’s normal—but I know this is the doing of my heat. It’s clawing its way to the surface, making itself known in subtle but undeniable ways, and I hate it. I’m not ready for that chaos, for the hunger that comes with it, especially not now. Not when everything around me is already crumbling. Not when the last thing I can afford is to lose myself entirely.

Nash shifts in his seat, pushing his glasses back up his nose, drawing my attention. "The Hendersons had this massive library. Floor-to-ceiling books."

"Foster home?" I ask.

His words also stir a pang of memory, and my thoughts drift.Books. Kayla used to hoard them, her tiny collection bursting from the worn-out shelves of her room. She’d guard them fiercely, always saying they were her escape – her ticket to anywhere but here. My stomach squeezes at the thought of her. Where is she now? Where are any of my three friends? Are they safe? The not-knowing twists in my gut, sharper than the ache of missing them. I blink away the heaviness threatening to settle over me, forcing my focus back on Nash.

"Yeah. Mrs. Henderson caught me at three a.m. setting her engineering textbooks on fire after she blamed and reported me as having attacked my foster father when I was simply defending myself from his punches."

"Fuck! She deserved that!"

His fingers tap the steering wheel. "Next morning, I was picked up and taken to another foster family."

"How long were you at the new place?"

"Six months." His jaw tightens. "Not long enough, as that family was nice to me."

I twist the tips of my hair between my fingers. "My brother went kind of protector and teacher-mode on me. And I thank him every day that he kept us together."

"Sounds like a blessing."

"Mmm. Most of the time." I laugh. "Our tire blew out on the highway during this massive storm. I was seventeen, and guess who changed the tire?"

Nash glances over, one eyebrow raised. "Let me guess… teachable moment?"

"Oh, yeah. He supervised me from under an umbrella."

He chuckles.

"The umbrella flipped inside out. He got so tangled trying to fix it, he stumbled right into this huge puddle. Karma!"

Nash’s chuckle deepens, filling the car. "Your brother sounds?—"

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