Page 56 of Promise & Artem

And now that he had Promise in his home, he was even more appreciative of quiet nights in so he could treat her like a queen and make her moan in ecstasy. Despite his homebody leanings, he was looking forward to meeting her family and hanging around a wolf pack.

There was a pack in Little Hope and several members worked for the campground, but he’d never gone on a full moon hunt with them or even spent time in his shift with them.

This was a whole new thing for him.

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” Promised asked him as she pointed to the right for him to take the next exit.

“How I like being home.”

“You mean you didn’t want to come today?”

“Hell no, I just mean I’m a homebody, you know? And I like being home with you even more.”

She rubbed the back of his neck, massaging it lightly. “It must have been really lonely having your beast so aggressive and the illegal fights to deal with.”

“It was. The cabin was a sanctuary.”

“I’m sorry it got turned to ash.”

He put on the blinker and exited the highway. “Me too. Richard said they might move the greenhouse to the space since it’s larger than where they have it now. But we’ve got a great place to live already, and the new cabin definitely feels like home with you in it.”

He glanced at her and she was beaming.

“It feels like home to me too.”

They’d moved into what had once been the owners’ cabin two days earlier. The baro had really come through for them with furniture since everything he’d had was either burned up or too damaged to repair, and whatever they hadn’t been able to get through gifts they’d bought with the money from his fights. He hadn’t really had anything of value in the cabin so he wasn’t mourning the loss of anything.

He was mostly just damn grateful that they were both safe and going to stay that way.

She pointed out landmarks in Allen as they passed through town on the way to her parents’ house.

“So a lot of males work at the garage,” she said when they passed by Pete’s. “It’s named after Alpha Jason’s dad, who was alpha before him. Alpha Jason’s mate Cadence works there. My dad works there, too.”

“That’s cool,” he said.

“My mom works at the community center. Oh, here’s Lonestar! That’s where I worked. Oh crap.”

“What?”

“I forgot to tell Karly that I was going to quit.”

“Didn’t you tell her you were going to search for your mate?”

“Yeah, but she told me she’d hold my job for me when I found him and came home. I never let her know that I was for sure moving to Pennsylvania. But my mom probably did. I’ll have to make sure I check in with her.”

“I’m sure your mom told her. If the pack is anything like the baro, gossip is a hot commodity.”

“Definitely.”

He turned down a quaint street and parked in front of a ranch with tidy flower beds filled with shrubs and colorful flowers. “This was my dad’s place before he met my mom,” she said.

“So how does the ranking work with the pack?” he asked.

They got out of the truck and met at the front, linking hands and walking toward the front door.

“Only the males are ranked and they fight in wolf form on the full moons whenever Alpha Jason sets it up. Everyone starts out as an omega, unranked and low on the totem pole when they shift as a teenager, and they have to fight their way up. The alpha position is hereditary. Jason’s son Bram will take over when he steps down. Once Jason steps down to retire, the high-ranked males will also step down and Bram will have a new set of high-ranked males to help him lead.”

“Can someone try to take over as alpha?”

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