Page 19 of Gavin

“I can’t believe your alpha blamed the color of your fur for everything that went wrong in the pack. It’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah. He’s old-school traditional but also superstitious. No one was willing to go against him or stand up for me except for my mom, but she didn’t have any authority in the pack, so I was just treated like crap for far longer than I should have put up with.”

“Why didn’t you leave before?”

“I didn’t want to leave my mom, and she wouldn’t leave. The pack was all she’d ever known of course, and she didn’t want to start over even if it would have made things better for me.”

“Do you think you would have ever left?”

“I think so, but I don’t know when I would have reached my limit. I kept telling myself that I’d find somewhere else to live, but it was just a dream that I kept pushing off. If I’d known that my mom had a friend here in Northern Ohio that I could have stayed with, I might have felt differently.”

“My sister Aeryn’s talked about Alli, who is friends with a Wiccan who’s mated to one of the vampires.”

“Your sister is a tiger? How does she hang around with fallen angels and vampires?”

“She’s mated to a vampire and lives in an apartment complex downtown. She’s actually here hunting with the pride tonight. I was with her and my parents when I veered off to follow my cat who clearly wanted to get right to you.”

Sadie grinned. “Your cat has pretty good instincts.”

“Your wolf does too.”

They reached a large home and Gavin picked up the clothes he’d set aside. On the porch, there were a few males including one holding a baby.

“Hey, Merrix,” Gavin said. “Are Aeryn and my parents back from the hunt yet?”

“Nope,” he said. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is my truemate, Sadie. This is my sister’s husband and their baby Seraphina.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sadie said.

“Truemate?” one of the other males asked.

“Yep,” Gavin said. “That’s Kevin and Adrian. They’re part of the security team.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Merrix said.

“Can someone grab something for Sadie to wear?”

“Sure,” Adrian said, hustling into the house.

Sadie couldn’t believe she was standing next to her truemate. And even though she kept having to silence the old voices in herhead that told her she wasn’t good enough or worthy of a mate, Gavin didn’t seem to mind her fur color one bit.

Adrian came out of the house with a long T-shirt. “Does this work?”

Sadie pulled it over her head and nodded. “Thanks.”

“I’ll leave a message for Midas and Maya,” Gavin said. “And I’ll check in with them in the morning.” He paused and looked at her. “The wolves I have numbers for would be out hunting. You said Alli is waiting at Adam and Cinder’s?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at the males. “Does anyone have Alpha Adam’s number?”

“It should be on the master list of the group leaders,” Kevin said. He lifted his phone and poked around on the screen. “If the pack’s out hunting, why call the house?”

“Because people will be there,” he said.

“Oh, duh, sorry. Here’s the number.”

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