Page 36 of The Good Boys Club

It tickled, her breath and the cool tip of her nose. I held my breath.

I looked over at Mash. His posture was stiff, but he had no other outward signs of nerves. I felt as though, if Rita and Kimmy fell for our half-baked slapdash fakery, it would be plain sailing to convince the rest of his pack. After all, Rita was alpha.

When Kimmy pulled away from me again, she had tears rolling down her cheeks. She licked her lips and pursed them together.

“Oh, my sons,” she said. She kissed me on the forehead and Mash on the cheek. Likely because she couldn’t reach his forehead.

I guessed that meant we’d passed the test. Mash’s shoulders eased. I didn’t let myself think about how she had just inhaled the scent of Mash’s piss on me, though I had to admit, it smelled pretty good.

There must have been some kind of chemical reaction when I’d rubbed it on myself. It went from smelling like pee to smelling like something else altogether. Somehow woodsy, like pine, and sweet like caramel, and spiced like cinnamon. It smelled like those expensive designer colognes I’d sampled at the human department store, but more . . . like it had been made bespoke for me by artisan perfumers.

I wondered what we smelled like to other people, especially Mash’s pack. Whether we smelled just as good to their super-sensitive noses or if they smelled something else. Maybe I’d work up the nerve to ask one of them over the two months I was here.

“Mam, this is Cian,” Mash said, and we all laughed at the belated introduction.

“We’ve met,” Kimmy said. “A few times, actually.”

I swallowed hard. I’d forgotten about the one time Mash’s mum and sister, Clementine, visited us at our second-year halls. I waited for the realisation to catch up with her. Waited for the,“Hang on, you’re a shifter, not a were.”

It didn’t come. She obviously didn’t recall my full human form. “Have you told your pack you’re fated?”

“My pack, uh . . . Not yet,” I said. Thoughts tripped over themselves in my mind. Fuck, I’d have to invent a pack. Mash and I should have discussed that in the car on the way over. Why didn’t we—

Shit, did she say fated? Fated, not mated? Had Mash told her we were fated?

My palms were suddenly sweating. I rubbed them on the knees of my cords. Mash didn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed.

“Well, not to worry. We’re flattered you told us first,” Kimmy said, pulling Mash in for yet another hug, ruffling his hair and laying another series of rapid kisses on his cheek. “But you really ought to let your alpha know. Won’t they be expecting you for Harvest Fest?”

“We actually don’t—” I stopped myself from finishing that sentence. I didn’t know a single werewolf family who didn’t celebrate the holiday. Admitting I didn’t was akin to admitting I was a shifter. “Uh, yeah, probably,” I said instead. “I’ll call them later today.”

Rita watched us from the corner of the kitchen, her back against the counter.

“What’s your pack’s name? I don’t think Mash mentioned it,” Kimmy said. She was still fussing over her son, so hopefully she hadn’t clocked the fleeting moment of panic on my face.

“It’s . . .” I looked at Mash.Please help me,I tried to communicate, but he just stared wide-eyed back. Kimmy tilted her head to the side. “It’s . . .” I glanced around the sweltering kitchen for . . . something, inspiration, anything. Spotted a postcard pinned to the fridge with a magnet. A cozy chocolate-box cottage with the nameTHORNSHIREprinted underneath. My eyes fell to the newspaper in the centre of the dining table. One of the smaller headlines read:New evidence suggests Silverclaw disappearances may be linked to shadow creatures, not humans.

“Thorn Shadow?” I said and then kicked myself because I’d said it like a question.

Kimmy’s head tilted to the other side. “Haven’t heard of them. Where’re you from?”

Fuck. “Uh, South Winterlands.” Shit, they were going to hear my heart beating in my chest. I didn’t dare look at Rita for fear of crumpling like a house of cards.

“I know them,” Rita said.

I let my breath out and turned to her. She busied herself filling up a teapot with freshly boiled water. Like it needed it to be any hotter in here.

“Your alpha is Bane Thornhelm,” Rita said.

I couldn’t figure out whether it was a question. “Yeah, that’s him,” I said, praying to fuck this Bane Thornhelm wasn’t some megalomaniac crime lord like his name hinted towards.

“Oh, wow, okay,” Kimmy said, her voice neutral. No clue whether I’d just admitted to being related to a mass murderer. “Well, Mash will be your al—”

“Let me help with the tea, Nana,” Mash said, lunging forward.

“May I use the bathroom before we have tea?” I felt the sudden urge to get the fuck out of the inferno kitchen and search on my phone for Thorn Banehelm, or whatever this crime boss’s name was.

“You can use Mash’s bathroom,” Kimmy said. “Do you remember how to get there? It’s down the corridor, last door on the right.”

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