Page 10 of Secret Wolf Baby

Like clockwork, the door opened. A moment later, Claire hurried into the kitchen, slinging off her backpack.

“Hi, Mom!” she chirped.

“Hi, sweetie,” I said, smiling. “How was your day?”

She tilted her head back and forth, her light brown hair bouncing with the motion. “It was okay,” she said. Based on the way she said it, though, I doubted she was being entirely honest.

I glanced down at her jeans and tried to bite back a sigh of frustration. They cut off an inch above the ankle. She was in the middle of yet another growth spurt, and unless Dad helped, I didn’t have the money to get her new clothes. If it were anyone but my father, I wouldn’t have hesitated to bring it up. But knowing Dad, he would just say no out of spite. Not because of Claire but because of me. Any way he could find to make my life a little more difficult, he would take it, even at the expense of his own granddaughter. I sometimes suspected that he didn’t see her as much more than a pawn.

“Why don’t you go get started on homework?” I prodded. “I’ll start fixing dinner once your grandfather gets home.”

Claire nodded, then dipped out of the room and headed upstairs.

I let out a sigh as I slumped back in my chair, glancing up at the ceiling as if I could see my daughter through it. Out of everything that had happened in my life, Claire had always been the shining beacon, the main reason I kept trying to move forward, no matter how difficult. After running away from Jackson’s house that night, I was broken, ashamed, humiliated. I knew I couldn’t stay in his pack. It was too painful to even consider it. So I shoved all my possessions into a suitcase and left in the middle of the night, not three hours after Jackson and I had sex.

For the next couple of weeks, I was aimless. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. All I wanted was to forget about the whole thing and start over.

About three weeks after I left, however, I realized that would be impossible. I started to get sick nearly every morning. My confusion slowly turned to horror as I did the math and realized my period was late. I could still remember being in the stall of the public restroom, staring at the pregnancy test clutched in my hand as the lump in my throat swelled, threatening to choke me. I remembered the bizarre mix of happiness and dread as the plus sign began to form on the stick in front of me. Happiness because I had always wanted to be a mother, to have a kid I could treat better than my parents had treated me. Dread because I was in no condition to take care of a child properly. I was a runaway without a pack, without a solid job or place to live. Hell, I had been living out of my car as I traveled around, trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

I tried frantically to get a job, to do anything I could that would put a roof over my head before my cub came. I did everything in my power to try and make ends meet. But the economy sucked, and I realized that doing this on my own was going to be impossible. I needed help.

I thought about going back to Mira’s pack. I knew that she would help me. But I just couldn’t go back there, especially not when I knew Jackson was the father. He would figure it out instantly, and I didn’t know how he would react. For all I knew, he would reject his kid altogether, leaving me in an even worse position. Regardless, I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t stand admitting to him what had happened.

Which meant I did the one thing I had sworn I would never do.

I went home.

I remembered with perfect clarity walking back into the Blood Moon pack and knocking on my parents’ door. My fatherwas the one to open the door. His nostrils flared, and his gaze lowered to my belly. He sneered, said something demeaning (I’d forgotten what; at some point, all the insults blended together that I wasn’t able to separate them), then took me to Reacher.

At first, they had been reluctant to let me back in. It wasn’t until my mother stepped in that they changed their tune. For what it was worth, I was fairly certain Mom only interceded because she was worried about appearances. She was more accepting than Dad and Reacher, but that was like saying a copperhead was safer than a water moccasin. Her main reasoning was, now that I had shown up again clearly pregnant, people would talk if they sent me away.

Eventually, they allowed me to stay, with two caveats: The first was that I had to live with my parents. I wasn’t allowed to live on my own since I was now deemed a flight risk. The second was that I couldn’t leave the pack again. Reacher threatened Claire’s life, saying he would kill her if I so much as thought about running away. Even if I took her with me, he would track me until he had hunted us down. So I was stuck in a pack with no real support system, where the alpha and my father hated me, and there was no way for me to run.

Mom had at least been somewhat helpful. She helped me raise Claire for the first couple of years until she died suddenly. The instant she died, Dad’s passive-aggressive cruelty turned more aggressive.

I had dreamed of getting away ever since I had rejoined the pack, more so once Mom had died. But I was afraid of what would happen to Claire if I tried. Even if I brought her with me, I knew that Dad and Reacher would hunt us down, and they’d punish Claire for my decision. I couldn’t risk it, so I never tried. Besides, where would I go?

My mind flickered unbidden to Jackson, the way it sometimes did when I wasn’t paying attention. I wondered what he was doing, if he had actually joined the military, and whether he was happy. I also wondered what would have happened if I had decided to go back after all. If it would have been as bad as eighteen-year-old me thought it would be.

I shoved that thought away the instant it cropped up. Jackson had rejected me. He’d made his intentions perfectly clear. Even if I had tried, he would have rejected his kid the same way he did me. I had done the one thing I had to in order to protect my daughter and make sure she would at least get her basic necessities taken care of. It had cost me my own freedom and forced me to live in a place I hated, but I couldn’t regret it.

Still, there was no getting out of the agreement I had made with Dad and Reacher. Unless a miracle happened, I was stuck here for good.

Chapter 3 - Jackson

Something felt off about the town the instant we got out of the car. It was just something in the air, a sort of tension that loomed over the entire area. Based on the dubious expressions on Will’s and Trent’s faces, I guessed they got the same sense.

“Maybe there’s something to the rumors after all,” Trent remarked. “You don’t typically get this kind of vibe in a happy, carefree pack.”

“No, you don’t,” I agreed. “But we don’t know anything at the moment. Let’s see what we can find. Might be we’re just imagining it.”

As we wandered the town, though, it became clear that we weren’t imagining it. Something about the place just felt wrong. People hurried from place to place, glancing at us with suspicious looks before darting down the street. Despite it being a perfectly clear day, the entire place felt gloomy and overcast.

“Think we’re getting weird stares?” Trent muttered as his eyes swept the area. I noted the tension in his shoulders. Everything about him screamed that he was alert and ready for danger.

“It probably doesn’t help that you look like you’re ready to pick a fight with the first person to bother you,” I hissed. “Relax. We’re here looking for a new pack to join, not hunting a potentially dangerous shifter.”

“Give him a break,” Will retorted. “He never was much good at the espionage part.”

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