Page 11 of Secret Wolf Baby

“I resent that,” Trent said, shooting Will a look. His cheeks went red as he saw the playful smirk on Will’s face that said he had been baiting the other shifter. “Jerk,” he muttered.

“Will you two knock it off?” I snapped. “The whole point of our cover story is to make sure that no one knows what we’re really up to here. You guys aren’t really helping at the moment.”

“Sorry,” Trent said. “A bit out of practice with it all.”

The longer we walked, the more my thoughts kept wandering toward Audrey. She had never mentioned her pack or her family in much detail, only that they didn’t get along and she didn’t like the alpha, which was why she had run away. Now that I was here and saw the atmosphere for myself, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to leave.

And you ran her out of the safe pack she did find, a voice in the back of my head reminded me.

I pushed the thought from my head. I didn’t know that for certain. I didn’t know if that was the reason she had left. For all I knew, she had been planning on leaving afterward, anyway. She had always been a free spirit.

But the conversation after we’d had sex hadn’t exactly given off that impression. In fact, it had seemed rather the opposite.

The more I thought about her, the more the pang of guilt intensified. I wondered where she had ended up. Wherever it was, I hoped it was better than this place. Thinking back to the spirited, fiery woman I had known, it seemed almost impossible that she had grown up in this pack. It felt like the type of place that would snuff out that flame as quickly as possible.

At least she had gotten away from here.

“You all right?” Will asked, raising an eyebrow. “You look lost in your own thoughts.”

I blinked, dragging my attention back to reality as I turned to look at him. “Yeah, I’m all right,” I said.

“Good,” Trent mumbled as he nodded in front of him. “Because it looks like we’re about to get some company.”

I turned in the direction he had indicated. A tall, burly, middle-aged shifter with graying hair approached us, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He gave a smile as he regarded the three of us, but it didn’t reach his eyes. My skin prickled as alarm bells began to ring in my head.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Depends,” I replied, raising an eyebrow, trying to inject an air of brashness into my tone. “Are you gonna be as skittish as the rest of the people here? We’re looking for someone in charge.”

“You’ve found one,” he said as he studied us. “As for people being skittish, that’s just our custom. Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re not typically used to strangers. You can understand why we would want to be cautious. You never know what their intentions are.”

“We know how some packs can be about strangers,” Trent said.

That was putting it mildly. It wasn’t uncommon for packs to be suspicious of outsiders. During our spec-ops days, we’d been run out of town on more than one occasion. Others, like the Falcon pack where we had settled, were more open to strangers. Based on everything we had seen on our short stint around town, the fact that this pack was one of the former didn’t surprise me in the least.

“Then you’ll understand if I want to ask you a few questions.”

“I’m all right with it as long as you tell me your name first,” I said.

The shifter let out a genuine chortle at that. “Fair enough. I’m Saul.”

“I’m Jackson,” I said. “This is Trent and Will.”

“Great. Now that we got that out of the way, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

“We’re just looking for a new pack,” I said, jerking my head behind me at Will and Trent. “Turns out the three of us had some disagreements with our old alpha about how things should be run.”

Saul raised an eyebrow. “That so?”

I shrugged. “The guy was an old-timer. Too soft. But he didn’t like us making waves, so we decided to leave. We’re looking for a place that agrees with us a bit more.”

Based on everything I had read about Reacher and the way he allegedly handled his pack, I was hoping that he and his inner circle might respond well to a rougher, more violent-oriented type of person, the type of shifter who equated cruelty with strength. Based on the look Saul was currently giving us, one that mixed interest with curiosity, I guessed I was right.

“Huh.” Saul looked us up and down, one eyebrow raised as he assessed the three of us. His eyes lingered on my face, scrutinizing it for longer than I cared for. “There’s something familiar about you,” he commented.

I blinked, not bothering to hide my surprise. Had I run across him before? During one of our missions? If so, this operation was dead in the water. “Can’t imagine why,” I said, trying to bluff my way out of the situation. “Guess I just have one of those faces.”

“It happens all the time,” Will drawled, sounding bored.

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