Page 10 of Wolf Found

“Twenty, Gavin,” Graham repeated, in just as deferential a tone.

Gavin sighed but didn’t let it derail him, turning back to Ash. “He’s an adult. There’s no werewolf law saying people have to be backward assholes; that’s a choice they’re making. And the Martingales don’t get to ignore human law just because they don’t respect humans.”

There was nothing Ash could say to that. It was all correct. As he and Gavin had pointed out to Sawyer once, most packs were just people, and the Martingale pack was no exception. Most of them were trained as farm workers. The handful of enforcers they had couldn’t hope to take out Ash’s pack of four, what with three of them less than a year out of the army.

The Kismet pack had been born in fire and blood and brotherhood, and no pack Ash had ever known could best them. He slumped forward and grabbed the last container of egg rolls. “I know,” he muttered. “I just don’t like making you guys handle my problems.”

“Good thing two new wolves and a baby are no kind of problem,” Sawyer answered brightly, then glared at the egg rolls in Ash’s hands as though he could telekinetically order them into his own hands.

In the end, surprising no one but their guests, Ash sighed and handed them over.

5

Because of You

Somehow, Ash was even more beautiful than he’d been as a teenager. Graham hadn’t thought that possible, but there it was. He was broader, too, bulkier than he’d been back at the enclave. Graham had expected him to seem smaller, since they were both adults now, but he didn’t.

Ash even remembered Graham, which was an immense surprise. He hadn’t thought he’d really noticed him at the time, let alone noticed him enough to recognize him as an adult.

He couldn’t lie; it made his heart speed to think that Ash remembered him. Ash had noticed him. Maybe he hadn’t thought much about him, but he’d noticed his existence.

Hannah would laugh at him later. Was probably laughing on the inside already.

But it seemed like they were being invited to stay, at least for a while. It was all he could have asked for and then some.

The only remaining question was whether Graham should go find the Martingales who had come looking for him and go home. Hannah and Paige were safe, and that had been his goal when he left the enclave, hadn’t it?

The thought turned his stomach.

The alpha had lied.

It wasn’t that Graham didn’t respect people who lied, but the alpha had been different. He was supposed to be as near to perfection as a wolf could be. He was supposed to be the best among them. And he had lied over nothing. Graham didn’t know how to reconcile it with his deep ingrained picture of the alpha as a kind of god among them.

Even worse, here was this pack, with not just one alpha but three, and not a single one of them tried to claim any kind of alpha perfection. Ash sat below everyone else, and he was as sweet and kind as ever. Gavin didn’t even seem to want to be their alpha. Dez let Sawyer sit in his lap and call him bizarre nicknames.

All of them seemed to let Sawyer get away with whatever he wanted, in fact. Not that Graham thought ill of anyone for it, but it didn’t seem like any alpha-omega dynamic Graham had ever seen, or even heard of, before.

When everyone was finished eating, Sawyer leapt up. “So I’ve been thinking about the crib problem, and in the short term, we can put her in a drawer.”

Gavin stared at him in horror and Graham wasn’t far behind, but Hannah nodded. “That’s what we were doing before. Couldn’t afford a crib yet.” She bit her lip, obviously thinking of her rat of a boyfriend, so Graham put an arm around her.

“It’s okay. We’ll get you there.” She sagged against him, heavy and eyelids drooping. Graham looked up at Sawyer. “We don’t want to be an imposition. If Hannah says Paige can sleep in”—he paused and glanced at her, but she was in no shape to say anything—“in a drawer, then I’m sure that’s fine.”

Sawyer waved an arm excitedly. “You can stay in the green room. It was my room when I first got here, I’ll show you how everything works.”

He wasn’t kidding, either. The lights had a computer, like something out of a science-fiction film they showed once on pack movie night.

The bed was big enough for any two people, so Graham didn’t hesitate to fall into it with Hannah. Omegas often had to share at the enclave. There were only eight bedrooms in the omega building, so anytime there were more than eight of them, they doubled up. Graham had shared a room till he’d been given control of the kitchen two years earlier.

He wasn’t doing anything of value for the Kismet pack—was, in fact, only taking up their resources and giving nothing back so far. Asking for his own room would have been an immense imposition.

After everyone had been arranged, and Graham was relieved to see that the drawer for the baby was removed from the chest and set on the floor, so there was no danger to her, Sawyer wished them a good night and told them to get plenty of rest.

“You’ve been through enough, guys. It’s all gonna be fine, now. Kismet will take care of you.”

He’d left them alone, closing the door and slightly muffling the sounds outside.

As Graham and Hannah settled into the bed, she curled up against his side, head on his shoulder. “You’re not gonna go back, are you?”

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