Page 9 of Wolf Found

Gavin looked at Ash, eyebrow up. “Are we supposed to do some werewolf dinner ritual you guys never mentioned before? Because I’ll play those pack politics games in public, but I’d rather not at home.”

Ash motioned to Gavin, still looking at Graham. “My alpha. Clearly a stickler for the rules.”

“Not your alpha,” Gavin mumbled through a mouthful of shrimp. “We’re all alphas.”

“You’re all alphas,” the young woman parroted. “All three of you.”

“Sounds exhausting, right?” Sawyer asked before crunching down on a second egg roll.

Dez rolled his eyes at all of them. “Somehow I’m the one with the manners? That doesn’t seem right.” Still, he turned half toward their guests without dislodging Sawyer. “Please, take whatever you’d like. We don’t stand on formality here.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Graham leaned over and lifted the baby out of his girlfriend’s arms. “You need to eat, Hannah. As much as you can.” He glanced over at them guiltily. “I mean—”

Gavin interrupted him, without even looking up from his shrimp, with a thumbs up.

Ash found himself staring at Graham. The man sat patiently as his—as Hannah—ate ravenously. He pulled the baby so close to his chest, humming a lullaby Ash swore he almost remembered from his own childhood. His mother had sung to him when he was a kid. It was one of his fondest childhood memories. The baby, who had been a little fussy, settled in to sleep.

“Thank you for the juice to hold her over,” Hannah said to Sawyer, who shrugged it off. “No, really, we’ve been walking so much, and we didn’t have any money left for food, so I haven’t been able to—” She broke off, eyes round, looking at the alphas in the room.

“That sucks,” Sawyer said, interrupting her fear. “We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

Graham looked at each of them in turn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where to go, and I don’t know how the pack tracked us here so fast.”

“The pack?” Hannah asked curiously.

Graham gave the tiniest nod, clearly trying not to wake the baby. “I didn’t want to tell you, but I’ve been sensing them nearby for at least half the day.”

So Graham’s girlfriend wasn’t even in the pack. That explained why they had only come asking about him. No doubt they didn’t approve of an omega paired with another omega, let alone a non-pack omega. They certainly wouldn’t take in the child of two omegas, assuming said child would be one as well.

The whole situation was an excellent refresher in all the ways Ash’s birth pack had been backward and awful.

Well, regardless of Graham’s utter delicious adorableness, Ash wasn’t going to let anyone tear him away from his girlfriend and baby.

On the other hand...

He took a deep breath and said the last thing he ever wanted to. “So I should probably take the three of them and go somewhere else.”

Graham’s brows drew together, lips pursed, the very image of polite worry.

Gavin held a hand out in the middle of the coffee table, like he expected Dez to give him something. Had Ash missed something he wanted? He had his shrimp—

“Yeah, I’m not getting up. You’ll get your ten bucks later,” Dez said, scowling at Ash. At Ash? What had he done? “Good job, losing me ten bucks. Seriously? The Holts came sniffing after Sawyer and no one for a second thought it was a good idea to send him off on his own.”

“I’m not going to send them off! I wouldn’t—”

“No, you don’t think we’re gonna make them fend for themselves. You think we’re gonna kick you out too. That’s fucking ridiculous, and you know it, Ash.” Dez reached out to poke Ash in the side with his cane, and Ash didn’t bother moving out of the way, even though it was well-telegraphed.

Ash just scowled at him. “I don’t think you’re going to kick me out. I just don’t want to put the pack in danger for—”

“Be quiet,” Gavin ordered, and everyone in the room fell silent. He sat up, put down his shrimp, and stared at Ash. “You guys are always saying I’m the boss of you, well fine. I’ll be the boss of you. Stop this, Ash. Literally no one in this room, including you, wants you or them to leave. Yes, we’ll probably get some flack, but we’ve been through this. This is Kismet pack territory. The Shane pack will back our play.”

Graham sucked in a surprised breath but didn’t say anything.

Gavin turned to him. “You’re over eighteen?”

“Twenty, alpha.”

“Gavin.”

---