Page 4 of Wolf Reborn

He’d tried deleting Miles’s number from his phone once, but it turned out he’d memorized it somewhere along the line.

“He probably wouldn’t say anything,” Dez said quietly. “Even if he decided to break it off after you told him.”

That Dez, one of the most cynical people in the world, was suggesting such a thing probably said something about the way Gavin was acting. Like he couldn’t get himself together and do his job if he lost one man.

Gavin didn’t have that luxury. His people counted on him to be their rock, and he couldn’t afford to be unavailable for them.

“It’s fine,” Gavin said, smoothing the emotion out of his voice, and hopefully off his face. It was harder than usual on the full moon, but he imagined it was easier for him than it was for the others.

That was his real problem, after all. Not Miles, whom Dez was right about. Miles was an honorable man, and even if he hated Gavin after learning the truth, he’d never do anything to put the pack in danger.

The secret Gavin had to hold back from everyone was much worse than werewolves. It was that he wasn’t even a real one.

* * *

The momentthey got home after closing the store, it was obvious that something was wrong. Ash was on the phone in the kitchen, pacing and ordering what sounded like a lot of pizza, even for them.

Gavin popped into the den to see if they had guests he’d failed to scent, but there were only the people he expected to find. The problem wasn’t the who; it was the state they were in.

Graham looked shattered, and Sawyer was sitting with an arm around him, Hannah holding baby Paige and sitting on the coffee table across from him, holding his hand.

When she saw Gavin, she leapt up, relief clear in her eyes.

This was why Gavin didn’t have time to worry about his love life. He had a pack to care for, and it took more work than one would think five adults and a baby could require.

Hell, the baby was the least work. Make sure she got fed, changed, and cuddled, and she was fine.

Hannah rushed over, pressing Paige into Dez’s arms as she leaned into Gavin. Dez was surprised but accepted without complaint and went to sit next to his boyfriend, who was still comforting Graham.

“Lyndon is missing,” Hannah whispered. “He’s one of the omega boys from the Martingale pack.”

Of course. That would worry Graham. The omegas in the Martingale pack had been the closest thing Graham had to family before he’d come to Kismet. Gavin had thought about inviting them all back to Kismet when they’d gone to retrieve Graham, but there were so many legal and ethical issues, not to mention the question of what the kids wanted, that he’d let the matter lie.

Clearly that had been the wrong decision.

“Any idea what happened?” he asked, angling his face away from Graham, hoping he wasn’t listening. He probably already knew, but he didn’t need more stress.

Hannah scowled—not at Gavin but at a spot on his shirt that he suspected represented a lot of injustice she herself had witnessed and been through. “Jean, the head omega there, has been worried about him. Some of the other parents took their omega kids to the regular sleeping quarters after the leadership change you instituted. But his mother is gone, and his father didn’t come for him.”

“And he didn’t go to his father, I take it?”

She shook her head and leaned in so close he could feel her body heat. “Jean thinks he might be trying to come here. He worked with Graham in the kitchens, and I guess Ash and you left a lasting impression when you broke in. She said he hasn’t stopped talking about the two of you.”

Gavin’s heart broke for a kid who needed a role model so badly that he latched onto two men he’d known for a sum total of less than an hour. “Did you tell her we’d keep an eye out?”

“I did,” she agreed, then glanced back at Graham, who was holding the baby, and seemed calmer. “But if he’s trying to come here, the chances he’ll even get out of California...”

He nodded and didn’t answer, because there was no way to answer. She was right. If Lyndon was trying to get to Colorado, the best thing that could happen to him was getting caught before he even left the Martingale compound.

For the thousandth time since they had left the Martingales to pick up the pieces of their broken pack, Gavin wondered if he’d done the right thing. Their alpha had been a monster, practically feral, but had it been Gavin’s place to undermine him entirely? And if they failed now because they thought Gavin was some kind of werewolf messiah and therefore infallible, was it his fault?

Apparently, the leadership he’d suggested had failed this boy so badly they thought he’d decided to run a thousand miles away. It wasn’t an auspicious start to a full-moon evening, and it was going to weigh on Gavin’s mind until they found the boy.

This was what happened when “the wolf who made himself” tried to lead. Gavin hadn’t made himself anything, and now a pack was crumbling and a little boy was lost. He’d known that the Martingales had work to do, but he’d assumed them capable of doing it themselves once the rotten alpha was removed from power.

Gavin was no damned messiah, and he wasn’t going to take responsibility for every werewolf alive. He’d speak to them—had been speaking to them weekly in fact, trying to give the best advice he could when problems cropped up—but he had a pack to take care of, and there was only so much he could do for people who weren’t willing to do for themselves.

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