Page 6 of The Pack Next Door
Determination and effort got me nowhere. I was cursing the thing roundly, even kicking a wheel, then yelping when I bruised my toe. The long grass made me think I had some privacy because I couldn’t see much of the neighbours, but as I screwed off the fuel cap, I discovered I had an audience.
“Need any help?” a masculine voice said, coming from somewhere deep in the weeds.
Chapter 4
Mads
“You finished in the shower yet?” I hammered a fist into the bathroom door, only for Jace to jerk it open and smirk at me as he tucked his towel around his waist. “It doesn’t take that long to wash your damn makeup off.”
“Wanting to clean yourself up, brother?” He went to flick water in my face, but I shoved his hand away. “Not sure if we have anything that will fix whatever the fuck is going on with your face.” He grinned as he pushed past me. “Maybe I can ask if Gideon can leave you home when we meet the omegas. Wouldn’t want you scaring them off.”
I heard the banter, was ready to clapback, when something stopped me in my tracks. A floral scent, faint, but still there, that had me moving closer. Jace frowned as I leaned into his space, then took a deep breath.
“You been trying some new perfume, Jace?”
My voice came out a whole lot deeper and growlier than I intended. The wolf wanted to know the answer to that question as much as I did.
“Maybe…” My eyes narrowed as he backed away. “Or maybe I ran into our neighbour today.”
“The old lady who’s garden we need to mow?” The woman that sold us the house had been most insistent on that, letting us know there was a financial reward for doing so, but we wouldn’t take it. Gideon had been elated, seeing it as an opportunity to make connections in the community. It would help us in our attempts to become alphas of this town. The wolf growled deep in my chest, some of that sound trickling from between my lips. “There’s no way an old woman smells like that.”
“No old lady.” Jace was always a prick when he had information the rest of our pack didn’t. “She was too young, too pretty, to be called that.”
“Who?” My hand shot out, wrapping itself around his throat, but while Jace could be a flake sometimes, we were raised by the same father. He twisted out of my grip, then knocked my hand away, claws forming at the ends of his fingers. Didn’t wipe that shit-eating grin off his face, though. “Who, Jace, or so help me?—”
“Our mate.” He stepped away from me, arms wide, knowing everything inside me wanted to haul him closer to beat every single detail out of him. “Turns out there’s more than one lady living next door, and she’s mine.”
“Ours…”
The wolf bit that off, growling a warning at Jace. My baby brother was a bloody idiot sometimes, trying to make up for the fact that Gideon had a stick jammed up his arse.
“Why aren’t you in the shower?”
The man himself appeared on the landing, staring at Jace, then me.
“You first.”
I stepped aside and gestured to the bathroom door.
“Why?” Gideon looked me up and down. “What will you be doing?”
“Taking a look at our brand new backyard,” I told him, heading towards the stairs. “Get an idea of what exactly we bought.”
“You’ve got twenty minutes,” Gideon said with a sniff. Seeing him walk into the bathroom helped settle something inside me.
“Twenty minutes?” Jace spluttered. “How long does it take you to wash your dick, brother?”
Gideon’s lips twitched and for a second, just a second, I thought he’d smile. They thinned down into a line soon enough, extinguishing all hope.
“Longer than you, obviously.” He nodded at Jace. “Got a whole lot more to deal with.”
I laughed all the way down the stairs, still smiling as I walked across the grass. The trees didn’t catch my eyes, nor the pretty flower beds.
The long grass formed a wall around the house, but what I could see had my fangs grinding together. The guttering was sagging, the paint peeling from the walls, and then there was the jungle of the garden. Someone hadn’t been looking after the place, and that ended now. I walked along the fence, looking for a place I could jump over, when I heard the foulest words said by the sweetest voice.
“Stupid, bloody, fucking…”
I grabbed the top of the fence and then threw myself over, landing in what was probably a garden bed. The sound of critters going scuttling off made me feel better as I strode over. My nose worked, smelling her scent now. Such a pretty, floral thing, I sucked in a breath of it, right before I stepped free of the grass.
