Page 3 of Betrayed Wolf Mate

Chapter 2 - Sam

The mid-afternoon sun hung overhead, illuminating the patches of orange, yellow, and red leaves surrounding us as we lounged behind the mansion, clustered on the second patio as we all chatted.

“Yeah, I can see why you guys decided to settle down here,” Mark said, sipping beer as he looked out at the lake below us. “Honestly, I kind of wish I’d joined you guys when you first left. I’m looking forward to a quiet life.”

“Oh, trust me,” Klyte said, clapping Mark on the back, “I wouldn’t call our life here necessarily quiet. But at least we don’t have to wander around from place to place for adventure and danger anymore. It seems to find us no matter what we do.”

Watching the interactions from the side while I nursed a beer, I couldn’t argue with Klyte. Ever since a group of us had retired from the Silver Wolves, a covert black-ops group of shifters that had specialized in taking care of dangers to the Wolf Council and packs in general, and moved to Brixton, Colorado, home of the Obsidian Pack, things hadn’t exactly been easy. But the original group of us who had come here a couple of years here—Jameson, Luke, Alek, Klyte, Oliver, myself, and later, Evelyn and Malcolm—had made it work and made the place our home.

Now, it looked as though we were going to have three new additions to the group. Rand, Tannen, and Mark had all been Silver Wolves with us, but they had stuck around after we had left. Then about a month ago, they’d reached out, saying they were thinking of retiring and asking whether Brixton was worth settling down in. We’d all said yes. So now, here they were, ourlittle mini pack within the larger pack that made up the town of Brixton.

“Still, we’re happy to have you guys join in the fun,” Luke said, raising his beer bottle in a half-toast. “There are a lot of cool places around here that we can show you.”

“I’ve found some great places to hunt over the years,” Oliver said. “Not too far from here. Tons of deer and rabbits, and some larger game if you know where to look for them.”

“Internet is great here, too,” Tannen commented, looking down at his laptop. “Really great, considering how high up in the mountains we are.”

“Leave it to you to be excited about internet service,” Klyte remarked, rolling his eyes, but grinning broadly as he did. He and Tannen had always had a good relationship. Possibly because Klyte kept breaking our tech equipment, and Tannen kept having to fix it. They’d spent a lot of time together.

“Let’s be real,” Malcolm, our old boss, said, “I don’t think Tannen could settle down anywhere that had subpar internet or was too far away from a tech store.” He laughed.

“I’m just glad you guys have seen reason,” Luke said, leaning back and brushing his curly dark hair from his face. “Being black ops was fun for a bit, but retirement is where it’s really at.”

“I don’t know, is there going to be a house big enough for Rand?” Alek joked.

It was a fairer question than one might think. Rand was so large, he seemed to dwarf the chair he was sitting in, and the beer in his hand looked comically small. The large shifter grinned and winked at Alek.

“Don’t worry about me on that end,” he said. “I’ve lived in army barracks before. I can handle a house.”

Mark snorted, rolling his eyes. “You complained all the time that the barrack beds were too small for you.”

“Sure,” Rand said. “But I survived.”

“I’m sure there’s someone in town who can help out,” Jameson said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

The light-hearted conversation continued, as if there hadn’t been a couple of years where we hadn’t spoken much with one another. We were picking up right where we left off.

I stayed off to the side, watching the group and listening. It was nice being together. Considering how busy everyone was, it felt as though we rarely spent time with one another anymore. But this was a special occasion. And having more of the gang back together was something I hadn’t realized I’d missed until now.

I was fine with standing off to the side and watching. A lot of times, I preferred it. Blending in and staying silent could come in handy during black ops missions, even if it didn’t always make sense when it came to having a social life.

But it never lasted forever. Even if sometimes, I wanted it to.

“Sam, you still like exploring on your time off?” Tannen asked, finally roping me into the conversation. “Find anything interesting?”

“Yeah,” I said. Silence lingered, but instead of filling it, I took a sip of my beer and stared off into the woods.

“Very loquacious,” Klyte commented when it was obvious I wasn’t going to say anything else. “I swear, Sam, sometimesyou need to stop talking for a few minutes. I know you like the sound of your own voice, but—”

“Leave him alone,” Jameson said. “He doesn’t have to give his life story if he doesn’t want to.”

“Sam has a life story?” Rand asked, raising his eyebrows as he gave me a broad smirk. “First time I’ve ever heard of it. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I know anything about your history from before you joined up with the Silver Wolves.”

I shrugged. “I like to keep things private.”

“Pretty sure there’s such a thing as too private,” Alek said, shaking his mop of red hair out of his face.

“He’s always been like that,” Mark said, giving me a playful nudge. “I remember when we were just plain military together. He was quiet back then.”

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