The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter One Hundred–Twenty–Three

DOMONC

By the time sunset rolls around I’m ready to wash my hands of Gabrield my father both. I have yet to make the time to go home and make proper love to my mate. I want to bang her in my house which is how our house and I want her to wake the dead with her screaming when I do. The bar is now full of patrons and still the four of us sit here No closer to any conclusions than we were hours ago. The whiskey may have had a little to do with that…

“We should leave tonight,” my dad is saying. “It will take a day and a half to reach her place in Montana.”

“You can’t just call her?” Gabriel snaps.

My dad shakes his head. “We don’t communicate that way. Never have. merely visit her every six months. So if you want to go to her, we leave tonight. We leave now.”

I growl absently, watching with veiled interest as three tourists step into the bar with gunpowder fresh on their clothes. I can smell it. Bartlett’s eyes meet mine from where he’s serving at the counter and in that instant I realize who the three men are. “I’ll be damned,” I hiss. That’s the fucker that shot up my club. My eyes flash toward my dad and Gabriel. I’m not going with them. No fucking way. I’m done taking trips and chasing ghosts for a while. I want to be here with my lady and my unborn pup. I want to go out and buy Draven another ring, this one bogger and badder than the last, then marry her on a yacht in the middle of the Puget Sound. Surrounded by the fog that she loves so much.

I am not going anywhere.

“You and Gabriel go,” I say without another thought on the matter.

Gryffin’s eyes perk up, a shadow of a smile gracing his lips. “What’s wrong? Done taking road trips?”

I chuckle, flipping him off as I stand up and face Gabriel. “This is your last chance Gabe. The only reason I’m allowing you to leave is because I promised to banish you. Jason or no. So go ahead. Leave. But don’t ever show your face in Red Wolf again.”

Gabriel sighs, his mouth twitching upward in a sneer. “What about here? I grew up here, you know. Much like you did. What if my mother wants to visit or my sister wants to come home. What if I swore allegiance to you as my Alpha. You might-”

–

“No,” I say coldly. “I’m not your Alpha Gabriel. One of the rules of our tiny little pack is this – No New Members. And we may have changed the mate rule, but that one remains the same.”

Gabriel swallows thickly. “Fine. I just thought-”

visit. I will grant you that. But as far as being one of us… Well, I couldn’t make that decision on my own anyway. We don’t do things out here the way other packs do. I would have to discuss

nods, “Fair

ride with you both,” Gryffin says. “I’m supposed to be mate hunting. What better way to do that

“Keep my

not that damn old, pup.

keys,”

dad. “I’ll

return home until he stops here with Gryffin first. “You guys get out of here. I have a feeling things

It’s still pretty early and I don’t want to cause a scene while so many of the locals are present. I mean for the most part – they’ve known us long enough to understand there’s something about us that is not altogether normal. But as we don’t hunt humans, or kill without good cause coexisted peacefully for most of our lives out here in Port Orchard. And here is one thing we have in common for sure – the local humans and us Shifters – we don’t like when outsiders come around causing trouble. And those three tattooed, blinged

we have

think the best bet would be to get them on their way out. Knowing that their car must be parked in the back lot, I dial Rainier as I step out the front

background bitching and moaning about always being alone and for

at home,” I say softly, knowing that his shift is far from over. When our little entourage fled to Crown Mountain, the remaining deputies on duty were human. They were tired and pushed to the bone, so when we got back, Rainier gave most of

for a minute,” he says. “What a fucking mistake that turned out to be.”

laugh, Well listen, since you’re in a bad moon. I thought you might want

not let them leave. I have a couple of

my eyes freezing on the Cadillac parked in the back lot.

RAINIER

and stalk past the front desk heading straight for my office. The

Timmons are lounging together on my

and I am forced to turn around so that she doesn’t see them. Not that she even realizes that I’m standing here.

growl out. Noting that the cell to my left lay open and empty, without even a

much, we’re just watching a

past my ears as Timmons teases her about some fucked up tattoo on her thigh. Why is he looking at her thighs? Why