Lenny was knocking on my door before the sun rose to burn off the morning dew. She hugged me as soon as I opened the door to let her in, rattling off apologies that I didn’t need.
“Wait, wait, wait! Calm down, girl. It’s okay.”
She looked at me with pursed lips. “Are you sure? I know it was kind of shady, me inviting you to dinner and my brother sending you away as soon as you got there.”
I shook my head, sitting on the small two-seater couch and pulling on my canvas sneakers. “Pack business comes first, always. It’s no big deal. I swear.”
As we were leaving, Lenny eyed me. “Is that how it was in your old pack?”
“Yes. Of course. Isn’t that how it is everywhere?”
“No.”
I cocked my head to the side at her short answer. Really? That was interesting. She amended her response. “I mean, pack business is important, but business is not more important than the people who make up the pack.”
Oh. That was new. I nodded my head, saying nothing as I buckled into her car and waited for her to drive out of the parking lot. As she’d said two days before, the diner was right down the street. It was probably a ten-minute walk, at best, and only a three-minute drive which wasn’t nearly enough time for me to dwell on yet another example of how different other packs operated from the way my life had been with the Elders.
“Here is the diner. It’s owned by one of the few humans in Madow.” She parked the car, and we got out. “I mean, we have humans here, but they are very few and usually the mate of a resident wolf and who elected not to be turned.”
Startled, I tripped as I walked. “Y’all can mate with humans? Like… that’s allowed?”
She nodded slowly, giving me an indecipherable look. “Yeah…” The word dragged out for several seconds before she pulled open the door to the diner.
That one threw me for a loop. Back home, my pack didn’t have any contact with humans. In fact, I never even met one until I turned twenty and was allowed to have a job outside of our pack community. I worked at a nearby daycare where being around babies and toddlers all day helped me escape from the mundane existence I had lived for four years. If I were going to miss anything that I’d left behind, those babies would be it.
The aroma of syrup, eggs, and bacon grease permeated the air, and the ever-present rumble in my stomach made its presence known.
Lenny grinned at me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”
I scratched the top of my head, careful not to disturb the elaborately pinned afro puff I’d wrangled my hair into an hour before. “If I could just get fed regularly, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’m on it, Chief!” She saluted me before weaving her way through the tables and chairs, toward a man who was sitting in a booth in the back corner of the room, hunched over a half-eaten plate of French toast and eggs. I followed behind slowly, wondering why she was damn near sprinting through the restaurant.
“Good morning, Adrian!” She ran her fingers across his shoulder before sliding into the booth across from him and patting the seat next to her.
“Nora,” the man responded, saying a shortened variation of her name like it was a greeting itself.
I hesitated, uncomfortable with inserting myself into the space of a strange wolf, no matter how well Lenny seemed to know him. Though I didn’t sense the authority of an alpha on him, there was something there that made me wait before sitting. I needed to know who I was dealing with before I could eat with him.
Looking up at me, Lenny grabbed my hand and attempted to pull me into the booth. “Come on, girl, sit down. I’m trying to feed you.”
Maybe it was Lenny’s words that caught his attention, or maybe he could sense my growing resistance, which sometimes used to happen back home. Whatever it was, he finally lifted his eyes from his plate and considered our presence at his table. He reached across the table and touched Lenny’s exposed forearm.
“Good morning, Nora.”
Then his round eyes swung up to where I stood, and he immediately slid out of the booth and stood. His movement was so swift that it startled me, and I rocked back on my right foot, widening my stance in a defensive pose. Tension rolled through me as I waited to see what he would do, but to my surprise, he dropped his chin to the ground, curving his head to the side ever so slightly, exposing a sliver of his neck in a submissive pose that assured me he wasn’t a threat. It also knocked the breath from my lungs. Why would he show me his neck? Who the hell was this guy, and why hadn’t anyone trained him to only show his neck to an alpha or another wolf with authority? Although subtle, it was an easily recognizable move by anyone who knew what to look for.
I resolved to add that to my list of things to ask Lenny when we had a moment alone. Grateful that this wasn’t about to be a showdown, I relaxed and flexed my fingers, assuring my wolf that she didn’t need to make an appearance in the middle of this semi-crowded diner. When she stood down, lowering her lips back over her fangs and smoothing her fur back down, I calmed further. It made no difference that I was chill if she was still keyed up. At any moment, she could burst free and tear shit up if she felt I was in danger.
The man released a breath and took a couple of steps back. I could see the veins throb on the side of his neck and faintly hear how rapidly his heart was beating.
“Who are you?” He sounded out of breath as if he’d been running.
Lenny was on her knees in the booth. She grabbed my hand, and any remaining tendrils of anxiety melted away. I smiled sheepishly at her. My face must have been scrunched up for her to feel the need to lay a calming hand on me.
“Adrian, this is Janine. She’s the woman I was telling everyone about at dinner last night.”
Ah. This man was in Lenny’s pack. No wonder they were so familiar with each other. Lenny shook my arm.
“This is Adrian. He is Langston’s beta.”
Oh. And there was that something I sensed on him. Not the power of an alpha but more than a simple pack member. Betas where the right hands of an alpha, helping them to lead objectively and effectively. A good beta begat a great alpha.
I tried for a smile. “Good morning, Adrian.”
His eyes flickered between me and Lenny before he slid into the booth and picked up his fork. “Morning.”
A server appeared at my elbow just as I decided to join them in the booth. She was a round woman with golden-brown skin and black hair heavily salted with gray.
“Good morning, Lenny, darling. What are you and your friend eating today?”
She hadn’t given me a menu, and I didn’t know what they served. I gave Lenny a dumbfounded look, and she laughed.
“Hey, Cynthia. We’ll have two orders of the breakfast special.”
The woman nodded and aimed a friendly wink at me. “No problem, sugar. I’ll have that right out for you.” Then she turned and headed to the back of the restaurant, all without writing down a thing.
Adrian shoved the last bite of eggs into his mouth and wiped his mouth with a fabric napkin before sliding out of the booth. Lenny frowned.
“You’re leaving already?”
He pointed at his plate. “I’m done.” Then he pointed to his watch. “And now it’s time for work. I’ll see you later.” He nodded at me, but it looked more like he curved his upper body forward a few inches before straightening and leaving the restaurant.
My mind was still reeling from his submissive pose from before but this—this… bow of sorts—made my head hurt. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, especially not on an empty stomach.
“It looks like I ran him off; sorry about that.”
She waved away my apology. “Oh, that? Adrian is always ornery around new people. He was a bit more intense today than I’ve seen in the past, but I swear it’s not you. It’s him.”
I didn’t agree with her assessment, but maybe being an omega meant she only saw the positive in any situation. Whatever the case, Cynthia returned, carrying two huge plates piled high with food, and all thoughts of anything but eating flew out of my mind.
“Enjoy, girls.” She touched my shoulder briefly before moving over to a nearby table to check on other patrons.
My mouth watered as I dug into my food. There was scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, sausage links, blistered tomatoes, home fries, and two chocolate chip pancakes topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.
“Cynthia may be human, but she’s been the mate of a wolf for long enough to understand our appetite. Nothing on her menu will leave you hungry afterward.”
With a full mouth, I simply nodded in response to Lenny’s statement. I had mowed my way through half of my plate, savoring every delicious morsel when I blinked, and it seemed like Lenny inhaled her food all in one go. She sat back against the cushioned booth and rubbed her slightly rounded belly.
“That was good.”
What in the Dirt Devil is going on here? With wide eyes, I chewed the last of my pancake before starting on my tomatoes.
“Dang, did you even chew your food?”
She laughed and slurped down the orange juice that Cynthia had delivered after she brought out our food. “I eat fast. It’s a necessary trait in a pack full of grown men if I don’t want to starve.”
I nodded. That made a hell of a lot of sense.
“But since it’s just you and me, why don’t you give me the real reason that you left your pack.”
I gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean ‘the real reason’?”
She folded her arms on top of the table. “You told me you were looking for a change, but that can’t be the whole story. No one just decides to change packs all willy-nilly. Your pack is your family. You don’t leave your family just for the hell of it.”
As I chewed, I mulled over her words. Your pack is your family. That wasn’t the experience I had. Well before my mama delivered me to the Elders, she was the only family I had. Our pack was an entity ruled by the Elders, and everyone was assigned their role to ensure the entity maintained its strength. Even the children I was homeschooled with understood that we were there to learn and not to make friends. It was a very clinical existence devoid of the love and affection that wolves needed to flourish. It wasn’t until I arrived in Madow and met Lenny that first day that I realized how starved I was for another’s touch.
Lenny was naturally affectionate because that was all that she had ever known, so it was nothing for her to hug me or grab my hand. My wolf whined in misery for a week when I returned home and refused to show herself except for during the full moon when she had no choice.
“I left my pack because I was going to be forced to become the mate of the Alpha.”
Lenny stared at me open-mouthed, and I could almost feel the shock rumble through her. That I’d succeeded in making the overly talkative Lenora Hurst speechless was funny to me. I laughed and stabbed at my last sausage link. I was down to bacon and potatoes.
“It’s alright, Lenny.”
That seemed to snap her out of her frozen state.
“No. No. That is far from alright. That is—ugh! I can’t believe—” She cut herself off, shaking her head back and forth repeatedly.
“It really is. I left, so that’s done. It’s done.”
“No, Janine, it’s not. You left, but what if they try to force someone else in your place? Is that how they always operate?”
Huh. I paused. It never occurred to me that someone else might have to mate Brix in my stead. As far as her other question…
“This was the first time that I could remember something like this even being discussed. In fact, we haven’t had an alpha in our pack for probably longer than I’ve been alive. Brix wasn’t going to be installed as Alpha until we were mated.”
Lenny frowned. “Wait a minute. There was so much to take in right there. Your pack isn’t run by an alpha? How is that possible? How does everyone keep from becoming a loner? Who keeps you all ‘tethered’?”
“The pack is run by a group of five men we call the Elders. They have always run the pack as far as I know. None of them are an alpha, either, and I have no idea what you mean by tethered.”
She turned in her seat, facing me completely. “When I say tethered, I mean connected. An alpha has bonds with every member of his pack, connecting them to him—tethering them to him—which is what keeps wolves from becoming loners and depressed or losing themselves to their wolf. Because each pack member is connected to the alpha, they are all connected to each other. That is why I say a pack is a family. There are ties there that go beyond simply being born from the same bloodline. There is a connection that—for the most part—is unbreakable. It is beautiful and unyielding, and it strengthens a pack. A pack without an alpha is… well, it’s not a pack at all. It’s just a group of loners being miserable together.”
A group of loners being miserable together.
That’s exactly how every day of my life felt in that pack. Not one person was just happy for the sake of being happy. We all had a purpose assigned to us, and we operated within that purpose until we had a break then we would do it all over again the next day. It was hellish and I was glad to be free from it.
“Maybe that’s why I was able to leave so easily…”
Lenny nodded. “It makes so much sense now. I’ve never seen someone leave their pack and not be emotional about the departure. Whether they were sad or angry, the breaking of that tether was felt deeply. You were able to come here and feel fine because you were never tethered, to begin with.”
I dropped my fork onto my empty plate. “Wow.”
“Wow indeed.”
In my peripheral, I saw Cynthia coming down the aisle. I reached out to get her attention. She stopped at the table and grabbed my and Lenny’s plates.
“Yes, sugar? What can I get for you? I see you have a happy plate. I hope that’s because it was good and not just because you were mighty hungry.”
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. Everything was delicious, thank you. I’m stuffed and couldn’t eat another bite for at least a couple of hours.” Both she and Lenny laughed.
“Well, alright now. Make sure you bring that appetite back on around here. I’ll fix you up something real good for lunch.” She started to walk off when I called out to her.
“Oh, can we get the check, please?”
She looked at me before fixing Lenny with a knowing smirk. “You didn’t tell your friend that Adrian always pays for your breakfast?” Shaking her head, she continued on to the back of the restaurant with our dishes.
I glanced at Lenny as we slid out of the booth and walked to the exit.
“Oh, is that a pack thing?”
Lenny laughed. “No, that’s an Adrian thing. He never lets me pay when we eat together. Not even when Langston is there.”
Oh. “Is he your mate?” That would explain why he called her something different than everyone else.
She tripped over her own foot on her way out of the door. “What? No!” We climbed in her car and she took off down the road in the direction of the Welcome Center.
“Yikes. My bad.”
Her sigh was heavy, and I could sense her frustration. “You didn’t say anything wrong. The truth is that Adrian would make a wonderful mate, but he won’t look at me twice out of some misguided sense of loyalty to Langston.”
A second sigh escaped her mouth, and we rode the rest of the five-minute drive in silence until we parked in the lot in front of the Welcome Center. We walked up the path, but instead of entering the center, we followed the wraparound porch until we reached the back of the building. I trailed Lenny through a door labeled Career Center.
Inside was a room about half the size of the Welcome Center that had computers sitting on five workstation tables. There was a large dry-erase board on one wall that had today’s date on it along with five underlined words written on it and one or two names underneath each word.
Oil. Ranch. Farm. Education. Service.
There were no chairs in the room, and it was quiet and relatively empty but for the three people standing around one of the stations. They all looked up as we entered the room and greeted us both.
“Good morning!” Lenny called out to the room. “This is Janine. She arrived yesterday, and I’m going to get her all set up.” She led me to a computer and touched the screen until she some sort of survey appeared. Stepping aside, she pointed to the screen.
“This is an aptitude test. You answer all of the questions, and then we look at the suggested careers. You pick what calls out to you. Sound simple enough?”
I nodded. “Oh, yeah. Let me at it.”
I stepped up to the computer and started in on the forty questions. It took about fifteen minutes, I made it all the way through without stopping. Some of the questions seemed silly—like asking me my favorite color—and others seemed a little invasive—such as asking if I was mated—but I answered every one of them, then hit submit and stepped back from the computer. Ten seconds later, a pop-up appeared with three lines of text on it.
Teacher. Gardener. Security Officer.
“What the hell?”
Lenny started laughing. “That is the most eclectic list of careers I think I’ve ever seen.” She swiped a finger at the first listing, and the words faded out to reveal more detailed positions that fell under the umbrella of teacher.
“If you look here, you’ll see there are more options under each listing. Take a look at these.”
I leaned forward and looked at the screen. Something caught my attention immediately. About midway down the list were the words Pupcare Facilitator. I instantly thought of my time at the daycare back in Houston.
“There. This is the one.” I touched the line of text and the word enlarged, moving to the top of the screen to allow room for the salary, location, and duties and responsibilities of the position to appear.
Lenny’s eyes softened. “Aww, you want to work with our pups!”
I smiled at the awe in her voice. “I really enjoy working with children. It’s what I did back home.”
She cocked her head, eying me. “You miss it.”
It hadn’t been a question, but I still felt the need to clarify.
“I miss my job… and I miss my mama the way she was before…” Crap! I could have bitten my tongue off. I hadn’t meant to add that part about my mama; it just slipped out.
“Before what?” Lenny prompted.
I shook my head. I’d shared enough about myself today; she wasn’t getting that.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything. Tell me about this pupcare you have.”
She stared at me for a moment, probably wondering if I was really going to refuse her more information. I stared right back, an eyebrow raised as I waited for her to move on from it. Finally, she allowed herself a second to pout before she grinned.
“I can do you one better; I can take you there.”