Undying: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Crystal Lake Pack Book 2) Page 10

  “If you’re looking for Forest,” Landon started, turning away from the toaster, balancing a butter knife on his pointer finger, “he’s out by the lake with the others, getting things ready for tonight.” There was a lingering malice beneath his words; the wolf had been furious when he’d walked into his living room and saw all the books sticking out of the walls and ceiling. He refused to use their kitchen because of the lone book she managed to break through one of the cabinets.

  Out of everyone, he had the temper, and though Addie knew she should not like it, she kind of did. Landon was a kaleidoscope of emotions, a roller coaster of feelings. Would she ever know what it was like to ride him?

  Okay, wait a second. That analogy got way out of hand, fast.

  Addie quickly looked away from him, refusing to get swept up in those blasted blue eyes. “I’m not here for Forest.” She went past him in the kitchen, grabbing a bowl out of the sink and more meat from the fridge.

  When Landon realized what she was going to do, he groaned. “Again? That asshole doesn’t deserve shit from you.” Without waiting for her reply, he poked his head in the hall and said, “Do not let her into that basement, Mike.”

  Mike, the unfamiliar wolf standing guard, made an affirmative sound.

  As she finished opening the beef package, her hands covered in the stuff as she moved it to a plate, she rolled her eyes. She’d be damned if she let anyone stop her from going in that basement, whether they were a wolf or not, and she wasn’t going to forget about Jack. Yes, he might’ve hurt Landon. Yes, he might’ve hurt the others, too, but he had no choice. He had no control over himself. Clay did all of it. Clay was the one the pack should mistrust, not Jack.

  Still, that said, Addie understood where the pack was coming from. Jack was obviously a lone wolf. If he had a pack, they probably would’ve come looking for him. Could a lone wolf ever truly fit in with a pack? Landon had been alone when Forest found him, but he came from a pack before, even though it wasn’t exactly a good one.

  Had Jack been alone his whole life? Did he ever have a pack? Would he want to fit in with the Crystal Lake pack, if he was given the choice? Addie hoped they would all be around to find out.

  When she had a plate full of meat and a bowl filled with water, she marched right past Landon’s annoyed and exasperated stare and into the hall. If she would’ve had a free hand, she might’ve done her first bird flip, given him the middle finger salute. She’d never flipped anyone off before, but Landon deserved it right now.

  Trying to control her. Who did he think he was? This wasn’t the middle ages; she wasn’t property. Addie was her own person, and darn it, she would make her own decisions, even if they were bad ones. That way, if something went wrong, she would have no one to blame but herself.

  She headed straight for Mike, who, honestly, looked more like a biker than a wolf. A large build, slightly on the chubby side, with a giant brown beard hanging past his chest and piercings in his ears. How did that work, exactly? Did the piercings stay when he shifted, or did he have to stop and take them each out before?

  Now wasn’t the time for that.

  He had his arms crossed, a leather jacket covering his torso and torn jeans above leather boots on his bottom half. He stood much taller than Addie, and his glare was squinted and unimpressed at her approach. To say he was an intimidating man would not be enough of a description. He looked like the kind of man Addie would never want to come across in an alleyway.

  Still, she wasn’t going to let him and Landon intimidate her. Addie puffed herself up, acting taller than her nearly five-and-a-half-foot frame let her. She met Mike’s stare unapologetically, unblinking as she spoke in a bare, harsh whisper, “Move.”

  Damn. She sounded tough. She wasn’t nearly as tough as she sounded, but Mike didn’t need to know that.

  Mike’s eyes studied her, and for a while, neither of them moved, neither of them backed down. His lips curled down into a frown, and he broke eye contact to shoot a look at Landon, who’d poked his head out of the kitchen to watch.

  “No one is supposed to visit the traitor,” Mike muttered.

  “Really? Says who? The asshole of a wolf in the kitchen, or your alpha?” Addie had none of his excuse. “Or just you, hoping to get me to move along and forget about it? Well, sorry buddy, but I’m going down into that basement, whether I have to go through you or not. I’ve never fought a wolf before, but you should probably know I’ve been practicing my magic. Because, you know, I’m half wolf and half witch. I could levitate you right out of here. Is that what you want?” She cocked her head at Mike, waiting on an answer.

  It wasn’t the most badass of speeches, but it was the best Addie could do, given the fact that badass speeches weren’t exactly her forte. She’d have to make a mental note to get better at them.

  Either way, she was getting in the freaking basement.

  Mike seemed to study her harder. It was a long moment before he let out a sigh and stepped aside, initiating a shocked “What?” from the kitchen. Landon stormed to their side, eyes narrowing at the both of them. “You’re not supposed to let her strongarm you into moving, Mike. She’s…she’s not even a true wolf yet—”

  There he went, trying to insult her. She rolled her eyes again. Addie would have to make another mental note, the second of the day already, to stop rolling her eyes. These guys drove her so insane, her eyes were about to roll right out of her head at this rate. Plus, she was practically twenty. Two decades old. Kids rolled their eyes, not adults.

  Though she could always say, once Landon started acting like an adult, she would too. That would get them nowhere.

  “Yeah, but she’s intimidating,” Mike said, now no longer standing between her and the basement door. “She reminds me of her mother. You and the twins will have your hands full with her.”

  Addie wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Not literally, but it was hard to hear a stranger talk about her future mates handling her, not to mention how slightly mortifying it was. Pack members knowing everything about her life was something that would take a long time to get used to. She was a fan of the old, quaint, very human aspect of life called privacy. She might miss it the most.

  Once she overcame her mortification, she shot back, “You’re about to have your hands full right here if you don’t open that door for me.” Totally, one hundred percent full of hot air with nothing to back her words. Really, Addie just wanted to leave this conversation as quickly as possible, and since her hands were full with a plate and a bowl, it would take some serious juggling to do it herself.

  And making Mike open the door for her would only make Landon madder, right? She’d be lying if she said she didn’t want that. Actually, she kind of enjoyed making him upset. Landon got what he deserved, the jerk.

  Mike jumped into action, turning the knob and pushing it open for her.

  Addie gave him a smile. “Thank you, Mike.” She thought about saying more, but as it was, she already felt like she wasted too much time between Landon and Mike, so she kept quiet and went down the stairs.

  Jack was on his side, his chest rising and falling sluggishly with each breath, the chain around his neck keeping him locked to the house’s support beam. When she rounded the stairs, his ears perked up, and he lifted his head off the cement floor.

  The only thing different from before was the plate and bowl she’d brought down last time. They were licked clean, empty, off to the side. It was just as she suspected; no one else fed him, because no one else cared to. They all thought Jack was a traitor. Why waste food and resources on a wolf who might never be capable of being let go?

  But if they didn’t let him go, what would they do with him? Kill him? Let him wither away down here and starve to death? Addie would be aghast if Forest allowed it to happen. If he let it happen, if he authorized it or whatever it was alphas did, then he was not the kind of alpha she wanted to follow.

  “Hey, Jack,” Addie whispered, moving closer to him. The basement had
started to smell, due to the fact he’d gone to the restroom in the corner of the room a few times. You had to do what you had to do, right?

  Still, she felt bad for him. Even if he couldn’t shift, somewhere in there was still a person. He might’ve made terrible decisions, but everyone made bad ones here and there, and she would argue until the end of time—the pack could not hold him responsible for what he did under Clay.

  Jack let out a low whine as she set the plate and bowl down before him, reaching with her foot to yank the others away. She’d clean them and use them again later, since it was clearly up to her to take care of him. Addie knew there were other things on the pack’s mind, on Forest’s mind, but it was no excuse. Jack was a living, breathing wolf. Those other bodies were just that—bodies. Corpses. No life in them anymore.

  A harsh reality, but it was reality all the same.

  “I’m sorry you’re still down here,” Addie said, sitting cross-legged just out of his reach. What a hypocrite she was, going on and on about how the pack should treat him, yet she barely treated him any better.

  It was hard to trust a beast without a man’s face. If he’d been in his human form, this would be easier, she knew. But again, if he was human, he wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

  His large, round eyes met hers, and she stared into their reflective, metallic green hue for what felt like ages. Pretty eyes, eyes that were intelligent, but eyes that held no recognition. Animal eyes, through and through. There was nothing inside of him that shouted I’m a man, nothing familiar about him to her.

  To her wolf, well, that was a different story. Her wolf was a little boy crazy at the moment, which Addie found ridiculous, because who knew how old this wolf was. In human years, he could be forty. It was hard to tell a wolf’s age, unless they’d started to go gray, in which case their wolf’s fur would also be graying.

  “Surely, somewhere inside you, you’re in there,” Addie whispered, suddenly becoming sad as she gazed upon him. She could only imagine what it would be like, to be trapped in the forest of her mind while her wolf took full control. Miserable, awful, downright terrible. This was her life. Her wolf was a part of her, not the other way around. Addie had full control, and it should be that way for Jack, too.

  “If you’re in there, know that I’m going to find a way,” she continued. “It might not be soon, might not be tomorrow, might be months from now—” God, she hoped not. “—but I’m going to help you, Jack. You deserve a life. No one should be locked up like this. It’s not fair to you. Once Clay is dealt with, I promise, I’m going to help you.”

  She didn’t make promises lightly, either. Whether or not Jack could hear her and understand her, or whether he just looked at her and thought female wolf, must claim, didn’t matter. Addie would help him. She’d do everything in her power to help him, even if it meant spending hours every day learning new spells.

  Addie stared at him, watching as he gazed up at her. He didn’t go for the food or the water. He would not break eye contact with her. Her heart constricted; she couldn’t help it. She felt for him, even though she did not know him. This had to be torture for him, and a torture like this she’d only wish upon one man.

  Clay.

  A bizarre urge came upon her, and before Addie knew what she was doing, she acted on it. She reached out a hand toward Jack, shaking only a bit because she was not certain how he would react. The last thing she needed was to get a bite or a scratch, so it was beyond stupid for her to lean over the area where he could reach and try to touch him.

  She couldn’t say why she did it. Only that she had to.

  Please don’t bite me, Addie thought desperately. I’d never hear the end of it from Landon. She was ready for any sudden moves, a jerk or a twitch of his wolfish body would send her tumbling back and out of his reach. She had her wolf’s instincts though, and her wolf did not sense any fight radiating from Jack.

  Jack slowly lifted his head off the ground, and Addie pressed her hand against his head, right between his ears. Fingers splaying through his ashy blonde fur, he was coarse and rough. If his diet was better, if he was less sickly and starved, he’d probably feel softer, be nicer to the touch. It was like she was rubbing a brillo pad. Not the softest thing to touch, and only made more depressing because he was a living, breathing entity and not a pad to clean a sink.

  “I’m going to help you, Jack,” she whispered, reaffirming it to both him and herself. She had Clay to handle, somehow, and then she would focus on Jack. Everything else could wait. Her horny inner wolf would have to learn to wait, which shouldn’t be too big of a problem, considering her wolf had waited until now anyway.

  There was no telling what would happen once she turned into her wolf. It was a very real possibility Addie could lose her magical abilities, so it would wait until everything was dealt with. When the pack was nothing more than her new family with no dangers around, then she could unleash her inner wolf—truly let her out into the world.

  Not before, no matter how tempting it was.

  And when it came to her future mates, even the asshole upstairs, it was super tempting.

  More tempting than she wanted to admit.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After spending a bit more time with Jack, and learning that he liked his ears rubbed, Addie left the house. Landon had to stay, taking over guard duties from Mike, whom he said was a pansy for letting her walk all over him. Addie could think of a few comments to say to him about the subject, but she held it in, knowing Landon would soon do something else that made her want to strangle him.

  It was so frigging difficult to think Landon had been so gentle with her in her room. How he’d spoken to her, the way he’d touched her softly and made her body feel weightless, not to mention all the heat…

  It was the assholes who drove her crazy.

  The sun was a balmy seventy degrees, a little warm for her jacket, but it was a fashion statement she would not give up. Jean jackets always seemed to go in and out of style, but Addie didn’t care. It was her favorite thing, and if someone took it or threw it out, there would be hell to pay. Her mother had learned that when Addie was in fifth grade. Who cared if the jacket didn’t fit anymore? Throwing a jean jacket away was blasphemous. Give it Goodwill, or something. Some kind of donation so someone else could love it as much as she had. Addie wasn’t crazy about a lot of things—her grades, before she was kicked out, were one thing. The second? Definitely her jackets.

  Other than her jacket, she wore a tank top and shorts, along with ankle-high boots. Her typical outfit. Her legs were a bit on the long side, and they used to be kind of lanky, at least from Addie’s perspective. After joining with her wolf? They were built better, more packed with muscles, somehow.

  She liked how she looked, though she wouldn’t go so far as to say she looked like a model, but the basics were there. Clear skin, thin but muscled limbs, and not a scar anywhere. Her mother had always gone on and on about how pretty she was, but she knew to take it with a grain of salt. Mothers were supposed to praise their kids about anything and everything; it was their job. When the guys told her she was pretty?

  Well, that was something she could believe.

  She should go back to the house and practice with her mother, but being outside, after spending some time with Jack, she couldn’t. Surely she could take a short walk, maybe see what the others were doing. Landon had said they were near the lake. She’d go there, see if she could help.

  Procrastinating? Addie? Never. She’d been a straight-A student, prior to that research paper which was weighted to be over thirty percent of her final grade. She didn’t procrastinate. It wasn’t her.

  Okay, so she might’ve been doing it a little now, but there was a first time for everything. That’s what people always said.

  Her feet drew her towards the lake. Addie made it to the park, where a little jungle gym and other slides and swings were for the kids. She could hear the hustle and the bustle long before she could see it.<
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  On the shore of the crystal-clear lake, dozens of wolves worked. Some were picking up stones in the sand, while others dug out a trench of some kind. Forest stood near the trench, talking to another wolf Addie didn’t recognize. A man who looked as intimidating as Forest. His beta, maybe?

  No one looked at her, which Addie liked, because they were all so busy, so focused on their work. It was like she wasn’t even there. Probably just as well, because even though she’d decided to join their pack, she’d never been formally introduced to them as a whole. There were wolves she’d never seen before, hustling as they went about, doing whatever they had to. They didn’t know her, and she didn’t know them, though she knew they knew of her, at least.

  Henry, thankfully, was nowhere in sight. The last thing she wanted was to see him here, get scolded by him for wanting to learn more about her heritage. What the old coot didn’t seem to comprehend was that she was not just a shifter. She was a witch by blood. Her father was one of the high warlocks of the world. One of seven.

  Just because she was a shifter too did not mean she would throw all of that to the wayside, especially since it could help them defeat Clay. If Henry could not understand it, Addie didn’t care. She wasn’t about to sit him down and explain it. She owed him nothing, not even respect.

  Addie heard someone scolding someone else, “You shouldn’t be out here, Cait. You should be taking it easy, with the pup in there.” A man’s voice, one laced with concern.

  “Yeah, he’s right, you know. You should rest,” another male’s voice, this one just as unfamiliar as the first.

  Addie turned around, spotting Caitlin standing between two worried men. The way they stood near her, their heads angled down to her, their brows creased in apprehension—it was clear they cared for her. They were her mates. One of them was the one who put that baby in her belly…a thought Addie should not have had.