Undying: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Crystal Lake Pack Book 2) Read online

  Shaking her head, Addie didn’t get it. “How? I mean, I’ve been around humans all of my life, and not once did I ever feel more for them than friendship. Not like how…” Oh, crap. She was pretty much laying her feelings bare to her mother and to Landon and Dylan. She clamped her mouth shut, though the damage was done.

  Dylan’s dark eyes were on her beneath his glasses, and she pretended not to notice them. She also ignored the slightly perky expression coming from Landon. Yeah, that douche need not get his hopes up too much. She was still mad at him for how he’d acted earlier.

  Sarah chose not to address Addie’s declaration, instead saying, “I was always under the impression it was fate. Plus, being the intended mate to a weaselly fourteen-year-old boy was not what I wanted, alpha or not.”

  Weaselly? Forest was far from weaselly, but Addie was not about to jump to defend him to her mother.

  “I had you when I was seventeen. I’ve been with you, protecting you, for over half my life,” Sarah spoke, reaching to Addie as she balanced her tea on her lap. She swept a few stray tendrils of brown and pink hair behind her ear tenderly, smiling. “I’ve always done my best, you know.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “When you told me about that floating book, I thought you were kidding. I never imagined you’d suddenly show magical abilities, not after this long. You’re a shifter, I could sense it. I never thought you could be both.”

  “Clearly,” Addie muttered, “I’m not just a shifter.”

  “I’ve never heard of any shifter connecting with their wolf without shifting,” Sarah went on. “I can sense her in you stronger, now. I can feel her. You’re a wolf without actually being a wolf. Your abilities must be from your father. Maybe his genetics were so strong they weren’t blocked by the shifter gene.”

  The room fell into heavy silence. No one, it seemed, knew quite what to say. All of this was new information, and a lot of it to process at once. Addie studied her hands. So her mother had kept all of this from her to protect her? But why did it matter if…

  “You said Clay was a death priest,” Sarah said, breaking into her thoughts. “All death priests follow the high warlock who specializes in death. I don’t know why shifters would matter to him, or what the nature of the beast is. There is no key to our kind. We just are.”

  Dylan spoke, “Addie said he wants to make something new with the strengths of all and the weaknesses of none.”

  “That would go against everything the high warlocks stand for. It would mean all-out war.” Sarah looked at Addie, staring hard at her. There was something else her mother wasn’t saying, something that didn’t make sense. The puzzle was coming together, but there was yet a piece missing.

  And this piece…it was an important one.

  How did her father make a spell to keep her wolf at bay if he’d died before she was born? What did it matter if Addie was lied to if her father was dead and therefore they did not need protection against the other high warlocks?

  “Mom,” Addie whispered. Even a whisper felt too loud. The thoughts running through her head were not good. They were full of confusion and realization. “Dad. Is he—”

  Sarah did not blink as Addie spoke, like she knew this was coming, like she knew her plot holes had been detected. “Your father did not die before you were born. He’s still alive.” The words hit Addie like a slap in the face.

  Everything she’d ever known to be true was a lie. Her whole life, a lie. One after the other. Her heart ached, knowing all that she’d missed out on. Her father was alive, out there in the world somewhere, living his own life, not knowing anything about her.

  “Why?” Addie breathed out the word, feeling broken, shattered. It shouldn’t have meant so much to her, but it did. Was she angry? Of course. But the sadness sweeping through her could not be denied. She found she could hardly think, hardly breathe. Was she exaggerating, being dramatic? Maybe. She didn’t know.

  She also didn’t care.

  “He’s the high warlock of power, Addie. He couldn’t stay and be your father. The others would’ve had us killed if they’d learned of us. No hesitation. He did what he had to to keep us safe. Don’t hate him for it, and don’t hate me for trying to give you a normal life.”

  Her mother’s words were nice, but useless. They didn’t make Addie feel any better.

  Her father was alive, and she’d never seen him, not once. Not even in pictures. Pictures would’ve only been a link to him, something someone, maybe, could’ve used against them. But still.

  Addie got up, almost mechanically. She had nothing to say to her mother right now, nothing to say at all. She moved around the small coffee table before the couch, heading for the stairs. Her mother set her tea down and went to follow her, but Addie shot her a look that stopped her dead. She didn’t want to be followed, didn’t want to talk. She only wanted to be alone.

  She had to sort out her thoughts, process everything she’d learned.

  Addie took the stairs two at a time. She wasn’t the shortest girl around. Her legs were long, and now their length was complimented by muscle thanks to her wolf. Every part of her was leaner, though her body frame did not change. She just became fitter.

  She went to her room—strange, to call it her room, but she supposed that’s what it was—and shut the door behind her. With her hands still against the wooden door, Addie let out a shaky breath. All this teenager angst was getting old, but she could not fight the way she felt.

  Just…so…sad.

  If Addie had a kid she couldn’t be around, she would fight tooth and nail, do anything and everything in her power to be with them, even if it was just for a day. Her thoughts would always be on her child, and no matter what she was doing, she would always try to find a way to see them.

  Had her father ever once done the same? Or had he turned tail and left, not once looking back at Sarah or Addie?

  The thought of him leaving and never returning made her so upset. Angry and sad, all tossed together in a blender to create something both new and not so new. What gave him the right to make the decision? Maybe Addie didn’t care if people, if those damned warlocks, came after her. Again, everyone else had made the choice for her, and she’d been too young to make the decision herself.

  Addie sighed, slowly moving to the window. It seemed too bright a day, considering what went on underneath the blue sky. The grave digging. The truth discovering. It should’ve been a dreary, morose day to match her emotions.

  With another sigh, Addie knew she was being dramatic. She knew she shouldn’t be acting this way. She was nearly twenty years old; could she truly be upset at her mother and father for deciding something when she was a baby? Parents always chose things for their kids, because the kids were too young to understand the choices and the consequences. No, she couldn’t be mad at them for it.

  She was being ridiculous. If anything, Addie should be thrilled, be happy her mother had finally told her the truth. No more lies, no more secrets. She could go on into the next part of her life, her life with this pack, knowing she had the whole truth.

  The emotions running through her were wild. She could hardly think straight, think logically—something Addie always prided herself on. She was the logical one, not the one who got so caught up in her own head she acted like a tween.

  She needed to man up. Wolf up? Yes, wolf up.

  Addie needed to wolf up.

  Chapter Seven

  The door to her bedroom creaked open, and she was about to say a very teenage phrase—Mom, leave me alone—when she realized it was not her mother who’d entered. The smell, musky and manly, gave him away. It was not Dylan’s aloe vera scent, though his arm had looked to be nearly healed already. It was the one wolf she never would’ve thought would follow her.

  Landon.

  Addie didn’t even tear her gaze from the window, instead watching his reflection grow larger as he approached her after closing the door behind him. If Sarah had seen the closed door, she’d probabl
y throw a fit, because no matter how old Addie was, the mere thought of her doing anything with any boy was still too much for her mother to bear.

  “Please go away,” Addie said, trying to be as nice as she could, given the fact she did not like the guy. Just because her wolf wanted to throw herself at him didn’t mean she wanted to. Landon was too much of a jerk.

  Landon’s blue eyes roamed over her, and she pretended not to notice. She also pretended to hate how he stared at her, forcing out a frown. He could, in all reality, probably sense that her wolf wanted his, so her posturing was pointless. As pointless as denying she was still upset.

  “You know,” Landon spoke, standing a few feet behind her. If he stepped any closer, she’d give him a good whack to his stomach. “I didn’t peg you for the moody type.” Silence as he let his words sink in. “Guess I was wrong.”

  Okay, she could no longer keep staring out of the window. Addie turned to him, shooting him the worst expression she could muster. Now was not the time to make fun of how she was feeling. Everything she felt was valid. She was allowed to be upset.

  “Why do you have to be such an ass?” Addie was getting really good at swearing. It was becoming her second favorite pastime, after fighting all-powerful death priests. With an angry sigh, she waved him off. “Why’d you even come up here? To antagonize me? Go away, Landon.”

  “It’s hard not to be, when I see entitled princesses thinking they deserve more.”

  Addie blinked. Did he just call her an entitled princess? Oh, the wolf had another thing coming. “I’m not entitled, and I sure ain’t a princess.” Ain’t? She used the word ain’t. What was the world coming to?

  “You’re acting like one,” he said, crossing his arms. He held back a flinch as his wounds touched, trying to act tough. “It sounds like you’ve had a pretty good childhood, but you want more, and you’re throwing a tantrum about it.”

  “I am not throwing a tantrum. I’m…I’m stewing. There’s a difference.”

  An eyebrow rose. Just the one. An expression Addie both hated and simultaneously found cute. “Is there? I don’t see it. Do you want to know what my childhood was like?” He didn’t wait for her response, continuing, “I was born to another pack. My old alpha warred with other packs for females and kept them all to himself. He beat the others when we weren’t falling in line. I was five years old when I had my first broken arm. These?” He lifted his arms somewhat. “These are nothing. I ran away when I was ten. There was no packbond in that pack.”

  Addie knew why he was telling her this, and darn it, it was working. Her anger at her mother, at her father, slowly died down, replaced by something else, something for Landon. Sympathy? Pity?

  “I was homeless, wild because my old alpha forced us all to turn too early. Forest found me when I was fifteen, living on the streets, when he made a run to the city with a few others. I thought I was as good as dead.” Landon shook his head, uncrossing his arms so he could run a hand through his brown hair. “So what if your mother lied to you? So what if your father is alive? It doesn’t change your past. It doesn’t change the fact that your mother loves you—and she does. I can see it, plain as day.”

  God, who knew Landon could lay it on so thick and so truthfully? She sure didn’t.

  And he wasn’t done yet. “Get over it, Addie. Don’t linger on it. Don’t pout. You’re better than that. Brush yourself off and forget about it.”

  Out of everyone, Addie would never have guessed Landon would be the one to spew a long story and teach her a lesson. He was the douche of the group, not the old wise man. Not the sensei. He was Landon, but the words he spoke were truths.

  “You can be upset with your mother,” Landon said, no longer sneering behind his words. “But don’t hate her for it. Don’t regret anything in your past. The only reason you’re you is because of all of the choices your mother made. If she’d told you the truth, if your father never left you…you might be dead. Is that what you want—to be dead? It’s the last thing I want.”

  He spoke the last part so quietly, so seriously, it was almost hard to match the words with the person saying them. Landon didn’t want her dead. Well, he didn’t seem like the type of wolf who would wish anyone dead, but there was a hidden meaning behind his words, a meaning that made Addie meet his intense blue stare.

  “Careful, Landon,” Addie whispered, her head tilted up at him. Without knowing what she was doing, she took a step towards him. Less than a foot separated them now, and still it felt like too far a distance. “Opening up to me, saying those things…it might make me start to think you care about me.”

  Wasn’t that what Maze had said, though? She’d shaken him off immediately, but now…now it was hard to believe otherwise.

  Landon gave her a slow nod, matching her step, the tips of her chest grazing against his upper stomach. He was taller than Maze and Dylan. Even though she wasn’t the shortest around, she still had to angle her head up to look at him. Heat radiated from his body, seeping into hers at their proximity. She burned inside, wanting to toss all caution to the wind even if it would be a terrible idea—plus, her mother was downstairs. Ick.

  “You’re right,” he said. Just when she was about to inhale sharply, he added, “We wouldn’t want that.” Completely ruined the moment, the buildup, whatever it was growing inside Addie.

  Still, she did not step away, even though she should. He basically just told her he didn’t care, right? Or was it his confusing way of being sarcastic? If so, his sarcasm needed some work; he was not as good as Maze was.

  “Wouldn’t want you to start getting any wrong ideas, would we?” Landon asked, tilting his head. One of his hands tugged at the sleeve of her jean jacket, pulling the breath right out of her.

  “No wrong ideas here,” she whispered, filled to the brim with wrong ideas.

  A low sound came from his chest, somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “I’m sure.” The hand that wasn’t currently fiddling with her jacket sleeve—which her arm was still in, feeling the occasional brush of his rough fingers—lightly touched the skin between her tank top and her shorts, his thumb grazing over her hip bone. “Then maybe I shouldn’t apologize for calling you not that pretty. Maybe it would only tempt you to think I like you.”

  Yes, heaven forbid that.

  Addie wanted to retort, to say something that would make this jerk believe she did not like him, not even a little, but she found it insanely hard to focus on forming words when his fingers kept dancing along her hip. Tiny, soft tingles followed anywhere he touched, and she only embarrassed herself further by leaning in, pressing herself harder against him. The fingers dancing along her hip moved to her side, and the hand playing with her sleeve dropped to do the same. His thumbs hooked in her belt loops, his other fingers curving with her body, pretty much holding the sides of her butt.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say I’m sorry, that you’re the prettiest wolf I’ve ever seen,” Landon murmured, neck bending to rest his forehead against hers. His breath hot on her face, the hands holding her sides and butt tightened. “And I definitely shouldn’t say anything about your eyes. Nothing about how beautiful they are, how they pull me in.” His breathing had started to grow ragged, now.

  Addie could relate. She could hardly catch her breath at all, with how close he was, with his hands touching her and his face against hers.

  His face tilted further, their noses touching, their lips, only centimeters apart. She had to close her eyes, unable to look at him, unable to focus on anything other than the heat coursing through her. Heat Landon had taunted and created. He’d stoked the flame like an expert, as if he wanted it.

  The bastard.

  “I am sorry,” he whispered, hardly audible. “I didn’t mean it. You are the prettiest wolf I’ve ever seen, and your eyes…I could drown in them.”

  Was this the same Landon? Had he been replaced by an alien of some kind? And could someone please tell her why she felt her heart speeding up in her chest? Why she felt the t
hump, thump of its beat in every part of her body?

  Addie felt her arms moving, her hands gripping his shoulders. Such wide, strong shoulders. She didn’t touch him too hard, because he was still injured, but he seemed to have no qualms about holding her tight against him. No grimacing or wincing to be seen.

  Finally, she was able to find her voice, “I think you’re full of wrong ideas now.”

  It was an understatement, because, in addition to the swirling heat she felt, she also felt something starting to grow harder against her lower stomach.

  Were they really so wrong, though? It was obvious neither she nor he wanted to move away. Even if he could be a jackass sometimes, this was a side of Landon she liked. This side of him was more than welcomed.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “I think…”

  Addie waited with a desperate need to know what else he thought, for she found she rather liked this, whatever it was. She forgot there was a world outside, all her worries and concerns, gone. All her anxieties, out of the window. She didn’t even remember her mother still being downstairs.

  His lips were so close to hers. What would they feel like? What would he kiss like? Would it be like in the movies, where the kiss started out slow and then as the seconds ticked by became fast and hungry? Would it be needy? And what about his tongue…what about her tongue?

  Still, all the insecurities, all the doubt. It all fell away.

  This was a moment she never wanted to end.

  But of course, with her luck, it ended far too soon. Before Landon could finish his sentence, before she could gather up the courage to close what little distance there was between their lips, another presence burst in the room, loud and boisterous.

  Landon and Addie instantly pulled away from each other, as if they were caught red-handed. In a way, they were, but it wasn’t like they were doing anything…then again, Landon did have the start of a situation going on in his pants. It was semi-obvious in his jeans—not that Addie looked. She didn’t.