The Woodland Packs

Grayson garbled some words and I realised that he couldn’t talk. His teeth had shifted partially and some of his fangs were descended over his bottom lip.

He was holding onto his wolf, but barely. Which was dangerous, especially for Claire and our mate.

“Do you need to shift and run? Because if our mate is human, the last thing you want to do is scare her off.”

Grayson shook his head, breathing deeply through his nose, trying to contain himself.

I wanted to go inside Dexter’s house and meet our mate—the woman we’d waited our whole lives for. But I needed to ask Grayson a question first.

“Does she smell like your mate? Because she certainly smells like mine.”

I grinned at my Alpha and he tried to do the same. Since Dexter’s triad had learned that our mates were no longer born to the pack, but instead were humans who we had to seek out, the whole pack had transformed. Mostly for the positive, except for some of the jealousies that had arisen. Some of the men were determined not to share, the Alphas in particular. They wanted their own mates.

Not ours, though.

Brad and I had been best friends since childhood, and when we learnt of the new laws that meant we had to create our own pack with an Alpha, Beta and Omega in every family, we did our research.

Grayson was a gentle giant who put the needs of the pack first. He was the perfect Alpha for us. Strong, but not an asshole.

And that’s what we wanted.

Someone we’d be proud to call our family.

So, when Grayson had told me that he didn’t mind sharing a mate, I’d been relieved, but not surprised that he was as magnanimous as always.

“Let’s go see her then.”

We turned and stalked towards the front door. My heart was beating like a bongo drum in my chest. I could hear the roar of my blood, the thump of my racing pulse inside my ears.

Grayson stepped up to the front door and knocked, hard.

I looked back towards our house. Maybe we should have waited for Brad before we approached her.

The door opened and Claire’s face smiled up at us.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?”

My gaze moved around Claire and connected with the woman sitting on her couch.

She had long brown hair and a beautifully delicate face.

“Ah…” Grayson coughed to clear his throat and I realised he was still struggling with his wolf.

I jumped in. “Would you introduce us to your guest, Claire? Please?”

Our gazes met and I could see the understanding dawning on her. Her mouth opened and her eyebrows flew up and then lowered slowly.

“Ah, yes… are you sure?” she whispered to me.

I met her intense stare and nodded slowly.

“Okay, but you need to be cautious. Nevaeh is... gun shy.”

I had no idea what that meant but nodded regardless.

We moved inside their house slowly, the scent of Nevaeh rising up into my senses and saturating them with pleasure.

God, she’s beautiful.