lips twisted into a smirk, because he knew I rarely swore. “Yeah. Fuck. That’s about the long and the short of it.”
Few knew we could talk to one another that way. It was beyond uncommon. The omega was the only one who knew, and she’d been the one to tell us that it was unusual and that we shouldn’t share the ability with anyone else.
Not even Eli or the alpha who, at the time, had been her mate.
We obeyed the omega with as much devotion as we did the alpha, so there was no way we’d argue, but for her to put such restrictions on us meant the ability was unusual in the extreme.
It was also a pain in the butt.
No part of my life was free from his touch, and some damn days, that was more than I could stand.
Austin stomped closer to the armchair I was slouched in, my feet resting against the window ledge as I stared out into the woods and at the packhouse beyond. But he still stayed behind me. His hands going to the back of my chair as he peered out onto the property we guarded like it was our own.
“Eli wants her.”
The statement was simple, but his tone was loaded with more nuances than if he’d raised his goddamn voice and started shrieking.
“Yeah.” I’d seen that. Both as wolf and man, the alpha wanted the she-wolf with the unusual coloring… The problem was, I wanted her too.
“Doesn’t stop me from wanting to help her though,” he admitted, keyed into my thoughts as always.
Because I never lied to him, I confessed, “Me either.” I cleared my throat. “Think she went hunting?”
“I doubt it. She seemed weak.” His brow puckered when I twisted to look up at him. He helped me by shuffling forward and perching on the windowsill beside my feet. Folding his arms over his chest, he tipped back until his spine collided with the glass, then muttered, “Her weakness should be repugnant to us.”
We were alphas by nature, and we usually liked stubborn bitches with more attitude than sense, but the she-wolf emitted none of that.
And it had nothing to do with her being weak from blood loss or the transformation.
That initial shift?
She should have made a marauding, raping, and pillaging Viking look like he was on Valium.
Instead, she’d passed out.
I carried on plucking at my bottom lip as the urge to go to her messed with my mind.
Eli had given us direct orders, which we’d followed. He was the only one we’d ever followed blindly, and that was another reason why the council hated us, but for the first time, I wanted to disobey.
I wanted to see the she-wolf for myself.
So did Austin, because he asked, “Think they’re still in the woods?”
“I haven’t seen him come in through the back way,” I muttered.
Our eyes met and held because we knew that was the only way he slipped into the house when he wasn’t dealing with the council BS.
One of the reasons Eli rocked as a friend and alpha was because the posturing that went with the job slipped over his head. He had nothing to prove—N. O. T. H. I. N. G.—and the council, even if it pissed them off, knew it.
Some people liked to show dominance when they didn’t have it, but Eli’s power oozed around him like a second skin. It made him a powerful leader and a difficult enemy.
I was glad to be on his good side, at any rate.
Eli didn’t need the pomp and ceremony of his position to be damn good at what he did, unlike his prick dad and half the council, who thought because they were a part of that governing body, their crap stank of roses. It didn’t. I’d know too, because we kept tabs on them, and knew their peccadillos better than they did.
All of them were asshats, selected by an asshole who’d been fortunate in his years that no one in the pack had been strong enough to challenge him.
Well, that was a semi-truth. Austin and I could have taken him. Easily. But getting the pack to follow us was another matter entirely. And Eli? He’d have been able to squash Paul like a bug, but he’d never hurt his mother that way.
“Want to secure the grounds?” he queried gruffly, breaking into my thoughts.
My lips twisted at the stupid excuse, but damn if it didn’t sound like a good idea to me.