not,” I said slowly. He looked so relaxed about it, like it was perfectly reasonable that one mistake the morning before – when they released a wolfman from the basement – meant that my entire life changed and realigned. It wasn’t even my fault. Maybe I didn’t want anything to do with any of them, and the way they talked, it sounded like I’d be hip-deep in supernatural whatsits the rest of my damn life. “I’m not part of the pack.”
“You are,” Miles said. He swiped a napkin over his face and sighed as he sat back, draping an arm along the back of Deirdre’s chair as the witch muttered to herself and sketched something on the table. The big blonde dude watched me without expression. “You’re our responsibility. So, we take care of you. Protect you. Feed you.” He nodded at the scraps that were left over on the table, and my cheeks heated.
“Well, if I’d known there was an obligation attached to any of this...” I started, my hands shaking, and ran out of words.
“It’s not like that,” Dodge said. He shot a hard look at the other man. “It’s our obligation to you, since we brought you into this. It’s a way to protect the humans who are aware of the supernaturals in the city. If you run into a problem with a shifter or a witch, instead of trying to deal with it on your own, you would bring it to us and we would handle it. And if another pack wanted you to design a habitat for them or were concerned about something you did, they would approach us so that we could talk to you.”
“So you’re a bunch of middle-men?”
“A buffer,” he said quietly. His fingers ghosted across my shoulder before he drew away. “So that if you want to go back to a life that does not include any supernatural elements, we will do our best to give that to you.”
“But if everyone knows that I know about them, it sounds like they’d demand that I...”
“They won’t bother you,” Dodge said. His certainty, his calmness, was enormously reassuring. I believed him, even if I shouldn’t have. “I’ll make sure of it. If you don’t want anything to do with shifters, I’ll make it clear and no one will bother you ever again.”
For some reason, his expression and the depths of his hazel eyes and the soft husky voice tied a knot in my throat and made my sinuses burn. He meant it. He’d do his best to give me that space, if it was what I wanted. And on the surface... of course I wanted to go back to normal, before I knew about wolfmen and magic and whatever the hell Smith was. I managed to nod before my vision blurred, and cleared my throat a few times before I managed to croak, “Right. Thank you.”
Deirdre sat up, her excitement blazing from her eyes, and almost launched to her feet. “We need to get back to the house. I have an idea.”
Miles muttered something like, “Just fucking wonderful,” before he got up and jerked his chin at Todd. “You’ll settle the bill?”
The other man sighed dramatically and excused himself to seek out the waitress. I looked around as it seemed like everything started moving at once. “What is –“
“We’ll meet you back at the house,” Dodge said, and got up to pull my chair back from the table.
Miles frowned and checked his watch. “You sure you don’t want us to call in a team to make sure Bridger’s guys don’t try anything?”
“We’ll be fine,” Dodge said, shaking his head. His hand hovered at the small of my back. “But we’ll leave first and take Oak St instead of the side streets.”
I clenched my hands into fists and avoided Dodge’s touch. “Hold on a damn minute. What the hell is going on?”
“We’ll go back to the house,” he repeated and nudged me toward the door. “It’s the safest place in the city for now. You’ll have a whole wolf pack to protect you.”
He even managed a smile as he said it, although for some reason, his canine teeth looked a little too long for a human. I couldn’t look away as my heart beat faster and a hint of panic crawled up my spine. “I don’t think I want to be surrounded by a wolf pack.”
“It’s just for a day or two,” he said. Dodge reached for my arm but stilled when I pulled