Wolf's Call (Wolves Next Door #2) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,5

hoping.

Sure, a large part of it was for my own good. She'd be able to treat Gabby without fear of her catching the disease. After all, Dr. Bridget already had it! Mostly, though, a medical doctor would know how to keep me from getting infected by my boyfriends. I could actually talk to her about the risks without worrying if it was hearsay or phrased to convince me one way or the other.

Because I was scared. I'd just separated from my husband of eighteen years. I had a fourteen-year-old daughter who'd been a wolf for only a matter of months. My ex-husband knew nothing about this. He wouldn't even believe Gabby if she tried to tell him. So, if anything happened to me, what did my daughter's future look like?

She'd be forced to live with him, isolated from her pack - which I'd been told was mental torture - and unable to deal with the urge to shift. Any accident she had could potentially infect her father, his girlfriend-fiancée, and possibly anyone near her when it happened. It was a nightmare, and one that I just didn't know how to deal with.

So I tried to throw myself into work to keep from thinking about it. I began making my way through the list of inquiries about leasing options in our community. Now that I was in on the big secret, it was actually easier. I could see the coded questions, and I could hint back just as subtly. This time, it was a woman asking about access to nature areas for her trail hiking hobby. I assured her that Wolf's Run had an entire nature area within the walls to keep it safe for the community members to use without fear of vandals or trespassing.

I'd almost made it through the list when the door opened again, but this time, the person walking into the lobby was a sight that made me smile. Lane was the kind of man who'd scare someone in a dark alley. He was huge, probably standing around six-foot, four inches, and built like a woman's dream man. Well, my dreams, at any rate. He had supernaturally good muscles - literally. The only problem was that, today, he wasn't smiling when he saw me.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Yeah," he mumbled, coming right over to my desk. "Where's Ash?"

"Out with the potential doctor, looking at a house. Why?"

He pressed both palms on the front side of my desk and looked over it, meeting my eyes. "I don't want you to be blindsided, but not everyone is happy that we're mated."

"Uh..." I just bobbed my head, trying to figure out exactly how I should take that.

Lane shifted his mouth almost like he was chewing over his next words before he spoke. "Many of the people in Wolf's Run were in Henry's pack before this place existed. They all lived together. We grew up together. Not all of us, but the core group who started this place."

"Ok?" I still wasn't following.

Lane just sighed. "And some of them are women."

Oh. Oh! Yeah, they had ex-girlfriends living in the community, and for some reason, I'd never even thought about that. "So, you have an ex who's pissed off?"

He made a sound that said I didn't quite understand. "Elena, Ian's never been the typical alpha. He didn't prevent us from seeing people, but it wasn't really dating. Some of the guys had friends. The kind with benefits. They were young and curious, and she was as well, and experimenting happened. I mean, we always knew we'd share with our alpha, but that's different in theory than practice."

I nodded. "So, your gang-bang buddy, huh?"

"Not mine," he insisted. "Not Ian's, either, really."

My eyes narrowed at all those disclaimers on that. "What do you mean, 'really'?"

"He slept with her, but it was a long time ago, and it was infrequent. When he was a drunk college kid. When his girlfriend dumped him. Things like that. She was a girl he grew up with and he felt like there were no strings attached, but it was a decade ago, give or take."

"Ok, and what brought this up?" I asked.

He reached up to shove a hand through his hair. "Um, she isn't happy we found a mate. She'd hoped to become the next Langdon, and to enjoy all of the prestige that comes with the name. You're ruining that, and she made a pass at Ian today, but made it sound like she'd been screwing the others." Then he