Wolf's Pack (Wolves Next Door #3) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,67

it back, and she was on cloud nine. According to Lane, the two of them were in the hot tub kissing until about two in the morning. After that, they moved to the den, and then spent a little longer actually talking. At four, Seth decided it was late enough and sent Roman home. He said Gabby hugged him so hard before heading upstairs to pass out.

And Sunday, the group of us lounged around their place - Gabby included. She gave all of us a play by play of her big night. I, however, did not. Still, Pax made a point of sitting with me and holding my hand a little too much. Trent stole a few extra kisses. I noticed, and from the way my daughter was grinning, she did too.

Monday came much too soon, but I had wolf lessons again that evening. I also was expecting at least one tiger to show up in the office at some point during the day. Evidently, Lev was not a morning person, because it was just after two when he finally sauntered into the lobby with a smile on his face, acting like he was completely comfortable in a place that had to reek of so many wolves.

"Alpha," he greeted me.

"Hi, Lev," I said, grabbing the clipboard I'd already prepared for him. "Thanks for coming this weekend. Gabby had good things to say about your son." And I waved him over. "But I have a question for you."

He moved to the side of my desk. "Ok?"

I set the map of the community between us. "We have a pair of empty houses here. The rest of this street is packed with wolves. The bears live here..." And I tapped their house. "This is our nature trail area, but..." I made a circle on the other side of the map, right around the land that Henry had been thinking about buying for far too long. "We might be expanding here, and I wasn't sure if we should look into putting the non-wolf shifters together. Would that make you all feel better or more isolated?"

The man looked at me with a critical eye. "So, you're newly shifted, and that quinceañera makes me think you were raised as a minority, right?"

"I was," I admitted. "Grew up speaking Spanish at home until I was in middle school. Gabby and I use English as our primary language, though."

"Yeah, but you know what it's like to be the odd one out. Kinda didn't expect that." He looked back to the map. "In truth, I don't think it matters if you put the not-wolves beside each other or not. Tigers and bears don't usually talk, you know."

"But you know Vic..." So I'd kinda assumed it was normal for shifters outside a pack to be friendly.

Lev just shrugged. "Doesn't mean I want to live beside him. Sure, we've had a few beers when we're in the same place. Doesn't mean we're having family cookouts. Elena, those bears could crush me, and my son? They'd kill him without trying. I take care of the fox girls because I owed their dad a big one, but most large cats would want nothing to do with them. You wolves? You're like the middle ground. You're not so big that you make us nervous to be around, but there's so damned many of you that we know better than to start shit."

"So spread out," I decided. "Well, these are the only two three-bedroom homes I still have side by side. This one's on the corner, but it's a quick shot to the trails, and there's also a drainage culvert right here that will let you slip into the woods next door. For the girls, I mean. Can't really risk a tiger wandering around the city, I'm sure."

He chuckled. "No, but how safe is it out there?"

I groaned. "I don't like my daughter playing outside like that, but it's natural enough that no one would think anything of it. This apartment complex was condemned, so it's empty, and everything else is a business. No farmers to start shooting. Just watch out for animal control or the police, and it should - in theory - be safe enough. Or so I've been told."

"I'll just make sure the girls stick to the trails," he said, pausing when Ashley's door opened.

"Lev," she said, walking forward with her hand outstretched. "I'm glad you actually came back. You decide how we're handling the non-wolves, Alpha?"

"Mingling," I told her. "If we