Page 59 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

Marlowe scoffed, flipping her hair. “Excuse me, do you think I lived under a rock before I came here? Of course I know the greatest Christmas movie ever made.”

Camden pretended to stumble and clutched his heart. “Babe… where have you been all my life?” He threw her over his shoulder amid a flurry of shrieks and laughter.

“Not a Christmas movie,” Nolan half-heartedly called from his spot at the island, eyes now glued to his laptop screen.

“Quit being such a Gruber!” Marlowe yelled back.

Camden howled as he barreled down the stairs.

I chuckled to myself, feeling at peace with how our omega not only fit seamlessly into our pack, but how she had brought us back together. Eau Claire wasn’t that far away, but I had bought a house there a few years ago and rarely found any reason to come back to Maiingan Hollow anymore – aside from seeing my sister and her pups. And Elias stopped coming regularly after his parents died.

He now peeked over the balcony, calling to us from the upstairs walkway. “Cam still pissed?”

I growled in response. “We’re all pissed. That was reckless.”

He sighed, running his hand sheepishly through his hair. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s not like I planned it or anything. I had my knot in her, totally blissed out, when suddenly all I could think of was her piece-of-shit, blood-sucking–”

“We get it,” Nolan interrupted. “The bond certainly protects her now, and we all wanted it anyway. Best to just move forward, especially since we still need to deal with the vamp in some capacity when we help Marlowe get her stuff from California. Also, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but if she truly was his Lunessa, he might not be willing to let her go that easily. We need to be prepared in case he returns.”

Elias cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders. “I’d like to see him try. What’s one vampyr going to do against four alpha shifters?”

“Well, Elias FaulknerEsquire, perhaps this is more your purview than mine, but I’ve been researching vampyr laws and there is some precedent for the ex to get assistance from his council to retrieve her.” Nolan slammed his laptop shut and crossed his arms. “I have an omegaanda town to think about, you know.”

Elias leapt over the railing, landing on the first floor with a large thud. He rushed Nolan and grabbed him by the collar. “And what isthatsupposed to mean?”

“Everything good?”

We all turned towards the basement stairs where Marlowe now stood. “There’s just a lot of tension I can feel right now.”

Elias released Nolan’s shirt, then stormed passed us and headed back up stairs. Marlowe came over first to Nolan. “Hey, why don’t you grab some snacks and watch the movie with us? I’d love to point out all the ways you’re wrong.”

He snorted. “Okay sugar, except for the fact that Bruce Willis himself said…”

She stuck her fingers in her ears. “La la la, can’t hear you! See you down there in a minute. Don’t forget the Red Vines!”

The frustration radiating off Nolan dissipated as we watched her skip towards the staircase, making her way to Elias next. He chuckled to himself, grabbing the movie candy from the pantry and going downstairs to wait for her return.

I desperately wanted to observe how Marlowe dealt with Elias, but it was already clear she knew exactly what she was doing.

Nolan loved to feel needed, so she gave him a job. Elias required a few moments to himself when he was upset, which was why she didn’t go to him first.

A round of laughter from Elias’s room and the easing of the bond told me she’d succeeded there, too.

“Well done, Marlowe,” I whispered to myself. I threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Life was definitely about to get much more entertaining.

29

MARLOWE

“Just because it takes place during Christmas, doesn’t mean it’s a Christmas movie,” Nolan said as he closed the front door, carrying the freshly delivered Chinese food over to the kitchen island. Why we always ate there and not at the perfectly functioning dining table, I would never know.

“Christmas music,” I said, listing my arguments on my fingers for emphasis. “Decorations. Family. Love…”

“Genre,” he replied. “No Santa Claus. Too violent…”

“Oh, for Moon’s sake,” Elias grumbled. “My General Tso’s chicken is getting cold.”

Once we all settled in, and I made fun of Camden for not being able to use chopsticks, Elias and I went over everything we had found in my dad’s office.

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