Page 55 of Feral
We walked straight up to the bar, and as Merrick talked to the bartender, I was squished between the two Alphas. I wasn’t mad about it either, as I felt the eyes of the bar patrons on me. Not because I was scared of them, but because I didn’t want to run into anyone I’d—
“Kate?”
Ah. Fuck.
I looked over at Garth… Fuck, I didn’t even know his last name. I hadn’t kept company with him for long enough to get his last name.
I pasted a smile on my face. “Oh, hey Garth.”
He got off the barstool and strode toward me, frowning. “Where have you been? I was worried you’d fallen off a cliff and died.”
Garth was a nice guy—it was why I’d decided to give him my virginity a while back. Yeah, definitely glad I’d left the guys at home.
“Just busy. You know how it is.”
Garth reached out to… I don’t know? Grab my arm? Hug me? Who knew, because Merrick deftly put himself between us. “Come on,Kate.Sam retired and lives around back, according to the barman. Let’s go.”
“Kate, who is—”
I smiled brightly at Garth. “Nice seeing you, Garth. Bye now.”
We strode through the bar and down a dark hallway, which deposited us in the back alley. Across the road was a rickety old log cabin, and Murphy dropped my arm to go knock on the door. When no one answered, he knocked again.
“Hold your fucking horses!” There was a bang and some muttering. “Fucking younger generation. We’ll see how quick they feel when they’re eighty and can barely take a piss anymore because of an enlarged prostate. No hurrying then,” a man grumbled from the other side of the door before wrenching it open. “What do you wan—”
His mouth fell open with such force that his dentures fell out and hit the porch, bouncing away.
“Leandra?”
34
BECKETT
It was hot, I was sleep-deprived, and my Omega had left Packlands with two other Alphas. To say I was testy would be an understatement. But I still had to go to work or I’d drive myself absolutely insane.
“Beckett Reid.”
I winced at the voice calling to me from the sidewalk. Oh shit. I was in trouble now. Turning slowly, I pasted a smile on my face.
“Hey, Mom. How are you doing?”
She shuffled toward me quickly, so I couldn’t even run away. I mean, I was a grown-ass Alpha, but I would still run from my mom when she had that look on her face.
“How am I doing?” She patted my cheek, and I grimaced. Yeah, this was going to be bad. “How am Idoing?” she repeated. “Well, you called me ten weeks ago to tell me that Darius is expecting cubs, and then I don’t hear a single peep from you. Then this morning, Cooper’s mother called to congratulate me on having a new daughter-in-law. Now, why would I have to hear from Linda Wiley that my only son has bondmarked another Omega, rather than from my son himself? What could possibly be so important that you couldn’t take five minutes to call me yourself?”
It was all said in her stern falsetto voice, but I could hear the hurt underneath. “I’m sorry, Mom. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t know Cooper had told his mother.” I wasn’t surprised though; Coop loved his family, and his mother could almost have been trained by the CIA with her skill at getting information out of people.
“You haven’t even brought her around to meet me. Are you ashamed?”
“Mom, no. I’m not ashamed at all, of either of you. Kitten is amazing, and you’ll love her. She’ll love you too. It’s just…” Fuck, how did I tell my mother that I’d kind of adopted a wild girl in the woods when I was a teen and now she was my Packmate and Omega? “There’s history there, and she didn’t trust new people in the beginning. It was a whole thing. But I promise, I wasn’t hiding either of you. In fact, we were thinking about having a party to celebrate our mating. Nothing huge, just immediate family.”
I snorted internally. Between Cooper and Darius’s large families, plus Kitten’s newfound relatives, it was going to be one hell of a get-together.
My mom still looked disappointed, so I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Actually, it might be best to bring her around to meet you first.” If for no other reason than we could break the news that Kitten was the daughter of the man my mother hated with a fire so hot, it had threatened to burn us both when I was younger.
My mother narrowed her eyes at me slightly, but nodded. “Okay, Beckett. Call me.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Love you, Mom.”
