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I sat there at his desk when he came up to me. I looked up at him with a grin. My brother had started to grow a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and the un-mated females loved him even more for it. His blue eyes showed excitement as he gazed down at me. We could have been twins, but it was only our facial features, eyes, and hair that were the same. I had always been scrawny and seemed to have been starved all my life, even though I ate more than my brother.
“Are you going to get ready? It’s about time for my eighteenth birthday party.” Archer placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He would shift and then find his mate tonight. He was lucky; when it became my turn, the she-wolf would reject me because I wasn’t desirable.
“Yeah, just sitting here thinking.” The thing with my brother was he always knew when I wasn’t myself. There was no hiding anything from him, nothing. Which was probably how he’d figured out I was being bullied by the wolves my age before he had walked in on the shower scene.
“Thinking about what, Nolen?” His eyes were soft as they gazed down on me. He never judged me, but he pushed me harder than Dad did. I never understood why he was going to become alpha, and Axel, Lucas, and Daylen would help him lead the pack.
I rose from the desk and went to his window, gazing at the commotion of the decorators as they fixed up the backyard of the packhouse. All those wolves down there were excited about the party and the possibility of learning who their new Luna would be. “Am I always going to be like this? What if I never receive the respect you have?”
Archer draped his arm around me and chuckled a little as he stood there with me, staring at the busy wolves two stories below. “You will, Nolen. Because you know what they say about the runt of the litter?”
I glanced up at him and shook my head no. His eyes met mine, a grin spread over his lips, and he gave me a wink. “They always turn out to be the biggest and strongest!”
I smiled at Archer. He was six years older than me, but he and I were the best of friends. He always made sure that everyone stayed away from me, and I was grateful for that, though most of the time I stayed in my room.
He never told Mom or Dad why I looked the way I did after being attacked, but he made sure to let the wolf know that if it happened again, there would be no mercy. If Archer ever left me, I would be in big trouble. “Come on, little bro. Go get dressed. I need you there beside me when I shift for the first time.”
A soft knock pulled me back from my memory, and I turned to the door as it opened. My mother stood there at the entryway, her hand covering her mouth as her eyes shifted around the room. Since Archer passed, she had not been in this room, and I knew her seeing me in here threw her off. I went up to her and backed her away from the door, closing it behind me. “Did you need me, mother?”
She looked between me and Archer’s door before her hazel eyes met mine; tears were building there before she fought them back and gave me a faint smile. Her hand came up to my cheek, caressing it. “Yes, dear, the Quartzite pack has arrived.”
I nodded to her and placed my arm around her shoulders. Excitement washed over me at the thought of Amora being here. They didn’t say who all was coming, but I was praying to Selene that she would show. “Then let’s go welcome them.”
We strolled down the hall and descended the stairs to the foyer. Laughter floated up, and that’s when her scent made it to me. She came, and it took everything in me not to hasten my steps to stand beside her.
My mother and I turned the corner and saw Sawyer and Danika talking with my dad and his Beta. I grinned when I realized they had marked each other. He never let things stew; he took life by the ears and made it work.
Sawyer’s head twisted around; his grin widened when his eyes landed on me. He unwound his hand from Danika’s and strolled up to my mother and me. He held out his hand when we met up, and I grasped it tightly, pulling him into a hug, “Thanks for coming, Sawyer. At least I’m familiar with someone who will be at my first shift.”
Sawyer laughed as we pulled away, glancing over me. “We are brothers now! I would never miss your first shift. Plus, I get to find out who your mate is!”
See, Nolen, you are not alone this time! Sawyer, Danika, and Amora are here to keep you from shifting alone.
I shifted my feet. That was one of the reasons I did not want to have this in front of the pack. If my mate was here in this pack, I could see the disgust in her eyes now. “Let’s not get too carried away. We don’t know if she is even here.”
Sawyer nodded and then bent closer to my ear, “And I can’t wait to meet this wolf of yours. Mine is excited as well; Torak knows we are good friends and wants to be good friends with him.”
I nodded to him, trying to find Amora in the crowd without letting everyone know I was looking. When I spotted her, she was with a few of her friends, talking. A male from my pack walked over and started to speak with them. I continued to gaze around, noting the different wolves that had come from the pack I had spent four years of my life with. I couldn’t help but smile; the other wolves that lived in my pack looked on at the ones from the Quartzite pack, unsure of what to make of them as they all meandered around the room.
The male who walked up to Amora was still talking with her as she conversed with her friends. I glanced over to Sawyer, and we strolled over to Danika, who was still talking with my dad and his Beta. My mother followed us, and Sawyer’s and Amora’s parents came over.
“Nolen, you are looking great!” Alpha Roman came up to me and clapped me on my back. I grinned at him and nodded; he had always been good to me while I was staying with his pack.
“Yeah, he has put these experienced wolves through their paces. I need to talk to Beta Adam and find out what he has been teaching him,” Father’s Beta spoke, glancing over at the other Alpha.
“Beta Adam would be pleased to hear from you.” Alpha Roman nodded to my father’s Beta.
I kept my eyes on the group Amora and her friends were in with the male from my pack. He continued to place his hands on her, and she continued to shrug the male off her. She turned on him, pushing him away from her, his face turned furious, and before I knew it, I stood in-between Amora and the male wolf. The entire room fell quiet as they watched, waiting to find out what would happen. “Is there a reason you want to keep placing your hands on someone who doesn’t want to be touched?”
The wolf glanced up at me, then bowed his head. “Sorry, Nolen. It won’t happen again.”
Sarge kept pushing to the front while I tried to keep him at bay. The wolf in front of me whimpered and turned away to head out of the room. The wolves in the room resumed their conversations after the wolf took off. Taking a deep breath, I turned to Amora, and when my eyes locked with her amber color ones, I knew I had lost myself in them again. Amora smiled up at me and then giggled. “Well, my knight in shining armor, here to protect me again.”
“I hope you are doing well. And I’m sorry about that wolf.” I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her, and her scent was more potent than before I’d left to come back home.
“Yeah, I’m still the same as I was before you left. But Sawyer’s been whining about you not being there when Danika isn’t around him.” Her beautiful orbs held mine in their depths. I could live in her eyes for the rest of my life.
“Sawyer has always been a bit of a whinner,” I teased, pulling my gaze from hers to glance back at Sawyer and Danika. They were talking with my mother and father, and Sawyer had my mother in fits of laughter. There was no telling what he was saying to her.
