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Pack members greeted me as I made my way towards the food tables, and I happily gave them smiles and small talk in return. I was part of the pack now, at least to them, and my presence here was the norm. In fact, I had been with this pack longer than I’d been with my own, but this place still didn’t feel like home.
My heart wasn’t here, so I could never truly be happy.
Still, I owed a lot to this pack. They had helped me from the start, supported me in my hunt for the second prophecy stone, and then taken me in when I had no one else to turn to. If nothing else, I had friends for life here.
Speaking of…
“And where the hell have you been?” I snarked, making Ruby leap in surprise as I appeared beside her in the queue for food.
“Fuck me,” she snapped, pressing a hand to her heart. “Don’t sneak up on people like that!”
I laughed at her. “Nope, there’s no way I can sneak up on a shifter normally. That was all on you, miss daydreamer. What were you even thinking about?”
She flushed, a shy smile pulling at her lips that made my brow lift.
“Um, nothing much,” she murmured, ignoring me as I gave her the side-eye.
“Liar,” I answered, but let it drop.
I really didn’t need a play-by-play of whatever her and Brax had been up to lately. They had been mated nearly a year now but were still all over each other in a way that made my heart hurt. Not that I wasn’t sickeningly happy for them, but it was hard to see.
We each grabbed a bowl of stew as we reached the front of the short line before settling near the fire to eat. The sun was low enough now that the daylight was beginning to fade, the closest trees casting long shadows on the ground as the firelight danced around them.
“Hungry?” I asked with a laugh as Ruby almost inhaled her food.
She rolled her eyes at me, even as she happily took the rest of my meal when I offered it to her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled around a chunk of potato. “I’m starving.”
She hesitated, darting her eyes around to see who was close enough to overhear. Apparently satisfied, she leaned closer as she placed our empty bowls on the dirt floor and whispered low in my ear.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
I stifled a gasp, pulling back enough to meet her excited gaze.
“Oh wow!” I breathed, and she reached out to squeeze my hand tightly.
She nodded. “I know. We didn’t tell anyone we were trying, but when we took that camping trip last month I took some of the herbs with us.”
I grinned as she blushed a little. “Seriously Cor, it was intense.”
“What was intense?”
Linc blinked in surprise as our heads whipped around to face him, raising his hands in mock surrender.
“Uh, did I interrupt something?”
Ruby shot me a glance, shaking her head minutely. I gave her a reassuring wink before facing Linc again.
“Yes, but we’re done. You can sit.”
He raised a brow at me before dropping into a dramatic, sweeping bow. “Why thank you, your majesty. I would be honoured.”
Chuckles echoed around the nearby pack members at his antics, while I simply shook my head at him. Ruby giggled as the others arrived and Brax scooped her into his lap, planting a kiss on her cheek before digging into his own meal.
A sudden shout sounded from the other side of the fire, the pack falling silent as we all craned to look. Spencer strode away from the food tables towards the treeline, a shadowed figure appearing from the forest a few seconds later and heading towards the Alpha, seeming to stumble a little.
We stood, alert and ready for this possible threat. From the corner of my eye I saw Brax tuck Ruby behind him protectively, grinning to myself at the snarl she gave him in return.
