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Colt nodded. “Obviously you’re the pack leader, and we’ll back you no matter what. But if you’re really into this girl…”
“She’s my mate,” Atlas proclaimed without hesitation.
Silence. Colt felt his heart shredding but maintained a calm demeanor.
“Does that bother you?” Atlas asked. He was monitoring Colt pretty closely. Maybe sometimes he paid more attention than Colt gave him credit for.
“How do you know?” Colt asked.
Atlas thought for a second, looking down at the Power Wagon, not out of interest but because it was there. “I suppose it only feels natural. I saw her, and I could see the questions in my head vanishing. I felt an urgency and a clarity I’d never experienced before. But it’s also biological.”
“How is that any different than being infatuated?” Colt asked.
“I don’t know,” Atlas shook his head. “I only know that I’ve felt infatuation before, and this isn’t that. I’m only meeting her now. But she seems so familiar to me. It’s like what my father always told me I’d experience when I found my mate.”
Colt was lost in thought. What Atlas described was exactly how he felt, an indescribable longing, a need that somehow rose above even his own survival. It wasn’t love. It was something more.
“If that’s the case,” Zachary chimed in, “why grill her so hard?”
“She’s from another pack.”
“So are a lot of our new potential members,” Zachary pointed out. He weighed his words carefully. “We’re safer in numbers. Right? And we haven’t been gaining many numbers lately.”
“You’ve gotten quiet,” Atlas said, turning to Colt. “What do you say, as our beta?”
“If you really like this girl—especially if she’s your mate—you might dial it back,” Colt tried. “You don’t have to lower your guard. Just make her feel welcome. Keep an eye on her if you’re concerned.”
Atlas thought for a minute, leaning over the second-floor railing and tracing the outlines of his tattoos with his finger. “Should we invite her to the pack?”
“I mean, that’s a pretty surprising change of perspective,” Colt said.
Atlas collected himself. “It’s not that I don’t trust her. I just don’t trust other wolves. If she’s with us, we can protect her.”
Zachary looked from Colt to Atlas, seeking an approved entrance into the conversation. When nobody said anything, he spoke.
“I know my vote doesn’t count for anything,” Zachary said. “But I’m cool with it.”
Atlas looked expectantly at Colt. Of course, Colt wasn’t going to contest this. But he wondered if Harlow could ever reciprocate both of their feelings, or if he’d have to live with seeing her on Atlas’s arm forever.
“Yeah,” Colt said, his mouth dry. “Absolutely. Let’s invite her to Gravecrest.”
“Purely as a guest,” Atlas said. “We can offer her safe haven—least we can do.”
* * *
When they arrived at the office, Zachary drove off, leaving Colt and Atlas behind to continue their discussion. Atlas checked to make sure nobody was watching and then slid into the decrepit building, the golden hour twilight highlighting the details of the entryway’s neglect. Dust had collected on every surface, covering the stairwells and the fountain. It was better this way, a perfect cover concealing Atlas’s top-story office.
“She’ll come around, man.” Cole pressed the third-floor button in the dilapidated elevator as they entered.
As the doors closed, the elevator became pitch black except for the bright blue glow of the buttons, and Atlas had even hired a set designer to install fake wires, which sprawled out from the panels of the elevator and the doors. The two stood in darkness as they rode up, the light accentuating both of their faces in a concentrated pale blue glow.
“I know,” Atlas’s voice had become more resolute on the car ride here. “This pack dinner needs to go perfectly, though.”
“I’m sure it will.” Colt stepped off the elevator onto the barren third floor. Here were abandoned cubicles, file cabinets, unhooked landline phones, twenty-year-old printers, and empty bulletin boards. Atlas had placed some potted plants on half walls, ledges, and windowsills to ease the transition to his forested office.
Colt had once asked why Atlas didn’t just strip this out entirely, and Atlas had told him he wanted pack members to feel welcome. But Colt figured it was mostly so that Atlas didn’t feel alone, so that he could memorialize the people who had once worked here and feel connected to them. Some aspects of leading the pack Colt didn’t envy, and this was one of them. The empty days spent waiting to help pack members who never arrived, sitting alone in an office.
“What do you think of her?” Atlas asked, as they stepped into his office and he removed his shirt, draping it over the coat rack to dry. Colt had always envied Atlas’s natural physique, the way he was able to build and maintain so much muscle with so little effort.
