The Blood Pack (book two)

Chapter two

My enthusiasm that my night would be saved quickly evaporated as the man climbed down from the cab. He towered over me at well over six foot as he held out his hand to take the keys. His hair was short, almost stubble and I could see the scar that ran across his left eyebrow. "S-she won't start." I stuttered as I moved back from his imposing frame, almost throwing the keys to him in my haste to put distance between us. He climbed into the drivers seat, making Bessy look like one of those red and yellow toy cars, his muscles shoulders taking up half of the front as he tried to turn the key in the engine to find nothing happened. He pulled the release for the hood and climbed back out, lifting it up without a word. He pulled out his phone from his pocket, turned on the torch and proceeded to shine it on the engine. "C-can you fix her?" I asked, biting on my nails as I tried to keep my distance, hoping he would not sense my wolfs panic at his presence. All I got was a grunt as a response as if to say, I am still looking.

I started to pace up and down, unable to keep my nervous body still. He then turned off the torch from his phone and dropped down the hood. "Batteries gone." he said as he pocketed the keys and sighed.

"Can you fix it?" I asked as I still tried to keep my distance.

"Tomorrow." he shrugged as he pressed the button that lowered down the hook for his tow.

"Tomorrow? Doesn't it only take a few minutes to plug in a new battery?" I asked, more forcefully than I think I should have.

"Closed." was all he said, his one word answers riled my wolf.

"Please, is there any way that you can change it now?" I asked, using a more measured tone, not wanting to come across as aggressive.

"Tomorrow." he repeated as he placed the hook under the bumped and started to lift the front end of old Bessy.

"Seriously? How on earth do you get through life if all you do is grunt and use one word answers?" I snapped. His only response was to grunt and shrug, as if to say, I get by just fine. "Well it may work for you, but it is not working for me. Please explain why you cannot fix my car if it will only take a few minutes to do so!"

He turned to me, a look of annoyance in his eyes. "Because the mechanics closed five minutes ago. I am out here because you begged Peter for someone come out now. Well, here I am and your car will be fixed tomorrow."

"How am I supposed to get home?" I retorted, flapping my arms down to my side in defeat.

"Have someone from your pack come get you." he said in a detached voice. I swallowed hard, s**t, I had been so lost in my anger over old Bessy that I almost completely blew my cover.

"Y-yes, I'll do that." I muttered, fishing out my phone and pretending to send off a text, when in actuality I was checking out on the map how long my walk was going to take. He looked over his shoulder with a raised brow as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against his truck. "S-someone is on their way." I smiled nervously wishing now that he would just disappear into the night with my unreliable car.

"I'll wait till they get here." He huffed, showing no emotion on his face.

Crap. How was I meant to get out of this one? No one was coming, there was no one to come. My brain searched for an excuse, any excuse that would make this wolf leave. "Erm, they are going to take a while." I said, looking at my phone again, as if I had just received another text. All he did was grunt as if to say that he had all the time in the world to wait. "Really, you should go." I pushed. His eyes bore into me, as if seeing my lie for what it was. Finally he grunted, a sort of suit yourself, and walked back to the cab and drove back down the street to the garage.

I was about to start walking when I stopped myself, I needed to seem like I was waiting, and if he came back out and I saw me walking down the street he may get suspicious. So I stood at the side of the road and waited. I saw a jeep pull out of the garage and drive past me down the street. I let out a sigh of relief before starting on my long walk home. This really was turning in to one crappy day.

~Luke~

God that woman was infuriating. Sure I was used to people pointing out their annoyance at my lack of vocalizing my thoughts, but something about her got to me. I jumped into the jeep with Peter and headed back to our pack. I could not help but look back at her stood on the side walk, long brown hair in a neat French plat down her back, arms wrapped around herself protectively. Something about her made my wolf react, but I am not sure if it was in a bad way or a good way. Peter was going on about the jobs that needed doing tomorrow and parts that we needed to order. Luckily, Peter could hold a conversation with himself, not minding my lack of input. None of my pack minded. Most knew of the reason why I was reserved, and those that didn't didn't push the subject. Not like her.

When I was a pup, my pack was attacked by a rival pack. The name of both has long since been lost in my memory. All I remember is living in my wolf form for months, surviving off what I could catch in the forest. I thought I would die out there or turn rogue, loose my humanity and become more animal than man. Thankfully, alpha Eric found me, the leader of all werewolves. He took me in and raised me in his pack. I trained with his enforcers which helped to give me purpose. When his son had set out to start up his own pack, I had volunteered to be part of it, wanting something more. Being part of the lead alphas pack was an honour, but every wolf was just as strong and capable as the next. I needed a challenge, to push myself. Alpha Ash had agreed to my joining him and I did not regret it. Not even when we were attacked by Liam, our alpha females psychotic adopted brother and his allied packs and I almost died, I did not regret my decision one bit.

Soon we pulled up at the gate to our territory, Josh leaned over the barricade and nodded as he opened up and let us enter. We had ramped up security since the attack, even though we did not suspect that we would need it to be tested again any time soon, especially since Liam was dead and we had managed to make alliances with most of the packs that lived in the area. There were quite a few, but we were closely tied to alpha Black, Lycan and Drake's packs as they had helped us in our time of need. 

We pulled up outside the pack house and jumped out. I cracked my neck from side to side, feeling more tense than usual. Was it because of that she wolf? Why had she gotten under my skin? I walked up the few steps to the front door and entered, the sound of laughter filling the air as soon as we walked in.

We followed the noise to the living area where our alpha female, Cassy, sat on the sofa with her best friend Sanna and Josh's mate Jen. They each had a book in their hands and seemed to be finding their contents highly amusing. Peter went to join them whilst I sat on one of the armchairs in the corner out of the way. "What are you laughing at?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"We went to the book store today and got some shifter romance novels." Sanna told him, chuckling to herself.

"They are a little frisky." Cassy added, causing Jen and Sanna to blush and waft their arms at Cassy to stop, that just made Cassy laugh more, the sound turning almost to an evil cackle. I admired our alpha female, she had proved herself time and time again over the short time she had been with our pack. She had been through a lot, and never lost her sense of humour or inclusion of the other females. As a submissive wolf, Jen had been over looked in the lead alphas pack, which continued on a little with her move to the Blood pack and the lack of females here at first, but she has really come out of her shell since Cassy came. You would not even think that Sanna was submissive, given that she could only be commanded by an alpha, thanks to Cassy's training. The three of them formed a tight knit group and it was great to see them together.

Alpha Ash came in, I nodded my respect to him, which he returned before he scooped up his mate is his arms and placed her on his lap. She automatically melted to him, as if they were two halves of the same whole. I knew beneath her soft exterior though, beat the heart of a true fighter and that I could not help but admire. "I will get on with making food." Jen announced, jumping to her feet and headed out to the kitchen. Jen was a fantastic cook, Josh was a lucky man to have her as a mate. Together he, myself and Jonny made up the enforcers under Theo, our head enforcer. He was a just be fair leader and enjoyed to push us to improve.

Ste, our beta, came in, picked up the book that Jen had left on the sofa and started to read a few pages before he looked up and Cassy and Sanna, who were still reading their own copies. "This stuff is like porn." he jested, causing Sanna to grab Jen's book from his clutches and hit him over the head with it, causing everyone to laugh. He really was a joker, part of me felt he acted that way because of his other job. He had been trained by Max as an interrogator, I did not envy him for that, having to inflict pain to get information from our enemies. Luckily it was something that we had not really had to do so far, but I knew the prospect must weigh heavy on him.

Trev came in, tablet in hand as always. "Alpha, I have the information about the investments that you asked for." The pack owned the mechanics that I ran, as well as a construction yard ran by Jonny as well as investments in a few small local businesses, a book store, a tattoo studio and alternate goods store, a salon and a café. We got some money as well from are allies businesses which made up part of our alliance agreement including a shifter nightclub. None of us went to the nightclub since Cassy was kidnapped from their by Peter and Paul, under orders from their previous alpha.

My mind wondered again to the woman outside the bookstore, just as alpha Ash sighed. "This is not good."

Cassy looked over his shoulder at what he was looking at, usually she kept out of the business side of things since it bored her. "Nooo. Please no. We went there today, it is a great place. Give it some more time."

"What is it?" Sanna asked, picking up on Cassy's shift in mood making her concerned.

"The bookstore we went to today is not doing well."

"The one with the little old lady and the she wolf?"

"She wolf?" alpha Ash asked with a raised brow, even my interest was peaked.

"Yes there was an old woman named Margaret and a she wolf name Niomi. I got a strange feeling from her, like she was hiding something, but she was perfectly nice." Cassy said, looking at her mate with pleading eyes.

"If there is a she wolf working there then her pack can invest in it, that place seems like a sinking ship."

"Maybe her pack doesn't want to, at least go and speak to them." Cassy knew exactly how to get her mate to do what she wanted, as her eye lashes started to flutter and her bottom lip jutted out in a definite pout. Alpha Ash sighed and nodded.

"Luke, Trev, you two are with me tomorrow morning, we will go and see what we can do about the bookstore." I would have hated to admit it but I was happy that alpha Ash had asked me to go with him. I didn't know if it was coming from me or my wolf, but something inside me definitely wanted to see the she wolf Niomi again.