“Oh.”
He examined the places where she’d been burned again. It was fresh, clean skin, no scars, no evidence it had ever happened. Good.
Sydney looked down at her arms where the marks had been. “I didn’t think they would heal at all. Usually if I don’t feed right after an incident, I can’t heal properly. It’s part of why my dad has been so protective.”
She bent her arm. “Like this place on my elbow…”
“What place on your elbow?”
She twisted to look. “Maybe it’s the other one. It was a long time ago.” She checked the other one. “It’s gone.”
Noah smiled. They should have let her feed from him when they were kids. Who cared what anybody thought? It would have made her healthy and strong. It still might.
She spent the next five minutes twisting and turning, checking for all the scars that had piled up in her existence. “They’re all gone. All of them.”
“I need to go talk to the pack alpha. I’ll be back here before the sun comes up, but lock the door behind me and block it with the chair. Don’t open it for anyone but me. As soon as the sun sets again, we’ll leave.”
She nodded, a serious expression on her face. He was glad she seemed to grasp the danger of being in another pack’s den. But then Sydney’s life had probably been nothing but caution.
When he’d closed the door behind him, he waited to hear the deadbolt snap into place and the sound of the chair jamming against the door handle, then he made his way down the elevator and back into the main lobby.
In the corner was a baby grand piano that had obviously been there when the place was a hotel. To one side was a bar that also looked like it had been there for a while. The bar had been brought back into service, and several of the wolves were in there, tossing back a few. Others sprawled on old sofas and chairs with the stuffing coming out while metal played over the sound system. More than half of them were lying around sans clothing because it was the full moon. They would shift and hunt or run then come back for a while and drink.
It looked like a Bacchanalia down here, and Noah was glad he’d left Sydney in the room. He smelled sex on the air. He worried he wouldn’t have been able to keep Sydney safe in this and was thankful when they’d arrived that most of the wolves were out on their initial full moon run or hadn’t been outside yet.
Piles of clothing littered the floor. Most of the wolves probably wouldn’t dig through the pile to find their clothes until the next morning.
The main doors were constantly opening and shutting as wolves shifted and ran out. A few ran back in, shifted back, and dropped onto one of many sofas, goofy grins on their faces. The blood moon was making everyone high, and the alcohol wasn’t helping. There would be two more nights of this insanity before the moon began to wane. He had to get Sydney out of here before it got too crazy. Tomorrow night would be even worse.
Eyes followed him as he moved through the lobby and toward the bar. They sensed power, and a couple of them seemed ready to throw their fealty at him. It was natural for werewolves. Most weren’t comfortable being outside a strongly organized social order, and most weren’t driven to lead. They wanted to know who to follow, who to answer to, and who would keep them safe. When a stronger wolf came into a pack, there was always a risk that wolf could take over as alpha.
If Noah wanted to take this pack and run it, he could. Easily. He’d have to mark Sydney first, so she’d be safe. The idea of running a pack appealed to him on a deep instinctual level, but he had to get back to his family.
He wasn’t sure if he could go back and be a member of his dad’s pack and not feel that hot feeling under his skin that recoiled at not having his own group to run, but he needed to see them and spend time with them. Maybe a lot of time.
He needed to learn how to re-integrate with normal life on the outside. No matter his strength or instincts, he knew he wasn’t fit to lead, not after being a caged animal for so many long years. Even just being around this many other werewolves without a structured routine and cells to divide them, made him feel unhinged.
Noah wouldn’t show Sydney that side of him. He couldn’t. She had to feel safe and know she was protected. She didn’t need to have to deal with his mental issues on top of everything else. He’d have to work it out privately for himself. He’d figure out what normal was. He’d blend. It would be fine. But right now being anybody’s alpha was the last thing he needed in his life, no matter how many heads seemed to incline the most imperceptible amount when he neared.
Their current alpha sensed it, too, and she was in panic mode. As he moved into the bar, the metal from the lobby faded to make room for smooth jazz, but the two still met at the door and clashed liked fighting siblings.
The wolf behind the bar put a glass in front of him. “What’ll you have?”
Noah wasn’t sure how things worked here. Did they use some form of currency? Was it all on the house because it was pack? He wasn’t sure if he was being treated as a guest or a patron. He held up a hand. “I’m fine.”
He’d never had alcohol, but they didn’t need to know that. They didn’t need to know he’d never drank, never hunted like a real wolf, never had sex even. If they knew any of that, the sycophants among them would go back to their current leader and fawn over her.
“You’re our guest. Try this.”
Noah watched an amber liquid being poured into a small glass. He caught another wolf tossing back a similar drink in one gulp. The other wolf slammed his hand on the bar and let out a howl. “That’s harsh, Rafe. Damn. Did you mix it with battery acid this time?”
The wolf behind the bar chuckled.
Oh great. Noah knew this. He was being tested. It was something he understood. Being watched and studied and tested and measured was familiar. He knew how this worked.
His eyes never left Rafe’s, not even to look at the glass, as he picked it up and drank it down. Holy shit. What the fuck was that? He covered an impending cough with a growl and said. “Another.”
Respect. He passed.
“Nobody can take two shots of Rafe’s home brew whiskey. Trust me on this one,” the wolf Noah had watched pound one back said.
“I’m sure I can handle it,” Noah said.
He tossed the second one back and resisted the urge to melt into hysterics as the alcohol burned down his throat.
He stood from the bar and moved to the back of the lounge and sat in an old overstuffed chair in a corner so he could see the doorway and anyone approaching him. Thankfully no one was. He recalled how his dad had been with the pack. When Cole had been distant, they seemed to hang on to every word he said more.
They interpreted distance and silence as strength and power. But Noah wasn’t trying to give off any of that, he just couldn’t handle that many people crammed around him. The extent of how different he was from the other wolves was only just now becoming clear.
When he’d been imprisoned, the canned mechanical voice had kept order. He didn’t know how the world worked out here, how anything worked without a small glass cell to go back to and spend most of his time in. He’d been surrounded by silence for so long that any amount of raucous noise made him want to crawl under a table and hide, but if he showed that kind of weakness, they’d join together and attack, and soon after they took him out, Sydney would be at their mercy.