“Noah?” the wolf hesitated, testing the appropriateness of first names. But if Noah wanted this pack to trust him, he couldn’t run things like an army all the time. There was a time for titles and a time for names.
“Yeah?”
“I thought you might want to see the transportation we’re using when we leave.” Milo tossed some sweatpants to him, and he put them on.
Noah followed him to the back of the train station. Behind two sets of tracks and one ancient train were several dozen motorcycles. He watched as Milo straddled one and cranked it up.
“Want to go for a ride?” The beta tossed him some keys. “That’s Shira’s bike.”
It looked much the same as the others. They were all black and silver.
“Sure.” He wasn’t at all sure. “I’ve never ridden one before, though.”
Milo goggled. “How is that possible?”
Time for a half-truth. “My pack growing up had access to some demon dimensional portals and we otherwise lived in a small area. We didn’t use cars or trucks much, either.” All of this was true. He was just conveniently leaving out the part about how he hadn’t been properly socialized with others past the age of eight.
“It’s pretty simple. Let me show you.”
Noah was glad Milo was being cool about it. After everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, being introduced to something new wasn’t the highest crime in the world. But then he had second thoughts.
“Let’s wait and do this tomorrow night after we hunt.”
“Sure.” He didn’t ask why, and Noah wouldn’t have told him, anyway. It was a sign that Milo accepted him as the new alpha, that he didn’t pry or push for information not offered freely.
Noah had felt comfortable leaving one relatively weak female wolf alone with Sydney, especially after his mate had made a show of strength earlier, but he wasn’t sure about leaving her alone with an entire pack.
As they made their way back to the front of the building, Noah turned to Milo. “I’ve been meaning to ask… are there no pups in this pack?” It had seemed odd to Noah when he’d seen all the wolves together the first time, but an opportunity to ask about it hadn’t come up.
Milo’s face went dark. “It’s too dangerous. Livia is from the last generation of pups that were allowed. Shira was quite a bit older than her. Their parents died trying to protect her younger brother from some vampires. The boy died as well. Soon after that was when Shira took over and banned reproduction.”
“Forever?” There wouldn’t be any kids in his and Sydney’s future. Sydney herself was an anomaly, but she was still a vampire, and female vampires couldn’t have children. But he hadn’t expected to lead a pup-free pack.
“Just until things got safer. But they never did. Now I think most everybody’s okay with it. I mean, we do a lot of drinking and cavorting without clothing. Our den hasn’t been child friendly since Shira’s sister came of age. I don’t know if we could all comfortably adjust, so I’m not sure it’ll be an issue.”
“And what if there’s an accident?” Noah pressed. Therian breeds in general were less fertile than humans, due to their much longer lifespans, and werewolves were more in tune with the times they were able to reproduce and the times they weren’t, but accidents still weren’t unheard of.
“Shira had a recipe for an herbal concoction to take care of it. It’s only happened a couple of times, and the wolves involved were in agreement. The other option is to leave the pack. It’s too dangerous for pups here. It’s dangerous enough for the adults.”
Noah nodded. He didn’t disagree. The world wasn’t the world he’d heard stories about as a pup. Resources were too scarce. And just the thought of another pup like him being taken captive by the human world and used for blood magic filled him with rage. It was bad enough to steal away the life of an adult who’d had a chance to live some of it, but there were parts of his life he would never have or get back, things that would always make him other from the rest of them who had normal childhood memories.
“Noah?”
He stopped and turned back to Milo.
“We all loved and respected Shira, but they’re following you and acting like nothing happened because they need you. And we all saw it go down. She initiated the attack, and that was stupid. She let us down. It’s not that the world is moving on and we don’t care she’s gone. It’s that the rest of us are going to die if we don’t work as a unit. We’ve seen a lot of tragedy, and we just want to survive it. If you can help us do that, you’ll never have to worry about not counting on us.”
Noah wasn’t sure about all that, but the one thing he was sure about was that his new beta was sincere. There was no artifice there, no grand agenda. If he’d gotten one good thing genetically from his dad, it had been his instincts about people.
Noah clapped Milo on the shoulder. “I know. I was suspicious of intentions until I ran with them. For what it’s worth, I didn’t want it to go down like that, but she was going to kill me. I couldn’t leave Sydney behind. What would have happened to her left alone with you guys?”
The beta didn’t respond because they both knew. The pack would have ripped her to shreds and danced in the blood. That’s if they didn’t whore her around the group first. Relations with vampires was tense enough. They wouldn’t have cared that Sydney wasn’t their enemy, that she couldn’t have hurt a fly last night. Now? The outcome of a confrontation with her was debatable.
Noah strode into the lobby to find the metal screaming out of the sound system again. The pack was more relaxed than they’d been since he was first introduced to them. A couple of wolves cuddled on one sofa in their wolf forms. Others ran around in human form.
All the clothes were in piles on the floor, and most appeared too lazy to sort through them to find their own. Noah’s original pack wasn’t as uptight about nudity as humans could be, but this pack took it to a whole other level.
Shouting rose from the bar. Noah rushed in to find a crowd around Sydney. He tensed, ready to rip heads off bodies.
“There is no way,” one of the guys said.
Sydney laughed. “Oh yes there is.”
As Noah moved closer, he could see five shots of the home brew whiskey lined up on the bar in front of his mate. Noah wasn’t going to spoil it for her by giving away the fact that vampires metabolized alcohol faster than humans or even most therians. Strangely, drugs and alcohol affected them more strongly when it came through drunk or drugged human blood. Straight alcohol posed less of an issue. Being as close as his pack had been to Anthony and his vampires had given them a clearer picture into things than these wolves had been afforded.
It wasn’t as if this pack would sit down with vampires for drinks to learn this sort of thing.
Noah was betting she’d never been able to do this before his blood—another fact he wasn’t going to point out to spoil her fun. If this got her more accepted by the pack, as long as she didn’t get hurt, he wasn’t saying a thing.
Then she downed them. One right after the other. By the last one she smacked her hand on the bar about ten times just to cope with it. The werewolves around her all howled as if she’d just led them into successful battle.