“That’s good.” He paused. “Why is everyone still standing here?”
Seamus spoke. “Where are y’all going now?”
“To see the pack wielder.” He might as well be completely truthful with all of them.
“I think there’s something wrong with what he’s doing to your women. This vitamin shot he gives them might actually be making them sick. Where I’m from, there is no such thing as a pack wielder.”
Seamus furrowed his brow. “Really? You think he’s hurting the women?”
There was some grumbling in the room. “I do. I want to know what’s in this so-called ‘vitamin’ injection.”
Barge spoke up. “It’s supposed to make them potent.”
“Do you mean fertile?”
Barge nodded. Well, at least that was a little more information than he had. It still didn’t make sense. Why give it to Scarlett if none of them wanted to mate with her because of fear of her latency?
“How many babies were born this year?”
A wolf he didn’t know stepped forward. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old with brown hair and dark eyes. “I was the last baby born. I’m Marvin, by the way.”
Michael tried to make note of that name. As a rule, he had a hard time remembering names. “You were?” He looked around the room. “Seems to me, guys, that the shot isn’t working that well.”
Marvin spoke again. “Nero said it was going to take a while to work, but that ultimately it would double our numbers.”
“See, that’s the problem.” Michael felt as if he could write a book on this subject at this point. “When you have a bad leader, things tend to go askew. That’s why we all have to make sure we always have a good one.”
“Do you have a good one?” Barge’s face was so eager when he asked that question it made Michael grin. What must it be like to still view the world so brightly?
“The best. My brother, Tristan, is a great leader.”
Todd scratched his head. “How can you not be supreme Alpha?”
“Believe it or not, Tristan makes my power seem like it’s nothing.”
Next to him he saw Scarlett scowl. He’d have to ask her later what bothered her.
“Okay, well Scarlett and I are going.” This was getting awkward and he wanted out of Cole’s house immediately.
Todd smiled. “Then we’ll all go to the pack wielder.”
Scarlett laughed and then covered her mouth with her hand. Still, her amber eyes danced with amusement.
“You think this is funny?”
She nodded, still keeping her hand over her mouth.
It would be funny if it was happening to someone else. Only the fact that he had to deal with it kept his amusement factor down.
“None of you work, is that correct?”
Seamus spoke up. “No. As Scarlett said, the Betas and the latent wolves work. We now know that is not okay. But that’s how it’s worked before you came.”
“So all of those folks are presumably at their jobs and the women are at this pack wielder’s, which means that the thirty of you want to come with me.”
A thought occurred to him. “Anyone who apologizes to my mate can come. She’ll be waiting on the front steps.”
Scarlett dropped her hand from her mouth. “Michael, I…”
He tugged on her hand. “Humor me, Scarlett, it’ll make me feel better.”
“They’re all going to apologize?”
Every last one of them.
Chapter Six
Scarlett sat pressed up against Michael in the back of Todd’s SUV. She was sure her mate would have been much happier in the front seat where he could have stretched out his long legs, but he had staunchly refused to leave her side. He’d even sat next to her while she had personally accepted thirty-two apologies for bad behavior.
It was odd, watching these men who had either treated her like a servant or downright ignored her now approaching her with their eyes down and begging for her forgiveness. Truth was, she was happy to give it. Since Michael had arrived, she’d started to see that the whole pack was infected with bad ideas and the wrong teachings.
Michael had spoken to his wolf silently in the hotel room and it hadn’t looked as if he’d berated it or put it down. If anything, he’d seemed to enjoy the conversation. Step one in fixing the pack problem might be to have everyone work on their internal relationship with his or her wolf. She shrugged, not that it would be her problem since she was leaving with Michael to go to Maine and maybe die, therefore never seeing any of these people again.
She wasn’t sad about leaving New Orleans. It had never felt like home. Even though she didn’t remember her first years of life, she could remember the day she’d been carted off from her home five minutes after her parents’ funeral by a man she’d never met before who called himself Nero.
He kept babbling on and on about things she didn’t understand. Wolves, shifters, destiny and pack—he’d confused her. She was three years old and her mom and dad were dead. He’d tried to explain. Her mother hadn’t been okay for her daddy. It hadn’t been okay that they’d married. Her daddy should have undone something. He hadn’t.
But now they had to see if she was a wolf.
That had seemed silly. Of course she wasn’t a wolf, she was a little girl. She’d stuck her thumb in her mouth.
Scarlett blinked away the memory. When was the last time she’d thought about that?
Over the years, things had become clearer. Nero hadn’t killed her parents, but he hadn’t stopped the pack elders who had. Fortunately they were all dead now. No one who tried to run the New Orleans pack lived very long.
Still, if things were going to get better, if everyone was going to listen to Michael, and start behaving the way their wolves apparently wanted them to, then she might have liked to stay around and see it.
Turning to look at Michael, who had his eyes closed as he leaned his head against the back of the seat, she thanked whoever had decided she should be given to him. So far he’d been fair, brave and kind.
But then they hadn’t gotten to Zack yet. What would he do to Zack? She narrowed her eyes. It might be okay if he killed Zack, she might actually like that. She almost gasped at the thought. What was the matter with her?
If they were alone, she might have the courage to ask him. Todd, Barge and Seamus surrounded them—not to mention the two dozen or so cars that followed behind like they were in some kind of funeral procession. Where were they all going to park?
Michael exhaled loudly and opened his eyes. He gazed at her through his wolf eyes.
What did that mean? Why had they changed?
Reaching up with her shaking hand, she touched the top of his eyelid. He blinked and smiled at her.
“Why are your eyes wolf?”
“Michael’s basically asleep.”
She blinked. What? “I’m sorry?” Realization dawned on her like a light bulb going off. “Oh … you’re his wolf?”
Having never had one of her own, she wasn’t sure exactly what to do.
“That’s right.” He blinked twice. “Our boy is exhausted, but that’s what happens when he fights twice in two days and doesn’t eat.”
She gasped. Oh god, she’d never thought about it. She was accustomed to not eating for long periods of time but the men, the male shifters, they required food and lots of it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of it.”
The wolf speaking through Michael’s face smiled. “Now don’t trouble yourself, pretty lady. He’s a big boy. He can and should remember to eat.” Michael’s body shifted and he moved until his face was close to hers. Staring her straight in the eyes he spoke again. “I just have one question.”