Abraham nodded slowly, his shrewd eyes assessing both of us equally. “Why did you leave your old pack?”
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to answer when there was a knock on the door. Abraham glanced away before focusing on me once more. “Come in, Bea.”
The office door opened and in walked a tall, beautiful woman with icy blue eyes and short, straight dark hair. She gave us each nods before walking over to stand beside Abraham. He nodded at the woman and said, “This is my sister, Beatrice. She’s the beta of our pack.”
Wes leaned forward. “You’re the beta?”
I winced at his tone and my hand itched to slap the back of his dumbass head.
Beatrice smiled, but it was frosty. “Yep.”
Abraham laughed. “Trust me, Wes. She beat every other enforcer in the pack for this position.”
Wes chuckled. “I need to see that.”
Beatrice’s smile widened until you could see most of her teeth. “I’d love to give you a demonstration sometime.”
My idiot brother clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Hell yeah.”
I shook my head, hoping he’d keep the stupid comments to himself for a minute.
Abraham focused on me again. “So, you were just about to tell me what caused you to leave your old pack.”
I did my best to hold his blue gaze while I tried to find a way to explain our circumstances without giving away the real reason we had to leave. Finally, I decided to just tell the whole truth. He’d find out eventually anyway, so what was the point in prolonging the inevitable? Besides, if we were really looking for a place to belong, that meant we all needed to belong here, not just me and Wes.
I took a deep breath. “Our old alpha wasn’t too fond of our mother living on pack lands. When our father was alive, he’d been able to hold them off, but when we lost him, things started to go downhill. Some of the other wolves were becoming unhappy with her living there with us. We left before things could get too bad.”
Abraham’s expression didn’t change as he watched me. “And why did your old alpha have a problem with your mother?”
I glanced at Wes, who just shrugged. Turning back to Abraham, I simply said, “Because she’s human.”
When the look on his face still didn’t shift from the deeply contemplative one he’d been wearing for the past couple of minutes, I glanced at Beatrice. She too didn’t look surprised. Finally, Abraham spoke up, “Is that all?”
I rocked backward at his question.
Is that all?
That was enough to get us ostracized from our last pack and given a firm no from another five. And yet this guy wasn’t even batting an eye?
“Um. Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
Abraham’s eyes narrowed. “Sounds like there’s more to the story. I want to hear it all.”
“Well, our mom is sick and the doctor at our old pack wasn’t treating her anymore. She was getting sicker and sicker and we needed to do something before we lost her too. It was either leave and find a place that would help us help her or watch her slowly die from her disease. I’m sure you can understand we really only had one choice there.”
Abraham’s expression softened. “What’s wrong with her?”
I swallowed once. “Lupus.”
He nodded before glancing at his sister. She wore a similarly sympathetic expression and my heart raced in my chest.
“I’ll be honest with you two,” Abraham began, “I’d already reached out to your old pack and learned most of this for myself. Of course, your old alpha put a certain spin on the events as you can imagine, but I’m not too surprised about that. He’d also mentioned that your mom was human, but her being sick was never brought up.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “I want to apologize for the treatment your mother has received in the past and assure you that won’t be the case here.”
My heart soared in my chest, thumping loud enough that I was positive everyone in the room could hear it. I could feel how close we were to having a new place to live and I held my breath as I waited for him to continue.
“Is your mom here with you today?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s back at the motel.”
“I’d like to meet her. Could you bring her by tomorrow?”
I turned to my brother with a frown and found a similar expression on his face. “You want to meet our mom?”
“Of course. I like to get to know all the members of my pack.”
The corners of my lips turned up without my permission. No one had ever called Mom pack before. “Does that mean we’re members of your pack now?”
Abraham glanced at Beatrice again, who just shrugged. “I don’t see why not. There will be a probationary period of thirty days, of course, but barring any unforeseen issues, we’d be honored to have you join the Asheville pack.”
The air gusted out of my lungs as my shoulders slumped and I felt Wes do the same next to me. Finally, after all this time, it looked like we were going to have a safe place to live. A safe place for our mom. Things were looking up for the first time since we’d lost our dad.
Chapter 2
Wyatt
“So, when can you all move in?”
My mouth fell open at Abraham’s abrupt question. I turned to look at my brother and found a similar expression on his face. Truthfully, I was still shocked we’d gotten this far. That an alpha had actually accepted us into his pack knowing what our mother was. It was a lot to take in in such a short
