Page 135 of All Packed Up

Grif’s expression grew tighter the longer the alpha spoke. By the time silence rang out, his lip was pulled up in a snarl. “Over my dead body,” he growled.

“That’s what we said!” Arlo and Tate said at the same time.

“So what are we going to do?” Grif asked.

Clearing his throat, Nic took the lead. “If they were serious, why not just go ahead and call the authorities? If they’re so innocent.” Grif nodded once, and that was all the affirmation Nic needed. “Fuck ’em. We’re not giving into their bluff, they’re at a dead end or they wouldn’t have pulled something as lame as this.”

Grif kept nodding, and Arlo and Tate made really great backup singers, hitting him with the “yeahs” and the “idiots” at the appropriate times. “So all we planned to do was tell Wendy.”

“Tell Wendy what?”

Nic stiffened, disbelief dumping over his shoulders like a bucket of cold water.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t plan to keep anything a secret, because we all suck at it,” he grumbled.

Turning to Wendy, he softened his expression at the concern on her face, and stepped closer, brushing his hand down her arm. “Is it okay if we go inside? We have something to show you.”

Wendy’s eyes widened slightly before she schooled her expression and nodded. Stepping back, she held the door open for him as he followed her in, and the others were a muffled scuffle of shoes as they followed.

“It’s about the alphas, right?” she asked.

Clearing his throat, Nic dropped his shoes by the door and caught up with Wendy. She was sitting on the couch, watching him walk toward her and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Literally.

“Come on, out with it,” she urged, waving her hand at him.

“They broke into the apartment building last night.” At her alarmed expression, Nic lifted a hand. “No one was hurt, nothing was even stolen, and no apartments were actually compromised. After that, they left me a voicemail at the gym.” Nic cut to the chase. The tense set of Wendy’s shoulders tightened further, drew up around her ears. Like she was trying to disappear into the couch.

“What did they say?”

Her scent was off, acrid with her stress, and even Nic, with beta senses, had the urge to crawl to her and comfort. Tate and Arlo had no reservations, and they settled as close to her as they could, which happened to be on the mattress, leaning against her legs.

It was such a… natural thing. To see them together, comforting Wendy when she needed them. Some voice in the back of Nic’s head chanted what he’d been trying not to put a word to, lest it spoil the idea.

Pack.

“A bunch of bullshit, so don’t worry, okay?” Grif, leaning against the archway to his part of the house, nodded. His arms were crossed, but his affirmation made Nic feel a lot more confident in his decision.

So he kept talking. “They threatened to contact the authorities if I didn’t call them with your exact location, basically.”

Wendy tensed, and Nic reached across the back of the couch to meet her fingers, gently pulled them away from her grip on the cushion of the couch. “If they were going to contact the authorities, they would have done so already. But the fact that they haven’t means…” He trailed off, hoping Wendy would—

“So they don’t want to involve the police? Why would they?” she asked, voice shaking. But Nic suddenly realized he’d read Wendy’s scent wrong. That acridity bittering her scent and that shake in her voice wasn’t fear or sorrow. It was fury.

Her cheeks flushed and her nails bit into his hand where their fingers twined. “They…” She huffed, eyeing Griffith, then the other two, before finally meeting Nic’s gaze. Her stormy eyes were awash in her outrage, and she made a decision before parting her lips.

“They bonded me against my will and tried to trap me into having their fucking kids. They are the ones who should be afraid of the authorities.”

Nic felt the words bleed through the room, soak into the alphas like a dark revelation.

Nic tightened his grip on her hand, and she squeezed back. “Exactly. So we’re ignoring it.”

They were the abusers, they had a price to pay.

“The authorities shouldn’t be the only ones they’re afraid of,” Arlo growled, voice deeper than he’d ever heard it. A sound warbled through the room, and it took Nic a few seconds to realize it was coming from Tate, of all people.

Nic swung his gaze to Grif, curious how he was handling the new information, information they’d all probably expected. But imagining something so awful and knowing for certain that it had happened were two very different things.

The alpha was standing very still, arms crossed, but his gaze was aimed at the floor. Nic recognized the tension in his shoulders though, and Nic cleared his throat to pull them all away from the dark thoughts.