𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒 ⸻ 𝖻𝗅𝖺𝖼𝗄𝗐𝖺𝗍𝖾𝗋

→ chapter seven.

The Pack house smelled like anxiety. It flooded the air, underlying all of the forced lightheartedness from her Pack brothers. They wouldn't want to bring up the unease that hung over the crowded kitchen. 

From her position in the farthest corner, Leah watched as they wrestled and roughhoused. Emily stared with an affectionate, loving smile on her face. Even though Leah was a wolf, this was Emily's Pack, not hers. She was their Alpha's mate and her place would never be questioned or scoffed at. Old hurt and anger flooded Leah.

After that day in Old Quil's house, Emily's scent had changed and was now sweet and earthy, signaling her pregnancy. When they had announced it, there had only been the scent of happiness but now it was apparent and unmistakable. The wolf wanted to be as close to the Alpha's mate as possible; the human wanted nothing to do with Emily. With good reason. Her traitorous mind reminded her how babies came to be and unhelpfully supplied the unwanted memory of walking in on Emily and Sam in the downstairs bathroom. In their hurry for one another, they hadn't locked the door and had been so wrapped up in each other that only Leah asking what the fuck was going on had broken the moment.

The memory burned through her like a wildfire.

"You good, Clearwater?"

She glanced up into the slightly concerned face of Paul Lahote, one hand around a burrito and the other offering her a plate. Over his shoulder, she could see Jared Cameron and Quil jostling one another, elbows into ribs, to get one. Nodding, she grabbed the plate and scarfed it down, uncaring of the look he was shooting her.

Out of all her Pack brothers, Paul was the most observant. That didn't exactly surprise her given he'd have to be to avoid whatever degenerates his uncle would drag home as a child. But ever since the pregnancy announcement, he seemed to be especially attuned to Leah and her feelings. Part of her wondered if he'd heard her thoughts when Jared and then the leech had attacked her, how ready she'd been to die.

Forcing those thoughts away, she swallowed the last bite of the first burrito hurriedly and broke the second in two, offering him one half as a thank you. As he took it and flopped down beside her feet, she couldn't help but look at her surroundings: Emily's tiny house, crowded with her Pack brothers who hated her very existence, overwhelming with their volume and size. A little house that she'd had her eye on in the beginning of the end, before Sam turned into a wolf, before the Cold Ones fucked up everything.

She and Emily had looked at this place, giggling excitedly, as they cooed and fawned over the sprawling yard that bled into the woods, the yellow bedroom that was just so cute for a baby or two, the very nice bath tub that could fit both her and Sam.

A place, a life, that should've been hers. An existence that was swept out from under her so abruptly she was still reeling from its loss. 

Paul's heavy hand on her bare ankle made her look up. His temple rested on her thigh.

"You can feel it too, right?" he said. She looked down at him, at that head of luxuriously thick, black hair threaded through with undertones of brown. He was observant, maybe too observant. "Something's going down." There was a note of suspicion, of accusation, in his voice that made her turn her attention to the table they didn't occupy. The rest of the Pack had finally sat down and were eating.

Emily rested in the kitchen, still watching with an indulgent, sweet smile. In her maternity T-shirt and shorts, she looked happy in a way Leah would never be. It was funny Emily had become the one thing she'd raged and ranted against—barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. 

The imprint bond was fucked up. It twisted the wolf into whatever the imprintee wanted, and in response, the imprintee would never be able to say no. It warped and changed those it affected. All for pups who would be cursed to the same fate if they ever crossed paths with their imprintee.