I drew her to face me again with my hand on her chin. “What is it?”
“It’s stupid.” She shook her head. “I’m being emotional.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I insisted.
I watched as she visibly swallowed before looking me in the eye. “I know what it’s like to be left behind. To be forgotten about. After my nana died, I promised I would do everything I could to make sure anyone I came across would never feel that way.” She paused and swiped at a tear that fell. “The residents at Creekview, they deserve to know that there’s someone who remembers them. Someone from the outside.” She put air quotes around the world outside.
“Even if their families forgot about them, they still have me.”
For my entire life, I thought that finding my mate would be enough. I felt that fated mates meant all of the pieces fell into place as soon as you met. But standing there, in front of Reese with her watery eyes, telling me that she refused to give up on people many in her society deemed useless and had little time for, I realized finding my mate was just the beginning.
She slowly and methodically was unraveling the construction around my heart. And she had no idea that’s what she was doing.
Pack over everything.My father’s teachings rang in my ears, reminding me of how he raised me. The preservation of our pack was the totality of my existence as their alpha. That was what he taught me. Even finding a mate was for the pack, to produce the next alpha and beta.
But since meeting her, Reese showed me there was more to our bond than producing the next alpha.
“I want to show you something.” I held out my hand for her to take. I wouldn’t try to stand there and convince Reese that there was no need for her to return to Texas. But I could show her.
She stared at my hand for almost a full minute before her soft fingers found mine.
“Where’re we going?”
“To show you what this community is all about.”
She gave me a curious look but didn’t say anything further.
I brought us to the main road, where a few of my pack members milled about. Some children were up late, and a few were in their wolf form.
“Is that Chance?” Reese asked, glancing toward a wolf in the distance. His eyes glowed in the dark, but I instantly recognized my brother.
“He likes to spend most of his free time in his wolf,” I said, nodding at my brother.
Perimeter’s clear.He told me telepathically, though I already knew that was the case. Mountains surrounded three-fourths of our commune. There was one main road in and out. Anything or anyone coming to attack would be seen from miles away. We were safe out there, but he constantly scanned the perimeters anyway.
It was part of his nature as my lead beta. And hunters were always on the hunt for something.
“Why?” Reese asked about my previous comment.
I shook my head. “He has his reasons.” I steered her down past the veterinarian hospital.
“What’s with the huge stack of tires?” Confusion laced her tone.
“This is the material we use to build all of the buildings in our commune.”
Her eyes bulged, and her mouth fell open, making me chuckle.
“Behind the walls of mud and paint are thousands of tires, dirt, and glass bottles,” I explained.
“Are you serious? Wait.” She shook her head. “The stained glass on all of the structures are glass bottles?”
I smiled and puffed out my chest a little bit. “Yes.” I held on to her hand as I showed her around the field where we kept much of our building materials.
“After my parents’ death, I knew it was time to settle my pack. I was young and in architecture school at the time. My pack is huge. While about fifty percent live here in this commune, we still have divisions of our pack in Arizona, other parts of New Mexico, and Nevada. I have my other betas watch over those pack members and communes for me, but they all report to me.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said, looking around.
I nodded. “I’ll take you to visit each of them soon enough. But this land is where I decided to settle the majority of us because I knew that with my skills, we could create a self-sufficient community. We used about eighty percent sustainable resources to build every structure in this commune.”
