* * *
They cruised along,mostly in silence, until Alaina said she had to pee. Mallory asked if she was hungry, too, and the young woman admitted she was, so they pulled off in the Wisconsin Dells area.
Remy knew the place was a human tourist attraction, although he’d not expected it to be teeming with people in the middle of March.
And yet, it was. As it turned out, it was spring break, and apparently, indoor waterparks were a huge spring break destination in the upper Midwest.
While every restaurant was so packed they had to wait for a table no matter where they went, Remy saw that as a good thing. Generally, shifters preferred to stay away from areas heavily populated with humans. Since most humans didn’t know shifters existed, even if whoever Mallory’s pack leader might send after them caught up to them, they likely wouldn’t attack and expose themselves in a crowd like this.
When they were finally seated in a booth tucked into a back corner near the restrooms, Remy broached the subject weighing heavily on all of them.
“Let’s talk about your pack, the pack leader.”
Both Alaina and Mallory, who were seated across from him, curled into themselves, as if they were afraid his words alone would make the enemy appear before them.
“I need to know what we’re up against,” he added.
Alaina darted fearful glances at Mallory. The girl had clearly decided to throw her trust entirely into Mallory’s corner, but she wasn’t yet sure about Remy. Not that he blamed her, given recent circumstances.
A server brought them a round of waters and took their orders before hurrying away again. Mallory snagged a napkin and began steadily shredding it.
“Now that I’ve been away for a while, I realize how cult-like our pack is.” She glanced at Alaina, who slowly nodded.
“You definitely can’t argue with the pack leader,” Alaina added. “It’s his way or the highway.”
“Sounds a lot like Peter’s pack used to be,” Remy said. Had his own pack been like that? It had been half a lifetime since he’d had anything to do with a pack of bear shifters, and he almost couldn’t remember.
Were they all the same?
No. Now that Winona was in charge of the pack in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, things had surely changed. Remy hadn’t been back to visit since she took over, but he knew her personality, and he was certain she would not manage like that. It wasn’t in her nature.
“Arthur Karhu and our pack leader do share similar traits,” Mallory admitted. “For our pack leader, it’s a combination of him being raised a certain way and the power of becoming leader going to his head.”
“How was he raised?” Remy asked.
“His father was a bully. His mother was meek, did what she was told. This all happened well before I was born, but the rumors around the pack are that he abused her as well as his sons. The current pack leader’s name is Orsen. And he grew up a carbon copy of his sire.”
“What about the brother? The one who…” Remy flapped his hand instead of saying the words.
The server returned, breaking the tension that had fallen. She slid each of their plates onto the table and disappeared again. Remy waited patiently while Mallory took a couple of bites before continuing her story.
“He was younger by a few years. Much closer to their mother than the father. While Orsen tried to emulate their father, Deke tried to keep a wide berth. Again, this was all before my time, but if you ask the older shifters in the pack, they’ll tell you that Deke grew up with his brother constantly calling him a mama’s boy, and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. Their mom died young.”
She gave Alaina a swift glance. “I’m not even sure Deke had shifted for the first time yet.”
Staring at her plate, she slowly shook her head. “Not that I can muster any sympathy for him whatsoever, but, after that, until their father died, Deke was basically a punching bag for both his dad and his brother. He had no one in his corner—the only person he was close to was his mother, and she was gone. I can see where that would break a person.”
“So his reaction was to abuse young girls?” Remy asked, his blood pressure probably pushing into high-alert territory.
Mallory blew out a breath. Abused or not, he could have made different choices. Heshouldhave.
“He couldn’t get a date to save his life,” Alaina piped up. “He was the joke of the pack. No woman his own age would even look at him. The pack leader would actually make fun of him during meetings.”
“Jesus,” Remy muttered. What a fucked up life.
A freak accident that killed Remy’s parents and younger sister had left him packless at fifteen. Now, in retrospect, he realized he probably could have returned to his pack afterward; their support might have even helped him come to terms with his lot in life much sooner than he had doing it alone. Carving a path through life alone.
But he’d been a scared, grieving kid, and he’d taken off on his own to lick his wounds.
