Emeric winced. “I support my Alpha. Don’t worry.”
Oh, I was worried alright…about a lot of things.
Like what actually happened to his father…where the fuck his mother was…where the hell Macy was…what had happened in his old pack to make him run…and what I was going to do with him in the meantime.
“Good.” Nodding and giving him my best Alpha asshole look, I ignored Emeric’s giggle and the way Dorian was rolling hiseyes. “Alpha always wins. That’s the only thing you need to remember around here.”
“I have a feeling he hasn’t gotten anyone else to believe that nonsense.” Dorian shook his head as Emeric nodded. “He’d have a better-stocked refrigerator if anyone actually believed that.”
“And someone would’ve made sure to help him at the gas station earlier.” Emeric threw his hands up as Dorian nodded like it was a good point. “He’s too nice. If he fought more pack challenges then it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Oh.
That wasn’t good.
Dorian’s left eye twitched but he was smart enough not to react. “I think I prefer him as he is, though, so we’re just going to have to help him out.”
Emeric didn’t seem to have noticed how much he’d said with one offhand comment. “We’ll both be helpful. He needs us.”
Us?
I knew I was keeping Dorian but had Emeric decided to keep him too?
What the fuck had happened in his old pack?
Chapter 7
Dorian
“Does the pack have a therapist?” Was that even a thing in their world? It should be based on how interesting my neighbors were, but just because people needed a therapist didn’t mean they realized it.
“No.” Braun sighed, but his expression was stuck at his baseline neutral as we watched the kids run around in the backyard. “We’ve never needed one.”
Never?
“Mental health is important.” Did I need to explain that in detail?
“No. Really.” He shot me a smirk that faded quickly as he looked back at the yard at the half-dozen kids that were running around with Emeric. “No divorces in the pack. Stable households. A few hotheads but that’s to be expected with us. We’ve got a few kids who need a bit of extra help with school but that’s not what you meant.”
It was good they were keeping an eye out for those kinds of things, but he was right, that wasn’t what I’d been talking about.
“I think we’re going to need one.” I wasn’t a genius when it came to pack-related situations but nothing about what Emerichad said screamed stable and healthy to me. “Or is that just me being human?”
“No.” Braun sighed out the word as the kids Emeric was playing with said something to make him laugh. “You’re reading the situation right so far.”
Well, that was good and bad.
“Challenges are old school and violent.” Braun lowered his voice to a whisper as the kids raced around the side of the house playing some kind of chase game that seemed to have complicated rules. “We haven’t had one around here in my lifetime. I’ve heard rumors of packs still doing them but I’ve never met anyone who’s seen one personally. Well, not that I know of…but it seems like Emeric’s parents were hiding a lot.”
Yes, and it’d caught up with them somehow.
We hadn’t gotten much more out of him before the kids in the pack had figured out there was someone new to play with and he’d been dragged outside. It was probably good for him, but the not knowing was driving me crazy.
Braun was playing relaxed and calm better than I was, but I knew he wasn’t pleased with the situation.
“Am I right to assume he probably saw something…terrible?” I wasn’t sure what it was but something had made Emeric run and it felt like he was suppressing too much. “My first year of teaching, there was a boy who’d seen his parents murdered. He pushed back all of his emotions about it until they’d burst out. Eventually he got help but it took too long for his new guardians to understand he needed to talk to someone.”
Not wanting Emeric to have that long road in front of him, I knew the only way to prevent it was for him to get help as soon as possible.
