What a disgusting thing to say! Before I could tell him exactly what he could do with it, Laurence, who was driving, piped up, “It’s my van. I’ll be responsible for it.”
I could feel my mate bristling on the other side of me, but he didn’t give in to the bait, as badly as he wanted to. And boy, could I feel how much he wanted to. Flint, however, sitting opposite Laurence, wasn’t so disciplined.
He took one look at the guy’s name tag and began to laugh. “Ken? Ken Tout?”
The ware pursed his lips and furrowed his brow at the handsome man laughing at him. “Yeah? What’s it to you, mutt?”
Flint beamed at the angry man. “I don’t give a fuck about you either way, Kenny boy, but I don’t think you should be picking any fights with people about their lineage.”
Ken leaned against the side of the van and sneered, revealing a row of uneven teeth. “Oh yeah. Why’s that, pretty boy?”
Flint could barely spit the words out he was laughing so hard. When he finally managed it, Stark, sitting directly behind him, joined in.
“Weren’t your parents, like, half siblings or some inbred goddamed thing?” Flint replied with relish, obviously recalling something he’d read when doing his research about the Tupilaq pack family tree.
Ken’s pock marked face nearly turned purple at the accusation. “Who the fuck told you that? That’s not true! It’s just a rumor. It’s never been proven!” He angrily blustered.
“I don’t know about that, bud. You’re manning an electric gate that doesn’t need a guard during an important pack event. Something tells me you don’t rank very high on thetotem pole around here. You think it’s because the community has heard the “rumor”,” he said that last word with air quotes, “about your family tree that doesn’t fork?”
“You might be pretty, mutt, but that doesn’t matter around these parts. Even with those good looks, not a single one of our women would touch your stray dick with a ten-foot pole!” Tout coldly shot back.
“Why in the world would I want a woman to touch my dick with a pole?” Flint rhetorically returned. “If that’s how you’re doing it, Tout, I can see why you pull guard duty during social events.”
“Flint,” Laurence admonished, “knock it off. We need to get going.”
Since the gate was already opening, and Kenny was having an existential crisis about his “unforkable” family tree, Laurence drove inside the compound without another word.
“I’m not going to ask you how you know that stuff,” Laurence said with a sigh, “but I suggest you keep quiet for the rest of our time on pack territory.”
Flint snorted, but Laurence, being the stern leader that he was, didn’t let it go. “I’m serious, Flint. You say something rude about the pack to the wrong member, and you’ll put Millie and the rest of us in danger.”
That sobered Flint right up. “I’m not going to do anything to embarrass you, Laurence.”
“I’m not worried about being embarrassed, Flint. I’m worried about my family getting hurt. My pull here only goes so far. The fact that they’re letting me join you today was pushing the bounds already. Please don’t endanger that.”
Flint dropped the attitude and nodded. “I won’t.”
From what I could gather, Laurence, despite being a “mutt” himself, was highly respected in the shifter community. Probably because he did what nobody else wanted to do, raising children who were orphaned or abandoned regardless of their blood ties. Because of his selflessness, he was seen as a sort of “neutral” pack leader in a world full of ruthless power brokers.
As we drove deeper into the heavily wooded compound, I shivered. Ethan put his arm around me and gave me a much-needed squeeze. My hand blindly found his and our fingers threaded together in a silent bid for closeness and reassurance that all would be well.
After what seemed like forever, the land opened up to a sprinkling of houses. Laurence drove down a few dirt roads and up a driveway of one particularly large house. I was guessing, by the size and grandeur of the place, it belonged to Osyrius or his father.
When the van came to a stop, Laurence explained, “Millie, this is your mother’s house. The Tupilaq pack has requested that you wait here until everything begins.”
So I was right. This was Malcolm’s home. And, by default, my mother’s.
“I don’t want to stay here,” I choked out then, hating the idea of spending what little time I may have left with my mate with my uncaring mother. “I want to go wherever Ethan goes. It’s my right as his omega.”
“I know, Princess,” Ethan acknowledged, brushing my cheek with his knuckles, “but this is the way it has to be. Once this is done, we don’t ever have to come back here. We can gohome and start our life together, just as we talked about. Okay?”
I wanted to argue and stomp my feet like a child, but I didn’t. I might not like pack protocol, but that disdain wasn’t going to change how they did things.
Not wanting to make this any harder on Ethan than it already was, I nodded. “Okay. I’ll wait for you here.”
“Flint is staying with you to make sure you’re well taken care of. Whatever he says, goes. Do you understand?” Ethan pressed, his grey-blue eyes penetrating my light blue ones.
Last night, while we lay in bed, Ethan had explained that if anything did happen to him, Flint had a way of secreting me out of the compound, though he didn’t tell me how. I knew that was what he was alluding to now.
