“My bear is a possessive diva. Are you ready to handle her? She might not be nice next time.”
“I know what she did to Cassandra.” I laugh, remembering the event as if it was yesterday and not months ago. Her bear ripped a panther shifter into literal pieces after kidnapping Flora. She could be dangerous; there was no question about that.
She refuses to meet my eyes as her smile slips. “Yeah, be careful. I may be a marshmallow, but she’s no teddy bear.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say as her eyes drift away from the window and back to my eyes. I shut down my computer, leaving the blank doc unsaved and unfinished. “Let’s go.”
“Where? Don’t you have to work?”
“I can work from anywhere. I wanna show you something,” I say, packing my laptop away and grabbing my bag. There is no way I’m getting anything done with this absolute goddess in my presence, so there’s no point in denying her wishes of shifting and seeing my Pack.
12
EDDIE
“Welcome back, Willow,”Jackson says as we walk through the front door of my Pack house. This is my home. We built this home from the ground up and one day, it’ll be filled with tons of Pack members from different backgrounds and ages.
Jackson is our Alpha, our leader. Being an Alpha is something a shifter is born as, you can’t become an Alpha like you could a Beta. Betas are chosen by Alphas and work as the second in command. Jackson and his Beta, Dylan, started this Pack together and collected the rest of us as if collector cards. Most Packs keep to their own kinds—wolves with wolves, bears with bears—but we are different.
Most of the Enchanted Pack members are wolves, but I am a bear, Flora is a panther, Felix, another member, is a crow, and our newest addition is a vampire. Jackson gets heat for accepting a variety of people, but our animals or paranormal power is only a part of us, and he believes if we fit together, then he’ll fight tooth and nail to keep us together.
“Willow Buttercup!” Flora Enchanted yells, running towards the woman in question. “Does your phone not work?”
“What? It works fine,” Willow says, pulling her phone out of her purse to check as she returns the hug her friend is trapping her in.
“Oh, why haven’t you called me back outside of work?” Flora asks, raising an eyebrow and pulling back from the hug slightly.
“Oh, I’ve been—” Willow tries to explain her way through the missed calls, but Flora holds up her hand.
“It’s okay, but don’t forget about me again. I missed you.”
“I thought she saw you last Friday?” Felix asks, walking into the room and jumping on the couch. Felix is a tall, heavily tatted East Asian man who eats and breathes technology. He’s helping us track down Ghost, but paper traces aren’t nearly as easy to track down as digital ones.
“It’s been too long!” Flora says, pulling her friend’s hands away from me and up the stairs to her room, or the upstairs living room, if I had to guess.
“Long time no see, brother,” Jackson says, waving me over to sit on the couch with the guys. I see my older game console hooked up to the tv.
“Who’s been in my room?” I ask as I watch Jackson and Felix play a car racing game.
“River,” Felix says. River is Ryder’s younger blood brother, who wears locs and a sheepish smile. He is the second youngest member now that the vamp has joined us.
“Hmm,” I say, pushing River’s head to the side as he lets out a laugh and tries to dodge my attack. “So, we just walk into people’s rooms now, huh?”
“How’re things going with the Ghost situation?” Dylan asks from the armchair next to me. The whole Pack, minus our newest additions, Remi, a teenage vamp, and Flora, is here, littered around the overly large living room. We had a recent expansion added to expand the living room since we realized ifwe grew any more, it wouldn’t be big enough, but now the room echoes.
“Nothing has happened yet—knock on wood. We visited the fairy that sold Ghost the banana tea, but she was so damn unhelpful and impossible. It was a dead-end,” I grumble. Maybe I fucked that meeting up. I should go get the answers from the shopkeeper before Dylan, or even Felix, gets any ideas and gets themselves thrown into shifter jail. They are the most violent members and are quick to pull a knife or gun out. It’s caused more problems than it’s solved, but they’re working on it, I think. Other Packs don’t appreciate that very much and neither does our Alpha.
Then there’s Leo—he’s got to be the calmest member of the Pack. He’s sitting on the loveseat with a journal in his lap. He’s a songwriter, and music is constantly playing in his ear.
“Can I have the notes, including Layla’s? I’ll investigate this Ghost character. Finding him through public surveillance has been a bust,” Felix asks, giving the game controller to River.
“Sure, but I’m not sure what else to do. What more can I do?” I’ve never tried to find anyone, let alone a motherfucking killer.
“Just watch your backs for now, and I’ll see what I can find,” Felix says, pulling out his phone. He is a tech genius and the second scariest Pack member. While Dylan is an assassin who loves to kill a bit too much, Felix is a vengeful fucker who has the tools to find anything and everything he wants.
“I’d appreciate it. While I’d do anything for Willow, this is out of my expertise,” I say with a tense laugh. I watch Felix pull out his laptop and start typing away and drift my eyes to Jackson and Dylan. One observes me with a smirk and the other with a raised eyebrow.
“Willow Buttercup, huh?” Jackson asks.
