chapter 46

After keeping to myself in my room and hiding in the forests the day before, the next day, my actual birthday, all I’m looking forward to is finding somewhere to hide.

Getting up early proves easier than usual since I spend most of the night tossing and turning, and being torn from my sleep from nightmares that dissolve into nothing the moment I open my eyes. I plan to scurry downstairs, make breakfast, and disappear into the forests before I see anyone, or any of the pack sees me.

But although the bed is empty, it isn’t anything out of the usual since Dayne is, and always has been, an early riser. I hear sounds from downstairs, and I’m sure I smell breakfast, which again doesn’t surprise me since sometimes Regan will get started on it if she’s staying at the farmhouse instead of her house in town.

The sound of conversation, though, is unusual and I pause for a second, not sure why so many of the pack are downstairs so early. Normally, they’ll pour into the kitchen around six-thirty to eat before the pack members who work in town leave for their jobs.

Maybe Dayne’s called an early morning pack meeting about the strange wolf they can't seem to find? Jenna did mention after their hunt that the wolf is a shifter, and is proving to be elusive. But I shake it off.

I don’t even care about my plan to prove myself Luna material by hunting out the wolf on my own. It doesn’t matter. Not today. I rush through my shower, flinging some clothes that I don’t look too closely at before hurrying down the stairs.

And then I stop dead in the kitchen doorway. The entire pack is sitting around the dining table, and the surface is heaving with breakfast. A breakfast I didn’t cook.

There are bowls of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, waffles and maple syrup, and it all looks and smells incredible. But even though my stomach wakes up and starts growling at me to join in, I don’t move.

Dayne, who has his back to me, is mid-conversation with Luka. Without pausing, or acknowledging my presence in any other way, he pulls out the empty chair beside him, the one I always sit in.

Since it’s clear he knows I’m in the doorway, and with the rest of the pack lifting their faces to share a brief smile of welcome at me, I cross over and sit down.

Savannah has changed seats. From where I’m sitting, I can no longer see her since she’s in the corner, while mine and Dayne’s chairs are right in the middle. Thank God.

My plate is already full of all the breakfast options, and after I tuck my chair in under the table, conscious Dayne’s hand is still resting on the back of my chair, I pick up my fork.

Regan is going on about the librarian’s dog birthing a litter of puppies a few days ago, and some of the pack are trying to convince Jenna it’s a bad idea to adopt one of them since dogs, in particular, can be really funny about sharing a space with a wolf, no matter how sweet Jenna’s temperament is.

Even if the dog looks at us and sees a human shape, its nose will never stop telling it that what it’s looking at is a wolf. And a predator. The only one who could is Regan as she has some strange connection with animals.

They, for whatever reason, trust her, even though she’s a wolf. She mentioned it in passing one day when we were hanging out by the lake, but as soon as I asked to know more, she outright refused to talk about it.

Between the beautiful Savannah living in a cabin in the woods, and Regan’s ability to be around animals without them having a panic attack, I get the impression there are more secrets in the Blackshaw pack waiting for me to uncover.

That’s not the only conversation going on around the table as the sound of knives and forks hitting plates, of laughter, and joking, and Dayne and Luka still going on about accounts, surrounds me. It’s all so perfectly normal.

And in this warm space, filled with light and laughter and good food, it’s the sheer normality of it that hits me the hardest. This is what I’ve always wanted.

Deep down, this is what my soul always craved, and I never knew it until this moment. This is my need and my want. The thing Uncle has ensured I never had. To be a part of a pack, to be… family.

I manage a couple of bites before I have to put my fork down because my throat closes up and my appetite disappears.

Keeping my head down, and using my hair as a shield, I shove my chair back and rise. But Dayne’s hand comes down on the back of my neck and stops me. He doesn’t say a word. Just uses the weight of his hand to hold me in my chair. Head bowed, I squeeze my eyes shut to try and stop my tears from falling as my body shakes with the need to let it out.

I don’t know how long I sit there, as finally, a determined tear squeezes out between my eyelids and slides down the tip of my nose. I just manage to brush it away before it lands on my plate, and then swallowing, sniffing, concentrating on breathing, the urge to cry lessens.

And that’s when I notice it. The silence around me. It’s the hardest thing in the world to lift my head. Not because Dayne is still holding my head down.

He’s not, now he’s just resting his hand there. It’s hard because it can’t have escaped the packs’ attention that I was fighting not to cry, and I’ve made things awkward again.

They are studiously looking the other way, or down at their plates, and I get the sense they looked away the second I glanced up. None of them laugh or stare, or view me breaking down as a source of entertainment the way my old pack would have. Instead, it’s like they’re pretending it didn’t happen, and that’s the best thing I could’ve hoped for.

“Luka, how are the trees going?” Dayne asks the beta, and it’s only then that I realized even he was silent.

“There’s more than I expected, but…”

Slowly the pack resumes their conversations, and I pick up my fork.

Regan peeks over at me and offers me a quick smile as if she’s asking if I’m okay.

I smile back at her. “Can you pass me the maple syrup?”

“Hot, or cold?”

“What?”

“Some of us like warmed up maple syrup, and some cold. So we like to have both,” Jenna says.

“I don’t care,” Marshall says, his arm slung over the back of Jenna’s chair. “As long as it’s Canadian.”

“But can we even call it maple syrup that if it’s not from Canada?” Hallee, a pack member I don’t know all that well asks.

“Sure. It’s not like champagne,” Dean says, his gaze on his cell phone.

Since he’s a freelance software designer, every time I’ve seen him, he’s always got his phone in his hand.

“And what the hell does champagne have to do with maple syrup?”

Soon, there’s a full-blown argument about maple syrup and champagne and French soil that overtakes all other discussions at the table. Regan slips me the small jug of hot maple syrup, which becomes my new favorite thing in the world. I can’t believe I never heard about this before.

I’ve grown up with the out-of-a-bottle, faux syrup. But this stuff, the real deal, is a revelation. And even better, as I dig into my slightly cold pancakes, but being nicely warmed up by the syrup, Dayne continues his quiet conversation about tree-felling with Luka.

The hand he’s left on the back of my neck shifts, and then he’s giving me a slow but thorough neck massage that soon has the rest of my tension melting away.