Part of him envied Miles and Lia. They had the entire coast to themselves, but no pack to govern. They didn’t have to worry about the wellbeing of a twenty to thirty other people. They didn’t have to worry about which one wanted to stab them in the back or attempt some kind of test using the shifter their father accidentally made.
He was getting oddly specific, but it wasn’t like anyone else had to deal with issues like this.
Monica inched across the bed, moving to wrap her body around his back. She laid her cheek against his leg. “You can tell me. We’re Pack now. Right?”
He watched her bite her lip and look up at him with hesitation. The fear written across her face struck him in the heart, physical pain crippling him. He reached out to her, taking his mate in his arms.
“You are my everything,” he whispered into her hair. “Most of all you are my mate. Second of all, you are my Pack.”
Every movement ached as he untangled himself from her. He hated what he had to do, but it was the only way to keep her safe. His body screamed to return to her. The bear nearly whimpered. While it knew they had something to take care of, the lure of Monica was almost too much.
He only had one thing to do. Once he survived that, then he could return to her bed and wrap his broken soul around her. She watched him, too. Her eyes were trained on him the entire time he extracted himself from the sheets. They followed him as he plucked his clothes from the floor and moved toward the door.
“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. It hurt all the same.
Nikolai hung his head. Brigid was right. Nikolai needed to learn how to be a man of action. She hadn’t outright said it, but he figured that was what she—and the rest of their Pack—wanted from him. He could no longer afford to wait for Alex to come to him. The slimy shifter would creep around the edge of their Pack, chopping off any legs Nikolai had left to stand upon.
The riots, pulling shifters from Nikolai’s Pack to Alex’s cause, had been the first step. The escalation should have been obvious, but Nikolai hadn’t expected Alex to set his house on fire. While it looked like a natural wild fire, he was convinced Alex had started it. There was no way he could let it go any further.
As he paused near the door, rainbow balls spilling out into the hall, he knew there was no way he could ask Monica to help him. He wouldn’t pull her into this. She watched him with pursed lips and mournful eyes. He wanted to say this wasn’t the last time he would see her, but he didn’t know that for sure.
Closing the door behind him, his eyes burned. His vision blurred with unsplit tears. Outside, he lifted his face to the sky and willed the tears to fade. This wasn’t a time to cry. He could do that later, with his head on Monica’s shoulder. He’d never cried in front of anyone. His father would have beaten him for showing any amount of emotion.
The old man wasn’t there anymore. Now that the Pack was falling apart under the old man’s rules, Nikolai knew it was time for a new man. The one he was shaping up to be could do this. He could defeat Alex, cast out the rebels, and turn this Pack into a safe haven.
Monica let herself fall back onto the bed. Her arms spread wide, she stared at the ceiling and tried to find the willpower to leave the sheets that smelled like her mate. She knew what he was doing. Nikolai was going to face Alex head on. She should have been at his side while he did it. It was her rightful place as his mate.
But, she had other plans. Nikolai was only taking care of one problem. There were more that needed to be dealt with. That was her job. As Nikolai’s mate, as the newest member of the Pack, she needed to care for it.
Before she left, she rolled over and hugged his pillow to her face. His scent burst through the air. It comforted her soul and gave her the strength to leave the small nest they’d made.
Monica was amazed, honestly. After the day she’d had—after Alex’s visit—there had been no night terrors. She’d been certain she would wake with the sheets in shreds.
The nights of community support in Oscar’s pack had been difficult for Monica. She couldn’t stay through the night without showing her weakness. With Nikolai, she’d been reluctant. His insistence, the strength he radiated, made her let him in. She thought the night would end in a battle, but the sun had risen, and the world was still mostly whole.
She breathed deep, her soul settling with a touch of joy. Dialing Regina’s number, she hoped Nikolai’s Pack had some sort of telephone chain. She would need all the help she could get for her plan to work.
While arguing with Regina over taking days off unexpectedly, she padded toward her studio. There were sheets of paper laying across a plastic table. Each one was cut to a certain shape, becoming a stencil for a design she’d worked on over the last couple of weeks.
A groggy redhead appeared under the open garage door, two coffees in hand. She passed one to Monica before slouching on Monica’s painting stool. Behind her, Nessa strolled in. The kitty-shifter looked nearly as sleepy, her eyes half lidded. Monica glanced at the time on her phone. It wasn’t that early.
“We heard you left Oscar’s pack,” Regina began, eyeing Monica over the rim of her coffee.
Behind her, Nessa grinned triumphantly. Monica suspected the kitty-shifter pulled matches at random, plucking names from a bin. On the surface, Monica and Nikolai never should have even met. Their lives ran in two completely different circles. Somehow knowing the secrets of the universe, Nessa had pulled them together to yet again create a mated pair.
“I’m glad my losing streak ended with Miles. He was a turd.”
They laughed, the friendly chuckle filling the space that had become so hostile as of late. Over and over, shifters had waltzed into her studio space, threatening her life. With the two women—two friends—in her space, it felt welcoming.
“Are you the only two that are coming?” Monica’s stomach sank. The plan wouldn’t work without help from the rest of the Pack.
She knew it was too soon to count on them. No one knew she was Nikolai’s mate. They didn’t know to trust her. Her shoulders drooped, and the sound of Nessa’s slurping filled the air.
“I didn’t give out your address in case Alex wanted to burn down another house. Everyone is meeting us at the first location you gave me.”
Monica’s head snapped up. “Uh, he already knows. I had a run in with him the other day.”
Regina paused, turning slightly green. “You’re in one piece, so I’m going to assume it went well.” She eyed Monica for a long moment. “I’m… glad to see Nikolai happy for the first time in his life. I don’t think anyone has seen him laugh as much as he has with you around.”
Monica was lifting the stencils from the table when she paused, her brows furrowing. “Nikolai doesn’t laugh?”
Regina shook her head. “I’m honestly surprised his face isn’t made of concrete from how little he smiles.”
The things Regina said were unlike the man Monica had come to know. Even from the beginning of their relationship, Nikolai had been filled with raucous laughter and silly tricks. Not once had he come off as the serious kind of man.
“You’re a light in his life. Especially if you’re willing to go to lengths like this, whatever this is.” Regina motioned to the stencils.
Monica smiled. “You’ll see. For now, let’s just call it a group bonding experience.”
“Are we taking part in trust falls?” Nessa asked over her straw.
“You’re welcome to try, but that wasn’t in my plan.”
They took one car out to Nikolai’s old neighborhood, the stencils and a heavy bag of spray-paint cans tucked away in the trunk. There was little left of Nikolai’s house. It was nothing more than wet char, a skeleton of what had been. Monica wasted a moment mourning his comfy couch with the cup holders before turning back to her job.
The number of shifters that had shown up to help took her breath away. There were at least two dozen, of all shapes and sizes, milling around Nikolai’s driveway. When Monica stepped up to them, they were welcoming. No one stared her down with suspicion, accused her of infiltrating their ranks as Oscar’s spy. They were far nicer than she expected, and that probably said a lot more about Oscar’s pack than it did about Nikolai’s.
This was how it should be, she told herself. People took turns helping her. One hung a stencil on the wall while another cut strips of tape to keep it up. She showed them how to layer the simple image with different colors, how to align the stencils so that it created a whole piece.
Once she left her mark on the stucco wall along the driveway, Monica gave stacks of stencils to sets of shifters. People who hadn’t shared more than two words their entire lives gathered to work together. She watched with pride as they sped off into the world.
This was her last prank. It was less of a prank and more of a message. Nessa and Regina approached the graffiti on the wall. The kitty-shifter took a long drag of her iced coffee as she studied the image.
“You look like a grease monkey,” Nessa acknowledged. “I thought you’d be more into cars than paint. This is…. Amazing.”
Regina nodded. “You’re damn good at what you do. It’s too bad that panther painting got melted in the fire.”
Monica’s lips curled back from her teeth. “I’m glad it’s gone. It was part of a prank. Nikolai didn’t notice that the panther’s tail was a dildo and he wanted to hang it where everyone could see.”
Her confession brought a burst of laughter from the women. Nessa spun around with a hand over her face, coffee nearly spurting from her nose. Regina was doubled over.
When Monica turned back toward the wall, she felt a burgeoning sense of pride. The image of Nikolai, poised for action as if he were running to save his Pack, was emblazoned across the stucco. At some point, someone would come to paint over it, but he would stand there like the hero he was while it meant something.
His Pack was making copies of this image all across Nikolai’s territory. They were painting him on their homes, on their streets. Anywhere Alex went, he would see the Pack’s pride in their Alpha. He would see they weren’t giving up on the man. Anywhere Nikolai went, he would see it too.
Nikolai had been working like a man alone, a man in a void. It was high time he learned there were others willing to put their strength behind him. Monica had worried about the turn out after seeing the revolts first hand, but it had been far more than she’d hoped for. His Pack still loved him, despite a few idiots that thought they could make a “better pack.”
“Excuse me?” A familiar voice begged for Monica’s attention.
Monica remembered wrestling with the woman the night of the revolt. She was tall and built like a line-backer, her shoulders far wider than usual. The woman looked at Monica and her friends with shame on her face, tugging the corners of her mouth into a frown.
“Brigid.” Regina’s voice was cold, almost barbed. “What are you doing here?”
The woman straightened her spine. It made her even taller, but it couldn’t instill the kind of confidence that would make her seem formidable. Brigid’s confidence was broken, evident in the way she shifted from foot to foot. Monica thought there might be a bear inside her, too—a bear that had been beaten down.
“I came to say thank you,” Brigid began, meeting Monica’s gaze. “I acknowledge you as my superior.”
Monica raised a brow. She expected that kind of behavior from Oscar’s pack, the formal speech and the rigid ranks, but not from Nikolai’s Pack. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go find Nikolai and Alex. I’m sure they’re killing each other somewhere.”
The thought of Nikolai and Alex fighting made her chest tight. Monica had been able to hold back her panic while she was focused on her art, but now that the plan was rolling without her help, she couldn’t fight it back any longer. Images of the two men whaling on one another, blood spraying across grass and sand, filled her mind.
Nessa appeared by her side, gripping her hand. Monica hadn’t realized how shallow her breathing had become. She squeezed Nessa’s hand while fighting for control.
“I’ve got your keys!” Regina shouted, waving the key ring in the air over her head. “Let’s go break up a man fight!”
Monica let out a weak laugh. Unable to sit back, she snatched the keys from Regina and jumped into the driver’s seat. Brigid filled the last seat in the car, sitting awkwardly beside Nessa. The kitty-shifter kept slurping the last of her iced coffee, breaking the tension with the silly sound.