A Curse of Fate (Shifter City Fated Mates #1)

Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

T he spectators were the first to leave. After all the commotion with my entrance, and then Hurricane Hunter, everything was calm as the room emptied. The council members were mostly silent as they exited; only a few threw lingering stares my way—including Sorenson—before it was just Warrick and me.

And a tropical storm set to blow us all away.

“We need to talk, Alpha Warrick,” Hunter said through gritted teeth, his strikingly handsome face set in hard lines. He didn’t look at me, which grated on my wolf. Though only her; I was personally grateful not to be on his radar. Well, well. They might make a decent liar out of me yet.

It wasn’t my fault that my awareness of the giant shifter was distracting to the point of danger. Scent matches were as destructive as mind-altering drugs.

Not. My. Fault .

Warrick squeezed my shoulder gently, both of us ignoring the low rumble from the other alpha. “Give me a second to speak with Alpha Hunter, then we’ll get you settled.”

My senses were not as strong as other shifters, so I couldn’t hear a word of their hushed, five-minute discussion. Neither of them looked my way, but Warrick’s expression grew progressively more annoyed as he listened to whatever Hunter was saying. All good things, I’m sure.

It was clear that this alpha had no plans of letting me stroll off into the sunset, and the fact that I was on his intense radar was only going to make my plans to eventually ditch America for greener countries all that much harder. But not impossible.

Nothing was impossible when you had no other choice but to succeed.

The conversation wrapped up with grim faces and shifter dominance filling the room, and as Hunter strode past me it appeared as if he was going to keep ignoring me until…

His head snapped toward me and as our gazes clashed I gasped. Gold heavily threaded his dark irises, and the air crackled between us with an unspoken energy. He held me with nothing more than his gaze, but thankfully before I made a fool of myself and stepped toward him, he was gone, leaving my legs so weak I almost collapsed into a nearby chair. Pure strength of will kept me standing, and by the time Hunter was out of the room and Warrick had returned to my side, I’d gotten myself together. Sorta .

Okay, not at all. But fake it till you make it and all that jazz.

“Come on, Emmeline.” Warrick’s voice was gentle. “Let’s get you to your new, temporary home.”

“Emme,” I said softly. “If I had friends, I’d tell you that’s what my friends call me.”

“You’ve got friends now, kid.”

Dammit. I was already out of sorts after meeting a scent-match, which left me vulnerable to softer emotions. The last thing I needed was to grow attached to shifters or this whole pack life.

The loneliness of my life had never felt so soul withering as it did today. “Well, in the spirit of friendship, and the fact I’m no longer on death row, I’m actually twenty-five years old. So, not technically a kid.”

Warrick snorted out a laugh, and I was relieved he didn’t appear upset by my lie. “When you get to my age, everyone younger is a kid.” He paused briefly. “Also, in the spirit of friendship, let’s keep your actual age between you, me, and your scent-matched pack. At least for a while.”

“I’d really rather keep them out of it completely. It’s none of their business.”

Hello, denial, my old friend.

Warrick hid his confusion fast and didn’t push me for a reason, making him my new favorite shifter in Golden Claw. He led me down to a basement where a black Range Rover was the only car still parked. I was a bike wolf through and through, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate a four wheeler. “Nice, Alpha Warrick,” I said as I glided my palm just above the shiny paint and curved lines. “This model isn’t supposed to be released in America until next month.”

Surprise flashed across his face, followed by a genuine smile. “You know your cars. I’m a collector. My pack indulges me because I’m the one who makes the most money.”

I smothered my laughter with my hand. “That sounds like a fair exchange.”

He unlocked the door and gestured for me to enter. “What did you drive out in the human world?”

My heart panged as I think of my baby. “I had a black Yamaha YZF-R6. Nothing fancy, but she was very good to me. I assume it’s still at the hotel where they took me down.”

Dwelling on her loss would only make it worse so I changed the subject as I buckled myself in. “Is being on the council your job? The one that pays all the money?”

Warrick shook his head and started the engine; the first throaty thrum calmed me in a way I hadn’t felt since before Florida. “I head up an enforcer squad of twenty shifters. We’re like… SWAT or black-ops in the human world. There’s ten of these squads in Golden Claw, and we’re the security and law enforcement here. Interestingly enough, one of your mates heads up another squad.”

My insides twisted and squirmed at the usage of mate in such a casual way. I replied stiffly, “ Interestingly enough , I don’t have mates.”

Warrick wore an infuriating smirk as he exited the parking lot. “Right, kid. Keep telling yourself that.”

Smug bastard. I was tempted to retract my spirit of friendship .

For the rest of the drive, as Warrick weaved through bustling city streets that reminded me of a few of the mid-sized cities I’d lived in over the years, he filled me in on Golden Claw.

“We’ve moved past the days of one alpha controlling a large pack, with the rest considered betas and deltas beneath them.” His gruff voice filled the car. “With the number of dominant wolves across the five cities, we had challenges and fights constantly, until we decided to try a different way. So, in Golden Claw for example, the twenty thousand shifters are now governed by the council of twenty alphas you met today. We’re considered the strongest and most dominant alphas here. With one stipulation…”

Despite my lack of plans to ever integrate into this world, I found myself listening closely, barely resisting asking questions to sate my many curiosities.

“Only one alpha per quintet or smaller bonded pack can hold a council seat. Hence why Hunter was the only one of your mates there. All of them would slot into the top twenty strongest… right at the top .”

He was persisting with the mate thing, and I was very aware he’d revealed this information for a reason… or more likely a warning. This pack was filled with powerful alphas, and I could try to deny them all I wanted, but they were used to getting their own way.

“What did Hunter say to you just before he left?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I could mentally handle the answer, but I needed more information on this pack. Especially if ignoring them out of my life wasn’t going to be an option.

“He threatened me,” Alpha Warrick said casually, taking a right turn that brought us out of the downtown and into a more suburban housing estate. I waited for him to expand on that cryptic and worrying statement, but he just started whistling a fucking tune like we were about to head into a diamond mine while a girl as white as snow slept in our cottage.

With a huff I finally said, “Okay, what did he threaten you over?”

Warrick eased off the gas as we turned into another neighborhood where the houses were larger and the estates farther apart. He was not kidding about earning luxury car money.

He pulled the Range Rover up to a white metal gate, and while we waited for it to open, he turned and faced me. His expression was neutral, but his eyes called me a fucking idiot. “You’re not that naive, kid. What would any man threaten another man over when they’re close to their mate. I’m lucky he didn’t attempt to rip my head off in the council chambers.”

“Why didn’t he?” Wait… The fact that I even asked that question told me I was in serious need of therapy.

Warrick drove through the open gate and up the long driveway before he answered. “You’re skittish and he’s trying not to scare you off, but he’s not known for his patience. That’s my only warning. Oh, and don’t let any males touch you if you want them to keep breathing. That’s a backup to the first warning.”

I was totally screwed in a way I had no skills to fight against.

“If the alphas in Reeves Pack are scent matched, are they sexually involved with each other?” Maybe I had read their whole pack situation wrong, and they were satisfied in their current bond.

Warrick shook his head. “No. They’re brothers in the true sense of the word, and they’ve always known their fifth would be a female that they share.”

Fantastic. My vagina wept at the very thought. Just don’t ask me in what way .

We approached Warrick’s Tudor style home, which was a nice distraction from my impending doom. Despite its grand size and layout, it retained a perfectly adorable cottage facade with white walls and dark wood accents.

“This is all my mate Cora,” he said, watching me gawk over his pretty home. “Her family is English. They moved to America when she was a teenager, thank the goddess, and this was the style of her home back there. She’s my scent match, and I’d have moved England here for her if she asked me too. Thankfully, this appears to be enough to keep the homesickness away.” He parked in the circular drive, near the front door.

“How many are in your pack?”

“Five.” A perfect quintet. “But Cora is my only scent and romantic match. The other three include my brother and his two mates. We’re loyal and strong as a pack, and there’s more than enough love between us all, even though we’re technically not all bonded in the same way.”

From the little I knew, the dynamics of a pack varied with everyone. There were no hard and fast rules, and it sounded as if these five found the perfect balance. “I’m not supposed to like shifters or being in a pack city,” I grumped, unsure why I had such strong feelings of home and safety when I had literally never been less safe. “Shifters are dangerous, and you’re making it hard not to get attached.”

Warrick didn’t dispel me of my shifters are dangerous notion, and I wondered if he was thinking about the pack of alphas waiting out there for me. “That’s tomorrow’s worry,” he finally said, opening his door. “Enjoy these few days of reprieve before the real world comes calling.”

As I jumped from the car, I took a second to consider if Warrick might turn out to be an ally when I decided to escape the country. Right now, he wasn’t going to help me, but maybe if we built real trust between us, I could reveal what happened to my mom.

I’d never had an ally. I’d never relied on anyone before, not even when Mom was alive, and it grated against every instinct I possessed to ask for help.

But there was no way I could do this alone, not now that the packs knew about me.

It was a wait-and-see plan, so I decided to take his advice and enjoy a few days insulated from the real world.