I looked at Meghan, who was sitting in Abaddon’s lap, his arms around her waist. “When did this happen?”
“I’ve crushed on him forever, but he never told me how he felt until we were together this week,” she said. “Now that his vow to Eve is fulfilled, we’re going to see where our relationship can go.”
“I’m happy for you, I really am,” I said as I tipped my glass in their direction. “Hammer? I think you need a plan for telling him.”
Mia looked at me quizzically. “Hammer is her father, she’s grown up in the Club and Abaddon had been around her since she was a girl. I don’t know how he’s going to take a man of his advanced age dating his little girl.”
Meghan just laughed. “I’ll tell Mom, once she’s on our side he doesn’t have a chance.” We talked for another half hour.
I heard the thunder of paws, and looked up with everyone else to see a pack of huge wolves coming running at full speed into the yard. I set Mia down on the chair, standing in front of her as they lined up. “Mia, if you don’t want to see a whole lot of naked, you might want to close your eyes,” I told her.
She looked at Meghan. “I don’t care, I’ve grown up around them, they’re like family to me,” Meghan said. She went to the wooden box on the porch and opened the lid, pulling out a stack of shorts and shirts. The men shifted as she walked down the stairs. “Thanks for showing up, boys, but we handled it already. Mitchell is dead.” She started tossing the shorts to the guys so Mia wouldn’t be so nervous; the rest of us had gotten used to it.
“Who is she?” Gabriel pointed at Mia.
“She’s mine,” I said. “Where is Eve?”
I saw a flash of white fur as Eve broke from the woods, a handsome wolf running with her. She shifted mid-leap, and I barely had time to set myself as she crashed into me. “DADDY!”
I spun her around in my arms before setting her down. “Hi baby,” I said as I kissed her forehead. I touched the still-healing bite mark on her neck. “Are you happy?”
“Very much,” she said.
Adam had pulled on a pair of shorts and walked up to her, pulling one of his Vikings jerseys over her shoulders. “I’ll take good care of her, Dad. We worked things out.”
I pulled him into a hug. “Congratulations, and welcome to the family,” I said. “We should go back to the Cities soon, so you can meet her Grandparents and the rest of our Club.”
“Can we?” Eve was pretty excited. “I didn’t even ask, do you ride?”
“Of course, love. Up here we get more snowmobile than motorcycle riding time, but I’ve ridden since I was sixteen.”
“Good, because I need a ride back.” She kissed him, pulling him in tight as they molded to each other.
“Hey, enough of that for now,” Gabriel said. “Don’t make us throw you in the lake again.”
She pulled away and blushed. “Lake?” My eyebrow was raised as I stared her down.
“Don’t worry about it Dad, it’s wolf stuff.”
I looked over at Gabriel. “We needed to cool those two down a little so we could get back here quickly.”
“Why?”
“We didn’t have a garden hose?”
Eve buried her face in Adam’s chest, and I glared at Adam when I put it together in my mind. “Wouldn’t be a problem if I had him neutered,” I whispered.
“No grandchildren then,” she whispered back.
She looked up and noticed the beautiful woman who had walked up to me, putting her arm around my waist. I smiled and pulled Mia to my side. “Eve, Adam, this is Mia. We met a few days ago on the road and we’ve become rather close in a short period of time.”
Eve’s eyes bugged out. “You’re dating?”
“Nope. I found her and I’m not letting her go.”
Mia moved forward and embraced her. “I understand congratulations are in order for your, um, mating?”
“He just told you, didn’t he,” she said as she looked at me. “Yes, it’s like a marriage except it really is until death.”
“I have a lot to learn, but I kind of like that idea,” she said. “Your Dad is a wonderful man, I hope we become close as we get to know each other.”
Alice came up towards us. “Snake, I don’t know what the plan is, but I don’t have the food in the house to feed this many werewolves.” She looked at the two dozen big men. “I can’t imagine how much food these guys eat, Adam eats as much as we do combined!”
“That wouldn’t be fair to you for us to impose,” Gabriel said. “Abaddon, there’s got to be a place near here we can take this group to eat.”
“Betty’s Pies has enough room, it’s not that far away,” I said. “We always stop there.”
“I could go for pie,” Alan said with a smile.
“All right, I guess we ride,” I said. “How far away are your bikes?”
“Back at the old Pack House,” he said. “We’ll run there and meet you at the end of the driveway.” I thought about just meeting them at Betty’s, but he was right- they still should be protected. Since there was no Pack bond, they had to be close, so we may as well ride like a Club.
The clothes were collected, and Mia watched in fascination as the men shifted back to their wolves. “You’ve taken this well,” I told her as I hugged her gently.
“It’s cool as hell,” I said. “Did you ever wish you could be one?”
“All the time,” I said. “Our DNA isn’t compatible, there is no changing from human to werewolf, only killing your wolf part so you can seem to be more human.” We talked for a while longer as the others changed into riding clothes.
An hour and a half later, we were having a great time eating burgers at Betty’s. Mia tried their Pie Shake, where an entire slice of pie gets blended into a milkshake. It was interesting, but I’d rather have it separate. Since they had about three dozen flavors, most of us had two or three, and there was a lot of passing and tasting going on at our end.
“What happens now, Gabriel?” I looked down the table at his men. “I mean, Eve’s mated, the curse is broken, and you aren’t Alpha and you don’t have a Pack anymore. Where do you go from here?”
“I don’t know, Snake.” He looked older than I’d ever seen him. “I’ve devoted my entire adult life to serving Luna, to carrying out what she charged me with, and now I have nothing and no idea what to do next.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. You’re our friends, all of you. Let’s get back to the Clubhouse and talk to Viper. He’ll know what to do.”
“He will. Now Mia, how’d you get the nickname Mouse?”