"No luck with the handcuffs, or did you leave them in the car?" Nathan asks, peering around me as I step in the front door of the pack house after a long drive home.
"It's nothing to concern yourself about, Nathan. Get out of the way." I skirt around him and head for the den, where I hear the rest of the pack's voices merging with the sounds of a game they're playing.
A second later, Nathan drops his arm heavily on my shoulder with enough force that it nearly sends me crashing to the ground.
"Nathan!" I elbow him in the belly, but he goes nowhere. "Get off me."
"You're hiding something. Tell me or you'll force me to resort to devious tactics."
"I'm not hiding anything." And this, I tell myself, is the reason I was very careful never to reveal any hint of a relationship to Nathan. "And get off."
"After you've told me how long you and Kier have been together."
I duck under his arm as we enter the den, taking a second to scan the cozy room filled with comfy couches, colorful rugs, and a large wide-screen TV that the pack has fixed their attention on. Until I walk into the room, that is. The moment they catch sight of me, Dean shuts the TV off and they all swing to face me.
"What?" I ask as if it isn't obvious what they want. "Why are you all looking at me like that? And what happened to Dayne and Talis?"
I silently pray that they aren't in bed, because right now the only one who can save me from the nosy attention of my packmates is Dayne. Talis probably would as well if she saw I didn't want to talk about Kier.
"They went to bed. Talis was beat," Luka says, snatching the remote out of Dean's hand and switching the TV back on.
I head for the empty seat beside him, because as beta, he will be the one who I can rely on to keep the rest of the pack off my back. But the second I drop into the five-seater fabric couch alongside him, Nathan thumps into the seat beside me.
"Oh, right. What are you playing?" I ask, pointedly ignoring Nathan, which is kind of hard to do with him leaning against my shoulder.
"Nothing as interesting as what's going on with you and Kier. So… you and the mysterious lone alpha. How long has that been going on?" Marshall asks.
I glance at him, surprised he and Jenna are still here given their mating ceremony was a few hours ago. I'd have thought they'd be continuing their celebration in private.
But Marshall, still wearing nothing but a pair of white pants, has Jenna, in the sleeveless white shift dress she was wearing earlier, sitting on his knee as he strokes a hand up and down her back.
Ordinarily seeing how tender Marshall is with her would fill my heart with happiness, but right now, having been dumped by someone I believed I had a future with? Not so much. Now, it's downright painful.
After that one glance, I turn back to the TV as if the question isn't important. "Not long. I need a drink." I get to my feet, but Nathan drags me right back down again.
"Not so fast. Why are you being so-"
"Nathan," Luka snaps.
Nathan and I spin around because Luka never snaps at anyone, not ever. Even during the long drives back and forth from Hardin to Dawley, he gets annoyed enough that he threatens to throw Nathan out of the car because of our constant bickering, but that's as far as he goes.
Luka stares at Nathan. "Go get Hallee a drink."
I'm sure my mouth hangs open a little bit because this is not like him at all.
"Uh, I don't-" Nathan starts.
Luka doesn't let Nathan finish his sentence. "Tonight is about Marshall and Jenna, not about you pushing Hallee to talk about something that has nothing to do with celebrating our newly mated packmates."
At this point, I'm not the only one staring at Luka in surprise.
"Uh, thanks, Luka," I say because I never expected the dark-haired, amber-eyed and mild-mannered beta to have my back like this.
Usually, when Nathan and I argue, Luka's more likely to slip out of the room so he doesn't get drawn into the middle of our squabbling than he is to get involved.
In response, he hands me a game controller. "Here."
I take it and turn to the TV as Nathan gets up from the couch without a word, presumably to get me a drink. "What are we playing?"
"Gears of War."
I grin. "My favorite."
"No cheating. I know all your tricks, and trust me, I'll know if you do." Luka's eyes narrow at me warningly, but I know it's empty words. He may know some of my tricks, but he doesn't know them all.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Me, cheat?" I wriggle into my seat, toeing my boots off as I get myself settled in to kick Luka's ass.
The burst of laughter that goes up from the rest of my packmates has me widening my eyes in innocence. It's completely false, of course, but they don't need to know that.
"Yeah, maybe try that with people who don't know you quite as well as we do, Hales." Marshall smirks.
"Jenna?" I turn to her, because if anyone's going to believe me, it'll be the sweet-tempered submissive shifter.
The doubt in her blue eyes tells me I might be on my own. "You do cheat a lot, Hallee," she admits apologetically.
"Which," Nathan says as he pushes a large glass of white wine into my free hand before taking a seat beside me, "is saying something if even Jenna is calling you a cheat."
After taking a healthy mouthful of the dry white wine, I hand the glass back.
"Hey, I'd go easy on that if you want to have a hope of beating me," Luka warns me.
"It won't matter how much I drink. You don't stand a chance." I grin as he loads the game up.
Right now I'm grateful beyond measure to have something-anything-to focus my attention on so I don't have to think about Kier and what he's doing, and even worse, where he's going and why.