Entangled

Chapter 3

Caleb

A few minutes later, I turned onto the long driveway leading to Luther's ranch. It was a sprawling, scrubby thing, probably about as big as the Alderwood property, though not as fancy, obviously.

The main advantage was that the witches didn't own a scrap of this land. In Shadehaven, that was hard to come by.

It used to be that we'd always go to the Alpha's place for meetings, but our new Alpha, Eric, had a small house more like the one I lived in. Besides not being able to fit the whole pack, he also had enough human neighbors nearby to get suspicious.

The whole thing made plenty of sense, but it was still a little weird, meeting at the Beta's property and not the Alpha's. Then again, that wasn't the most unusual thing about our new Alpha.

I was late, but I didn't regret meeting up with Lexie and driving her most of the way home. Of course, I would have preferred a re-do on the part where I almost ran her over.

And yeah, maybe that last part, too.

She wouldn't like it if she saw me with you.

I had a pretty good feeling about she meant by that, and I didn't like it one bit.

I told myself not to waste any more time thinking about Lexie Alderwood as I drove up to Luther's ranch house. That was easy enough since I had my soggy clothes and wet shoes to focus on, instead.

I parked at the end of a line of cars, then made my way up the driveway on foot. The rain had mostly stopped by now, which was why I found my little sister, Daisy, running around the yard with a couple of the kids from the pack.

I gave her a wave that she didn't notice, then walked into Luther's place. Part of me wished I could stay outside.

In the main room of Luther's house, all the adults of the pack, about a dozen counting me, were gathered around in loose clusters. I scanned the room for Ford but wasn't surprised when I didn't see him. The fact that I was here myself had less to do with me being an adult and more to do with my Dad being gone for good.

Mom cut her eyes at me and gestured for me to sit in an empty chair next to her.

As I made my way over, I noticed another woman, Billie McCloud, giving my mom the evil eye from a sofa nearby. I frowned at her in an obligatory kind of way, not that Billie noticed.

I swear Mom and Billie couldn't even remember why they were supposed to be upset at each other. But since grudges tended to have a long shelf-life in the pack, I guessed it didn't much matter.

Up at the big fireplace, Eric sat at a carved, wooden chair while his Beta, Luther, paced in front of him.

Eric's face was as calm and unreadable as usual. Over the past few months, I'd gathered that he didn't talk much, though somehow it never seemed like he was being talked over. He was less friendly than our previous Alpha, but since he had fought for the position fair and square, there wasn't much choice but to follow him.

Luther paced back and forth. Where Eric was still, Luther was a caged animal. He was a big man and about as solid as an oak tree, but when he walked, he had a rambling way about him. "We don't know it was one of us," he said. "It could have been a regular wolf."

"But the spellcasters don't know for sure, either," Ford's mother, Colleen, said. "Who knows what they'll do if they think it's someone in the pack?"

"At least the mortals just think it's some wolf is destroying their livestock," someone else said.

Mom's posture went rigid. So did mine, but for different reasons. If the pack thought one of us might be causing trouble, would Eric and Luther start looking more closely at everyone – and what we were up to between moons?