Unveilded by the Depths

Diamond Lake Pack

Nixie

"Why?"

"I got this Beta," Shay smiles and grabs me, pulling me away from him. "You have to stay with me because you don't smell like us. So, unless you want to see the inside of a holding cell, you stay with me."

"You mean, go back into a holding cell? I'd rather not."

She gulps. "Stay really close to me."

"Like glue," I promise.

"What happened?" She hisses in my ear the minute my dad fully disappears.

"Alpha took me to your jail?" She nods and I continue, "He took me and handcuffed me to a table. Then my dad came. Now I'm here." I skip over the questions. I'm not ready to talk about them with her. But I know how to distract her. "Then Alpha left to deal with Marin. His words not mine."

Shay whistles then winks at me. "I guess I'll just show you around the packhouse, I doubt your dad will be on the phone a minute more than he needs to be."

"Who is my mother to you guys?" I ask Shay.

"Pack," Shay tells me. "Wolf shifters live in packs."

"So, shifter, not werewolf?"

She nods, "We prefer shifter and so do all the other shifters. But were is not offensive, just not as common." She winks, "Except by humans."

I nod in understanding. It makes sense. "So do the packs have names?"

"Yup. We are the Diamond Lake Pack."

"You have a lake?" I ask. "I love water."

She rolls her eyes. "We are talking about your mom, not our natural resources."

I sigh, "I'd rather talk about the lake. My mother is looking more and more like the wickedest witch. What did she do?"

Shay jams her hands into her pants pockets. "That's a hard question, Nix. I don't think I should tell you before you talk with your dad."

"You have no idea how weirdly amazing that word is to me." I roll with her changing the topic of our conversation. Her unwillingness to explain tells me all I need to know about this pack's opinion of my mother.

She nods her head. "I know. I can't believe I didn't see the resemblance sooner."

"It's not like we live that far away from each other, why have I never met him?"

"We live in different worlds, Nix. Just wait and you'll understand."

I scrutinize her, "At some point you guys-er-pack are going to actually start answering my questions, right?" She nods and before I ask more, my stomach growls and I blush.

Shay laughs, "Let's start with the dining room. They always have snacks out." She leads me down a staircase and into a huge dining room. It reminds me of a high-end hotel. Nice tables and chairs, not the fold up ones or benches like in the cafeteria at school. There is a permanent buffet line on one side and at the end of it is a full selection of snacks, muffins, fruit, cereal bars, and the like. Beyond that, at the end of the room, was a huge drink center. They had free style machines, coffee machines, cappuccino machines, a shake machine. And a huge fridge full of water bottles. And, at the other end is a window wall between it and a huge game room, complete with multiple TVs, and game consoles.

I look at my friend, "I'm in love."

She laughs and grabs us both a glass of soda and a bottle of water to add to our tray of snacks I'm holding. We sit down at a table and start eating. "There's a theater room downstairs, too."