He was damned adorable.
He ducked under his mom’s legs, nipping at her furry belly. She licked him a couple times as she made her way back across the room.
To me.
And when she sat down at my feet, her gaze scanned the rest of the pack critically. Everyone was quiet, no one moving except Rocco (who was rocking his baby).
And they were all staring at her.
She didn’t seem to care, her gaze flicking from me to her wolf pup and then tracking him as he started wandering the house, sniffing and licking everything he possibly could.
“Shit.” Ford finally broke the silence.
It was like a dam breaking.
“Who is she?” Jesse asked. “There are only what, three single female wolves in town?” He glanced at Ryder, who was off in the corner, his expression a bit hard. Ryder’s ex-mate was one of those single female wolves, but she wasn’t the woman who had been at the door.
I dug my phone out of my pocket, looking at the meal delivery app. It said her name—Lizzy.
I didn’t know why but I kept that to myself, tucking my phone back into my pocket without saying it out loud.
“I didn’t recognize her,” Zed said, shaking his head. “Elliot?”
I ripped my gaze off the wolf, who I could hardly stop staring at.
Usually, I could deal with difficult situations calmly and without a problem. But this was brand new territory for me, and it had caught me off guard.
“She’s not one of the three who’ve been around town for a while,” I said, my eyes dipping back to Lizzy, and lingering. Two of those three were in their late thirties, anyway, and werewolves rarely found mates more than a couple years older or younger than them. “She must’ve come from another pack recently. I hadn’t heard of a new single female wolf.”
“Charly said a new werewolf girl with a kid was moving in with her a few months ago. I can’t remember her name. Let me call Char,” Del said, typing on her phone for a minute before lifting it to her ear.
Charly was the only female in our school throughout my entire childhood and teenage years. She was human, and had become one of the guys a long time ago. After going to college nearby, she had become one of the high school’s two counselors. Del was the other, so they were good friends.
Murmurs were going around the others in the pack as we all watched the toddler run around the room, still checking out anything and everything. His mom still sat at my feet, watching him.
“Hey, Char. Quick question.” Del slipped out of the room, and the wolf at my feet poked my calf with her nose.
I sat on the floor behind her, my hand running over her back. “Sorry,” I murmured to her. “Forgot to introduce myself. I’m Elliot.”
She licked my arm, and then rested her head against my bicep as she turned back to watch her toddler, sort of laying on me.
When I tried to pull my hand off her back, though, she growled at me.
So I left it where it was, my eyes following the toddler too while the wolf’s head rested on me.
I watched him jump up on one of the kitchen chairs easily, and poked at the bag of Italian food I’d ordered that someone had put on the table.
“Can he have pasta?” I asked the wolf. I taught at the high school, so I wasn’t a stranger to kids, but didn’t know much about toddlers.
She nodded against my arm.
“I’m going to get him some food and pull him off the table,” I told her, a bit worried he was going to misuse all that wild energy and end up falling off.
The wolf didn’t growl at me as I stood and crossed the room.
“Hey, buddy,” I murmured, grabbing the little wolf around the belly like I would a small dog. He whined and snapped his teeth at me, until I grabbed a breadstick out of one of the massive paper bags and held it out toward him.
His teeth snapped at that instead, and I found my lips curving up in a small grin as he attacked the bread viciously.