Page 95 of Stubborn as a Shadow

“Maybe later,” I said, and his smile returned. It made me happy.

“You must be starving, right? Days on end, holed up God only knows where… Just the two of you…” Jeremy grinned. “Forced proximity. It’s a classic.”

“Let’s get some food,” Nelson said, as if determined to get me away from Jeremy.

I patted my stomach. “I wouldn’t say no to food…”

“Oh, right! When Parker heard about you guys coming back this morning, he came over to make a shit-ton of muffins and breakfast burrito things and who knows what else. He said after roughing it for that long, you’d need something good. Brodie and Dakota are helping, but they don’t usually make breakfast, so they are more sous-chefs.” Jeremy leaned in. “Honestly, if we’d known Parker would make food for us like this, we would have told him about supes ages ago.”

I had no idea who any of those people were, but I just followed along as he pulled me through the large lobby with its oversized sofas and big fireplace toward a dining area with a lot of large tables. Was this an actual hotel?

“What about the guests?”

“Guests?” Jeremy looked confused.

“Isn’t this an inn?”

“Oh! Right! It used to be. Now it’s a pack house. Again. Sort of.” He tilted his hand back and forth. “It’s where we all live, like one big magical family. Emphasis on magical.” He sighed happily. “Come meet everyone.”

“Uh… Okay.”

Nelson stepped in front of us. “We don’t have to stay down here. We can fix up plates and go to my room instead.”

“I’m good to stay down here,” I said. “I want to meet your friends. But you aren’t going anywhere, are you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I could let you out of my sight. Not yet.”

I grinned and popped a kiss on his sexy lips. My mate was the best. Jeremy swung his arm over my shoulders and pulled me forward.

I didn’t even try to remember everyone’s names. But they were all so very lovely. They seemed so happy to see me.

I was high-fived, patted on the shoulder, and hugged. The alpha, a wolf shifter named Hayden, even came by and squeezed the back of my neck like I was a member of his pack.

Even the grumpy calico cat named Paws, who really wasn’t a cat at all, was charming in his own way. When we finally sat down at the tables to eat, and I was finally beside my mate again, Paws had commanded I be brought mango juice not coffee, like he understood I needed sugar. It made me wonder if he’d known other unicorns.

Maybe I could ask him about it later.

Our table had Ogden and his shy mate Simon, Jeremy and his mate Adrian, and Nelson. Apparently, Simon and Ogden usually ate breakfast with Simon’s family, so I was honored that they’d changed their plans for me. Ogden assured me, very convincingly, that it was his pleasure to do it.

When I’d arrived, I hadn’t known anyone but Ogden and Nelson, but the others made me feel welcome, and the whole meal was comfortable. It reminded me of Saturday morning breakfasts when I was little and my uncle was still alive. Laughter and conversation flowed around us, and my mate relaxed more with each passing moment. I hadn’t realized how stressed we’d been, or how hungry all that stress made me until it started ebbing away.

I even grabbed a second helping. The food had been set up along the one wall like the Chinese food buffet my uncle used to love. Except instead of stir-fried rice and ginger beef, this one had pancakes, bacon, sausages, eggs, those burritos Jeremy had mentioned, and about a dozen kinds of muffins. When I’d used all the maple syrup on my plate, a container of the stuff appeared in front of me.

When we were done, a couple of young supes came by to collect our plates. I tried to get up and help—because that’s how my uncle raised me—but I’d been shooed back to my seat. Soon Simon and Jeremy slipped away. Then people from the other tables left too.

A new weight filled the air, like something important was about to happen. A guy with horns, who Nelson seemed to defer to, sat at our table. Then a few others came too—the alpha, for one, and the gorgeous man in the police uniform.

“We want to ask some questions,” the horned man said. “Is that alright? Or do you want to wait?”

“I’m game,” I said.

It was unsettling to sit in front of so many supes without some kind of disguise, and I suddenly wished I had my cloak. It wouldn’t have looked all that good since I was sitting, but it’d still have been badass, just because it was a cloak. And I could use some badass-ery about now.

“Okay, let’s start with some introductions,” Nelson said. “The wolf shifter over here is Hayden, the alpha. And Van is the chief of police. He’s a hellhound. And Gage is my old team lead. He’s a demon. When he bonded to Willow Lake, most of us left the SC to stay here with him.”

Now that I wasn’t so overwhelmed with all the new, curious faces staring at me, I was remembering the stories Nelson had told me about them.

“You can trust them,” Nelson said. “They want to ask you some questions, and hopefully between all of us we can figure out why so many people are looking for you.”