The past month has been really frustrating. There were two more murders of humans, so the patrolling hasn’t been doing its job to the extent it should be. It’s as if the killer knows they’re patrolling and has been able to still kill around the patrol groups. 

The more frustrating part is that Dad didn’t tell me about the murders; Ramsay told me of one and Joseph mentioned the other. How Ramsay knew, I don’t know, but I won’t ask questions if he’s willing to pass on information that’s being withheld. 

Dad’s been getting more strict, and I assume it’s because of the murders. He’s stopped letting Joseph and Ramsay go on runs at night and he’s been insisting that we stay in pairs during the day if we want to run. He was also upset that I went to the werewolf and shifter district with Callum, insisting that it’s dangerous to go where I’m not welcome. 

I know he’d be even more freaked out if I mentioned I was entering pack grounds to attend a birthday party, so I haven’t said a thing. Thankfully it starts at five, so there’s no reason that I shouldn’t be back home before curfew. Callum doesn’t think I should withhold things from Dad, but he doesn’t realize how strict Dad is. 

“Where are you going?” Joseph asks as I walk into the kitchen. “You are dressed way too nicely.”

“Maybe I want to dress up for my boyfriend.”

Joseph raises an eyebrow. “Possibly. But unlikely.” The whites of his eyes look really pink so it’s good to see that he’s drinking from a blood bag. “I have a long shift coming up, so I probably won’t see you for a couple of days.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea? I don’t even know how you still work with how much you’ve been helping Dad and how sick you’ve been looking.” I’m really worried about him with how busy and overworked he’s seemed. “Vampires have other ways to get blood. You don’t have to keep working at the hospital and stealing bags.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Joseph says, wiping the tiredness from his eyes. “I enjoy doing my part, Lennox. I’m okay. Now, where are you going?”

I sigh. “Promise you won’t tell Dad?”

“Sure.”

“Helen Adler is close to the pack just outside of the shifter and werewolf district and I want the chance to get to know that community. She and Callum were invited to the Alpha’s daughter’s birthday party and Helen got that invitation extended to me, so I’m going.”

Joseph gives me a look of skepticism and concern. “Dad won’t like that, Lennox. What if they… it could be dangerous.”

“I’ll be fine,” I insist. “Don’t tell him, Joseph.”

“I won’t,” Joseph says, but he still looks unsure. “Did you take your vitamin this morning? Dad asked me to remind you before he left.”

I nod. “Yeah, I did.”

Joseph hums before heading up the stairs, hopefully to rest before he has to go to work. He has continuously been sick and terrible looking for the past month and I feel like I’m the only one taking it seriously. I also haven’t been able to find out what Ramsay’s been up to, but Callum and I have checked a lot of different clubs at night and Ramsay is never there. 

Callum knocks on the door and we drive to the pack ground. Despite it being in the same city as where we live, it’s still a twenty minute drive to get there. As Callum explained to me, there is truly one big house surrounded by a neighborhood of smaller houses. It’s honestly amazing how it’s set up, and I feel a bit jealous that I didn’t get to grow up in a place like this. 

Helen arrives at the same time as us and she hugs me briefly. “I’m so glad you’re coming with us, Lennox,” she says sweetly. “They’re going to love you, I promise.”

“I’m not worried about love, I’m more concerned with them liking me,” I say, holding the gift that I bought in my hands. 

I asked Callum what the birthday girl would want so I could at least extend that basic birthday respect, so she’s getting a giftcard from me because I’m terrible at gifts and don’t know her. My hands are a bit shaky as I enter the house behind Helen and Callum. 

Helen is immediately embraced by a woman with tanned skin and hair that’s mostly dark but has some silver in it. 

“Lennox, this is Charity, the pack’s Luna,” Helen says as they break their embrace. “Charity, this is Callum’s boyfriend, the werewolf I told you about.”

Charity shakes my hand, looking at me curiously. “Well, I appreciate all of you coming,” she says, letting go of my hand. “Maurice is in the kitchen, I’m sure he’d like to meet you.”

Callum takes my hand and I can tell from the look on his face that he’s a bit confused by how she greeted me. She was nice enough, yes, but she kept looking at me weirdly. At least I’m not the only one who was confused by how she interacted with me. I set my gift down on the entry table with the others.

Helen guides Callum and I to the kitchen and I can instantly tell which one is the Alpha. 

He has a light skin tone, auburn hair, and dark blue eyes. He looks nice, but his entire aura shows that he’s in charge and obviously in control of his pack. He perks up a bit when we enter, and I can tell that he’s identifying an unknown Alpha’s scent in his house. 

“Helen,” he says when we approach, hugging her briefly before doing the same to Callum. “This must be the werewolf you told me about, right? The one raised by vampires?”

“Yes, this is Lennox. Callum is his mate,” Helen says. 

Maurice looks down at me, raising an eyebrow before holding out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Usually I’d be wary of an unfamiliar Alpha in my house, but if Helen trusts you, I have no reason not to.” He gives me the same weird look that his mate did. “Oh, uh, Teagan, come here.”

A young woman enters the room and she looks really similar to Maurice, so I can only assume it’s his daughter. She has wavy hair and brown eyes like Charity, but her hair color is auburn and her skin tone matches Maurice’s lighter one.

“This is my daughter. It’s her birthday we’re celebrating,” Maurice says. 

Teagan smiles at me and quickly introduces herself before going back to her friends. The primary scent in here besides Helen and Callum is made up of various werewolf pheromones and they’re all similar enough that the majority must be from this specific pack. Callum takes my hand and gives me a tour of the huge pack house, and as I’m walking around, a faint but familiar scent hits me in the face. 

I’m taken by surprise and I rapidly whip around, coming face to face with Raina. I make eye contact and I can tell that she’s just as shocked as I am. I’m wracking through all of the scenarios in my mind as to why she would be here, especially since they can all tell she’s a vampire. 

Raina stands up, excusing herself from the group of wolves she was talking to and comes over to me. She wordlessly grabs my arm and pulls me into a room. Since I never let go of Callum, he’s dragged along with me and I can tell he’s just as confused as I am. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks me in a harsh whisper, locking the door. 

“I mean, between the three of us, I’m the most likely to be invited,” I say, crossing my arms. “Callum and his aunt are friendly with the pack and I’m their plus one. What are you doing here?”

Raina sighs. “You can’t tell Dad that either of us was here.”

“Did you think that was my plan?” I ask, a bit irritated with her. 

Why does she think I shouldn’t be here? How was I supposed to know that she would be here? It’s not like she came up to the family and said that she was going to a werewolf’s birthday party when everyone else thought that she’d be at some event gathering intel for Dad. 

“Well, I’d hope not,” Raina says, sitting on the bed. 

I look around the room and see a crib in the corner, next to the left side of the queen sized bed sitting in the room. Now that I’m focusing, I can recognize that my sister’s scent takes up a big portion of this room, but it’s mixed with someone else’s. There’s a picture in a frame that I pick up and I see Raina and another girl are in it together. 

“How long have you been together?” I ask, putting the picture down. “How long have you been hiding this part of your life?”

Raina sighs. “Five years.”

“Five years?!”

“Yes, since I turned twenty one. The pack helps me out by offering me bits of intel to pass off to Dad so he isn’t suspicious as to why I’m gone so often.”

Jealousy stabs me in the gut. This pack accepts my sister, a vampire, and treats her as one of their own. She spends so much time here if this is where she is every day and she’s comfortable here.

I love my family and the home I live in, but why didn’t I get the chance to live in a pack? Why did my biological family get rid of me? What was so wrong with me that they didn’t want to keep me?

“Lennox,” Callum says, his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Fine. Just fine.” I look back at Raina. “How’d you meet her?”

“She approached me when Dad sent me out to the werewolf district to do… an investigation of sorts. She told me that I was her mate and to reject her and not waste her time. She… she was pregnant and looked so hopeless and I couldn’t do it even though I was kind of unsure about being a werewolf’s mate. I brought her back to the pack house and I didn’t leave.” Raina stands up and walks toward the door. “Do you want to meet her? And our son?”

“So not only do you have a secret double life but you also have a kid?”

Raina takes a deep breath. “Lennox, we can talk about this later, okay? Just… not right now.”

“Fine,” I say, following her from the room, Callum right beside me. 

We enter the living room and there are a lot of pups around, so I can’t really identify which one of them is Raina’s mates’ kid. Well, and Raina’s, too. Since I guess she’s been secretly raising a family without any of us knowing. 

“Camila,” Raina says, sitting next to the girl who was in the picture in their room. 

Camila has dark brown eyes and straight, dark brown hair that’s pulled into a high ponytail. Her skin is tawny and she’s shorter than Raina. Her stature and scent indicate that she’s an Omega and I’m surprised by how gentle and sweet Raina is despite her usual cold persona. 

“This is my youngest brother, Lennox and his mate, Callum,” Raina says, and I shake her hand. 

Camila smiles. “Nice to meet you,” she says, glancing at Raina. “I suppose some secrets can’t be kept forever, huh?”

“Five years seems to be the limit,” Raina agrees as a boy who looks to be around four years old rushes toward her and leaps into her arms. He looks nearly identical to Camila, so it’s pretty easy to guess who he is. “Lennox, this is Victor, our son.”

Victor begins to speak to Camila in what I think is Spanish, and Camila answers before he runs off and goes back to playing with the other pups. There’s something strange going on here, but I cannot put my finger on it. 

We have dinner, sing happy birthday, and eat cake. After that, some people retire for the night or break off into smaller groups, and I end up sitting beside Charity on the couch while Callum and Helen talk to Maurice. 

“Enjoy the party?” Charity asks me. 

I smile at her. “Yes, thank you for your hospitality and for inviting me. I haven’t spent a lot of time around werewolves.”

“Helen mentioned that you live with a family of vampires,” Charity says. “How did that happen?”

“I was abandoned as a pup and my dad took me in and raised me as his own. I don’t know why I was abandoned or where I come from, whether it be a pack or rogues, but I live with vampires now.”

Charity pats my shoulder. “I feel for you, Lennox. I had a son four years after I had Teagan but he was taken by a family of vampires and rumored to have been killed. Maurice was broken by the loss and took a team to confront the family that took him, but it ended up in their deaths and we never were able to find him.” She looks so somber but forces a smile. “I understand loss, and while you may not know who it was, you still lost the family blood related to you. I wrote a book about relations between werewolves and vampires, actually, and I include my son’s story in it.”

“I know,” I say, perking up. “Callum gave it to me for my birthday. I somehow lost it but I’m going to find it and I’m excited to read it.”

Charity gets up and disappears for a few moments before returning with a copy of the very book I lost. “Here, now you don’t have to worry about finding it. I have quite a few extra copies.”

I thank her as Callum enters the living room and asks if I’m ready to go. It’s getting late so I can’t risk staying out too long, so I get up. 

“You’re always welcome in our pack, Lennox,” Charity tells me, hugging me briefly. “I hope you enjoy the book.”

I thank her once more before following Callum out of the house.