Page 48 of His Treasured Mate

By the time we left The Crate, I was drunk and ready to call it a night. Instead, we walked, or more like stumbled, over to Ben and Shelby’s house. It was a long walk, and we’d caused a bit of a scene on more than one occasion.

Even Kyle seemed to have one drink too many, and I suspected by the reactions from the people we passed that none of them had ever seen their Alpha in quite this state before. I had, but I also knew that I was privy to a different side of Kyle Westin than the one he showed others.

Being Alpha of the largest wolf shifter Pack in the world came with a whole different set of pressures than even I could comprehend. Hell, his weren’t even just wolf shifters anymore. Thanks to Westin Force, he’d opened up his territory to welcome shifters of all kinds. Many came and went, but those that chose to stay long term gave him the respect and allegiance the same as any wolf. Personally, I couldn’t even imagine how my wolves would react to a gorilla shifter moving in next door or a panther shifter joining my Alpha line. But Kyle had managed it all with the grace and assurance of a natural-born leader.

“We’re here,” Ben announced, even though we all knew it already.

“I think I’m going to puke,” Chase said just before running to a bush and doing just that.

“I need to take a whiz,” Bran said. He unzipped his pants and let it fly right there in Ben’s front yard.

“Dude, you’re marking my territory?” Kyle asked him.

“What? No. I just couldn’t hold it anymore. I had to pee.”

“I’m just messing with you.”

Oliver started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop.

Next, Liam began laughing at Oliver.

“I’m really tired,” I told them as I laid down in the grass. “This is a nice bed.”

I vaguely heard a few protests, but it was so soft and cozy that I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

*****

The sound of giggles and the click of a camera jolted me awake. My throat was dry, and my mouth felt like sticky putty. When I went to sit up, my head throbbed, and I squinted against the sun when I tried to open my eyes.

“What the hell happened last night?” Lily asked.

I groaned and motioned for her to quiet down.

As I struggled to sit up, I peeked around me to discover I wasn’t the only one who’d slept on the ground last night. All the others were there, too.

“Dammit, Thomas. You said this was a nice bed. It might have been for the first five minutes, but sleeping on the ground sucks,” Cole complained.

Among the groans of pain came several chuckles.

As I fully opened my eyes, I saw Lily standing over me, much like all the sisters were standing over their mates now.

“Did we all sleep out here?”

“Pass out is more like it,” Kyle said, holding his head.

I snorted. “Who knew I could be a trendsetter?”

“I can’t believe you even remember that,” Chase admitted.

“Most of the rest of the night is foggy. If that asshole Silas hadn’t kept buying me blow jobs, I’d probably be better off this morning. I’m so sore now.”

The pain hit me like a brick to my chest.

I looked around just in time to see my mate’s eyes well up with tears as she fled the scene.

“Lily, wait!”

I got up and started to run after her.