In Clint's line of work you don't live long if you don't develop a sixth sense for when you're being watched. It is this instinct that wakes Clint up the next morning to find himself staring into light blue eyes in a grey-furred face. Camden is nose-to-nose with Clint, watching intently. When he sees Clint's eyes open he jerks back, jumps to his feet and prances slightly on the bed tail wagging. Over his shoulder, Clint can see Aiden doing the same.
With a quick glance to see that Phil is still sleeping, Clint herds the two pups off the bed before their antics wake Phil. Clint changes and pulls jeans and a t-shirt out of his bag as quietly as he can, getting dressed quickly. The pups wait with barely restrained impatience. As soon as Clint takes a step toward the door, the pups bound off down the hall. He finds them waiting by the stairs. When they look at them expectantly, he sighs and stoops down, gathering a pup under each arm, and carries them down the stairs. As adults, most wolves spend most of their time in human form even when just among other wolves - hands are wondrous things - but pups usually have to be coerced into taking human form. Mobility comes easier on four legs than two.
Clint gets to the bottom of the stairs and puts the pups down and they scamper off down the hall and through the kitchen, Clint following at a more sedate pace. He enters the kitchen just in time to see Aiden and Camden burst through the back door. It closes behind them with a loud bang, and through the screen window Clint can see Karl by the firepit, laughing as the pups jump at his legs.
Caroline is sitting at the table in a light green sundress, eating a bagel slathered with cream cheese.
"Good morning," Clint says. Caroline smiles up at him with a mouthful of bagel, waving one hand in the air in a 'one moment' gesture.
"Morning," she replies cheerfully after swallowing.
Clint heads over to the refrigerator, pulling out the carton of orange juice.
"Glasses?" he asks Caroline, and she gestures to one of the cabinets above the counter on the far wall. Clint pours himself a tall glass, and puts the carton back, taking a seat at the table opposite Caroline.
"Where is everyone?" he asks, because wolves are usually early risers but Clint hasn't seen anyone other than Caroline and Karl, and the house is quiet.
"Becca's up and around somewhere. Alice and Emmett have gone for a run . . . among other things," she says with a wicked smile and wagging eyebrows. "The girls are still asleep - they tend to stay up too late at night whispering and sleep late when they can. Frank and Josie are sleeping in too, since apparently you had the boys last night."
"That ok?" Clint asks, worriedly, wondering if anyone had been looking for the pups and unable to find them. But Caroline just smiles widely.
"Of course it is," she assures him. "As long as they aren't bothering you. They tend to bed-hop a lot."
"It was fine," Clint says. "Kinda nice, actually," he admits, cheeks burning a little.
"It goes away eventually," Caroline says softly, watching him with something like empathy in her gaze.
"What does?" Clint asks, confused.
"That feeling that this is all too good to be true and that there must be a catch somewhere," Caroline answers matter-of-factly, ignoring Clint's startled look. "I thought so too, when I first got here, but this Pack really is that open and friendly."
"How did you know?" Clint asks, subdued, wondering if his skepticism has been so obvious as to offend anyone.
"I recognised the look," Caroline says, "and Phil told us a little of your background. Did he tell you about Alice and I? Where we came from?" Clint shakes his head.
"No details. Just that you had a hard time of it before you came here. He said the rest was up to you if you wanted to explain." Caroline smiles sadly.
"A hard time is rather an understatement," she says ruefully, playing idly with the crumbs on her plate. "We came from one of the West Texas packs," she says, as if that's all the explanation needed, and it kind of is.
There are a lot of wolf packs in the Southwest - the land and the culture being more suited to their needs. Only the Pacific Northwest and the Appalachians have a similar number of packs in close proximity. And of them all, the West Texas packs are the most aggressive and militant. Inter-pack feuds are common, and alliances are being made and broken all the time.
As a result, most of the packs in the area are run much like a cult - the Alpha has absolute authority, disobedience is punishable by death, and female wolves are subservient to all, often bartered or traded for favours or goodwill.
Clint imagines that someone with Caroline's looks would fetch a good 'price'.
"I'm sorry," he says. "You don't have to tell me this." Caroline shakes her head.
"No, I want to. Everyone else in the Pack knows, and it's nice to talk with someone who sort of understands." Clint just nods, expression open.
"Alice is several years older than me, you see," Caroline says. "I won't tell you how many, because a lady must have some secrets," the corner of Caroline's mouth turns up slightly, but her posture is tense, "but it was enough. She figured it out before me, and I thought she was just jealous . . ."
"It was clear from when I was young that I would grow up to be beautiful. Not just pretty, the way Alice and some of the other girls were, but truly striking. Our father was Beta, so we were a high-ranking family, and he spoiled me. He always acted so proud. I ate it up.
"Alice tried to tell me, several times, that the way women were treated there was wrong, but I didn't want to listen. I didn't care. Sure, some of the other girls were . . . unfortunate . . . in the husbands that were chosen for them, but I was the Beta's daughter. I was the most beautiful bitch in the pack. The Alpha's son was a few years older than me and I just knew I was going to be given to him. Only the best for the Alpha-to-be, and I was the best," Caroline looks down at her hands, swallows dryly, and clears her throat. Clint pushes his half-full glass of orange juice across the table toward her and she takes a long drink, smiling at him gratefully as she puts the glass down.
"When Alice was sixteen, they announced her chosen husband. She was to be given to a lower ranking wolf who had acquitted himself well in the last skirmish with one of the other packs, as a reward. He was a brute, a talented but ruthless fighter, and there were already rumours that he'd used several of the omega bitches harshly." Clint nods his understanding. In the more savage packs, omegas were the weakest, lowest ranking wolves, who could be used practically as slaves by any higher ranking wolf without consequence. It was considered the price they paid for the protection the pack afforded them.
"The night before she was set to be mated, Alice came to me and begged me to run away with her," Caroline continues. "I thought she was jealous. Sure, she'd had the bad luck to be gifted to a savage wolf, but what had that to do with me? I was going to be the Alpha's bitch." Caroline smiles self-deprecatingly, "of course it didn't work out that way." Her fingers tap agitatedly on the table.
"Alice left, and I didn't see her again for three years. The Alpha was furious, and he near killed Father for raising such a disobedient daughter. I should have figured it out then, but I was so sure that it would be different for me, so certain I was special," Caroline spits the words bitterly, and Clint reaches out and lays his hand over hers, lightly, resting his fingertips against the backs of her knuckles, stilling the restless twitching. Caroline smiles at him gratefully, before returning to her story.
"We'd been at war with a neighbouring pack for years, and a few months after my fifteenth birthday the Alpha announced that there would be a truce. He had met with the Alpha of the other pack and agreed on a truce-price. Me." Caroline swallows convulsively and her hand spasms underneath Clint's fingers.
"It all happened so fast. I was turned over that very day, before I could have the chance to run, and he mated me that night," Caroline takes a deep shuddering breath. "It hurt. It hurt so much and before I knew it I was changing. He was caught off-guard, and I tore his throat out."
"I ran. If they'd found me I'd've been killed. Alice had sent me a few letters, so I knew she was living in New Orleans. Of course, by then she had met Emmett and moved in with the Pack. Luckily she still kept in touch with some of her old friends, including the woman who lived next door. I was a bit of a mess. She asked if I was all right and somewhere in the blubbering I managed to get out that Alice was my sister and I was looking for her. Jess called up Alice and she came and got me," Caroline takes a steadying breath and looks Clint straight in the eye.
"The Pack welcomed me without any questions. I didn't think of it until much later, but Karl would have had a fight on his hands if either of my old packs had come knocking. Hell, I was rather surprised they didn't band together and come after me.
"It was months before I stopped waiting for the other shoe to fall. Alice slept with me every night, apart from Emmett because I couldn't rest in the presence of any male. Karl was the only one without a mate and I kept waiting, kept expecting him to take what he was owed from me, but of course he never did. It took nearly a year before I stopped tensing whenever Karl or Emmett or Frank walked in the room, before I stopped looking over my shoulder.
"So I know what it's like to find something that seems too good to trust. But this place really is what it looks like, and these people really are who they seem, I promise," Caroline extracts her hand from Clint's and wipes quickly at her eyes. He pretends not to notice.
Clint looks out the window at where Karl is showing the boys how to stalk bugs. He thinks of Phil and his unconditional acceptance, his unqualified support.
"Yeah," he says quietly, "I know."