It wasn’t that he hadn’t dated, because he had. He could snap his fingers and have any unmated she-wolf in the pack. But meaningless sex had stopped appealing to him long ago, and none of the she-wolves in the pack made his wolf stand up and take notice. His kids were grown now, and Whisper was mated to a clan of hyena males. His sons were bringing their new mate, a pretty hyena named Heaven, to dinner that night.
After staring at a photo of Elise in her mating-day gown, he said goodbye to his past, closed the album, and put it in a hope chest that had belonged to her. Hefting it, he carried it to the hallway and pulled down the attic stairs. He set the box in a corner, along with her other things, then walked back down the stairs and closed the attic door. He was ready to move on. It was time.
The front door swung open and Luther called out.
Mack walked into the family room and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Luther occupied the third-ranked position in the pack, and was one of Mack’s oldest friends. He and Mack had grown up together in Beyton, fought their way up through the pack rankings together. And when it had come time for Mack to take over when his dad retired, Luther was right there, pledging his loyalty.
Mack motioned for Luther to follow him into the kitchen. They sat across from each other at the table, and Mack cleared his throat.
“First, I want to let you know how much I value you. You and I have been through a lot during our years in leadership.”
Luther arched a dark brow. “Are you dying?”
“No,” Mack said, and frowned.
“You sound dire. What have you done? Is this like that time you thought it would be a good idea to have weekly barbecues to foster pack togetherness, and all that happened was the females got disgruntled from having to do all the work?”
Snorting, Mack shook his head. “No, I promise. I’ve just decided to go to an all-shifter resort.”
Luther frowned. “Resort? For what?”
Mack’s cheeks burned, and that mortified him on some level. “It’s a shifters’ singles’ resort down in Florida, like the gatherings we used to go to in Pennsylvania where unmated wolves could meet. Someone in the pack – I’m guessing one of the females – put me on some kind of mailing list, and I started to get ads for dating websites and cruises. This one appealed to me. Basically I’ll get a nice vacation out of it, and I might meet my mate.”
Luther paused for so long that Mack wasn’t sure whether he’d stroked out, or was trying to decide if Mack was insane.
“You don’t think you could mate one of the she-wolves? Or a human in town? The female who runs the bakery is pretty.”
Mack was aware of the human, and the unmated she-wolves. But none of them made his wolf so much as twitch an eye, and that told him if he did pick one of them to mate, his wolf wouldn’t be part of the equation. He wanted to find someone who made his wolf go crazy, and also spoke to the human part of him. If she even existed, he was certain she wasn’t in Beyton.
“No. But my decision to go away isn’t what prompted me to ask you to stop by.”
Luther folded his hands on the table. “Okay. So I’ll say what I said when I first walked in: what’s up?”
Mack had always appreciated how no-nonsense Luther was.
“I’m going to promote Kross and Kayne to temporary alphas before I go, with a blood ceremony. All the positions will move up during the temporary change as well, so you’ll be beta again.”
Luther had been beta until Kross and Kayne were mature enough to fight for the position. In their pack, the alpha was a hereditary position, but the other ranks were attained by fighting. The alpha position could be challenged by others outside of the family line, but no one outside of Mack’s family had ever challenged and successfully beaten a standing alpha.
“How long will you be gone? If it’s just a week, you don’t need to assign them as temporary alphas. They can do your duties from the beta position.”
“A month.”
His brows rose. “Oh. Lucky bastard, going away for a month to tropical Florida while the rest of us are up to our knees in snow.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You have Hannah to keep you warm at night. It’s time for me to have that again, too,” Mack said.
“Well past time,” Luther said.
“I didn’t want to spring anything on you which is why I called you over. To bring you up to speed.”
“I’ve always had your back, and now I’ll have Kross and Kayne’s. They’ll be excellent alphas.”
“Thanks. The ceremony will be Wednesday night, and I’ll be leaving Thursday.”
“The pack will be in good hands.”