Hideout

T W E N T Y T W O

I hope you all are having a happy holiday season! If you aren't celebrating the "major" holidays at this time of the year, I hope you're happy, safe, and all your dreams are coming true. 

C H A P T E R 

T W E N T Y         T W O 

A D E L A I D E 

"So, uh, that whole howling thing... What's up with that?" I asked as Leo and I laid side by side in bed that night. We weren't even touching. Just laying on our backs, staring up at the ceiling. This had been going on for about an hour now, the two of us just making simple conversation. As strange as it seemed, it didn't feel like we had ever simply chit-chatted before.

Leo chuckled. "I forgot that it would be weird to you. It is an old tradition in the pack. It dates back hundreds of years. It is a way of saying that the group agrees and it is a sign of togetherness. It's hard to put into words."

"I can't believe you kissed me in front of them," I confessed.

"We are very accustomed to displays of affection here too. If I had a dollar for every time I walked in on someone having sex on the pack property, I would be a richer man than I am now," he explained with an amused grin. "I know some packs are more conservative. We're not. I'm not."

I rolled my head to look at him, finding that he had already angled his head towards me as well. "Are you rich?"

He nodded. "The government pays us a hefty fee for basically existing."

My brows furrowed. "What? The US government? Why?"

"They don't want anyone to know that Shifter's are real. Of course, many belief and theorize and write books about us, but no one truly knows that we are here. That we look just like everyone else. So they pay for our silence. The money is given to the leader's of the pack and we distribute it back to our members evenly. And for Alphas that abide by the government's rules and requests, they get a little extra on the side. For example, I have been asked on a number of occasions to track down and turn in a rogue wolf that is threatening to expose themselves and our species to the human race. They give me a reward if I complete that and pay me for the hours spent trying to catch them."

I was dumbfounded. "Is this common knowledge?"

Leo shook his head. "No, not common. Mostly only families in power within a pack are aware of this arrangement, but some others do know. How else do they expect to live in such nice homes without having to pay a penny?"

My gaze moved back to the ceiling. "Wow."

"Will you come kiss me, gorgeous?"

I giggled. "You are starting to get greedy. I like that we are just talking. Let's not disrupt it."

He sighed dramatically and after trying a couple more times to get me to kiss him, gave in. "What do you want to talk about then?"

Closing my eyes for a moment, I went through the many questions I had in my head about him, the pack, this world, our relationships, and any other random subtopics. "Those rogues that cornered us?" I started, looking at him so I knew he was on the same page before moving on. "What are you going to do about them?"

He shrugged his shoulders, throwing an arm under his head to rest upon. "Honestly, probably nothing at all. I'm still going to take Big Sur as mine. If they want to fight me for it, then there'll be a fight and I'll win."