Pack

Chapter Four

"Um, Jace?" I opened the bag the triplets had gone out to get Scout and me for dinner. I'd asked them to get me a salad. They'd given me a disgusted look, but as I pulled out the chicken salad, I couldn't help but hate the guys a little less. I retrieved the fork and handed Scout his two hamburgers. I wondered how he stayed so trim with the amount of meat and junk he consumed. So far, he hadn't eaten anything else.

"Yeah?" Jace answered, eyes locked on the TV.

"Why aren't the rest of you eating?" Besides leaving this morning in groups, no one had left the room since. How did a group of fit males eat only once a day? I remembered when my brother, Jake, got into weight training. He ate all the time. He claimed he needed the protein so his muscles would grow. By the looks of it, this group knew a thing or two about how to grow their muscles. For a brief moment, I wondered how often wolves ate, but pushed that absurd thought aside.

"Umm . . ." His eyes darted over my shoulder to the desk. Jonathan sat scribbling something on a piece of hotel stationary.

Hmmm. Hotel stationary. Maybe I could leave a note for the hotel staff to find. At least the police would know I was alive and where to look for me.

Jonathan looked up, his gaze meeting Jace's. His gray eyes darkened and the golden ring around them brightened. I didn't know what, and I didn't know how, but a message passed between them. A chill ran up my spine. They were telepathic. Crap. Could they read my mind too? I imagined solid brick walls around my thoughts, but had no way of knowing if it worked to keep them out.

"We're not hungry." Jace's voice startled me out of my mental mind construction.

I turned to face him. "Why?"

His eyes wouldn't meet mine. "We ate earlier."

"Yeah, so did I."

He chewed on his lip. "You have to eat more often than we do."

"Why?" I pressed. He grimaced as if in pain, and started rubbing his temples. His eyes flicked to Jonathan again.

"Avery." Jonathan's voice came from behind me, but I ignore him and continued eyeing Jace.

I willed him to look at me, and eventually his gaze found mine. I arched an eyebrow, and he grimaced again. "Stop," he mouthed.

Stop what? Asking questions? No way. After what they'd put me through, the least they could do was answer a few simple questions.

"Avery!" Jonathan's harsh tone made my head whip around. Our eyes caught. My stomach knotted. My pulse picked up. Some part of me knew it was dangerous to stare him down. Pushing the fear away, I held his gaze.

"Ask me your questions," he ordered, eyes never wavering from mine.

I wanted to ask him if they were a pack of werewolves, but I couldn't picture myself saying it out loud. It sounded like such an unbelievable accusation. Besides, even if they were, would he tell me? I decided to start with something easier, something more normal. "I want to know about my mother."

He nodded and leaned back in his chair, never taking his eyes off me. "I met her when I was nineteen. You don't look much like her, but you definitely act like her." His lip twitched, and the ghost of smile played at his mouth. "I wanted to marry her, settle down and have some kids. She agreed to marry me too." His eyes stayed on me, but his gaze drifted off. "Since she was going to be my wife, I wanted to share every detail about myself with her. There are dark patches in my life I needed her to be okay with. If she was going to marry me, she needed to know the real me. I told her everything, and she accepted it. Accepted me." His gaze re-focused on me. "Then we found out she was pregnant and her feelings toward me suddenly changed. She ran away from me. I tracked her to the hospital where she'd given birth to you. I found out we'd had a daughter, which is not at all what I assumed. I was positive she would have a boy."