“Yes.”
“Is your intention to join?”
“From the time I was little, my guardian told me I needed a pack. I’ve wanted nothing more my whole life. I wish he could be here too, or that I at least knew what happened to him.”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, son.” Mac blew out a breath. “You already know he’s gone, right?”
Noah nodded, lowering his head. One thing to suspect, another to have someone confirm those suspicions. “Yeah, I know.” Paul, bringing home books and magazines, cooking dinner, teaching Noah how to be a wolf. His chest ached. Gods, he needed Slade right now.
“Wolf loyalty would’ve had him looking for you. I’m sorry we didn’t know about the two of you sooner. Things could’ve been a whole lot different. You didn’t answer my question, though. Since you’ve found a pack, do you intend to stay?” Mac’s intensity could’ve started fires.
Did Noah want a pack? He’d wanted other wolves for so long; now that he’d found them, he didn’t feel an instant bond or the camaraderie he’d expected. “I planned to.”
“What about Mr. Slater?”
“Slade.” What about him? Noah tried for casual with his shrug. “He can’t stay long. Maybe a month, then he’ll have to go.”
“I see.”
Somehow, Noah doubted Mac fully understood. Or even partially understood.
“Are you petitioning to join the pack?”
If Noah said yes, he’d have a pack but lose Slade. If he said no, he’d lose the pack. How much longer would Slade want him around, looking over their shoulders for hunters all the time?
Before Noah could answer, a knock sounded on the door.
Mac grinned, climbing from his chair. “This might help you make up your mind.”
He opened the door on a man and woman in their sixties, judging from the gray in their hair and crow’s feet around their eyes.
The man stared at Noah, eyes going wide. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Nothing came out.
The woman shrieked, rushed across the room, and buried Noah’s face in her ample cleavage from the force of a savage hug. “Oh, my gods, Andrew, we thought you were dead!”
Noah wrestled himself free. His horrified look didn’t back off the couple, the woman touching him, cooing over him. The man stood in the doorway, tears streaming down his face.
Noah shot Mac a “please help me!” look.
“Ed, Debra, come sit down.” Mac had dragged in another chair during Noah’s near suffocation.
The man shuffled over while the woman pulled the chairs far too close for Noah’s comfort.
“Debra. You and Ed know this young man, but he doesn’t know you. I think you’re scaring him.” Mac moved the chairs back a few feet. The couple sat down. The woman, Debra, studied her feet while the man stared at Noah like he’d seen a ghost. “For the time being, call him Noah, the name he uses now.”
The two newcomers both smelled like wolves, with something else lying underneath.
“Why did you call me Andrew?” Noah asked.
Mac spoke before Debra could, though judging by her sharp inhale, Mac barely beat her. “I told you we’ve been watching your progress. You say you don’t remember anything before the lone wolf found you?”
“Nothing. He found me in the woods, covered in blood. He figured someone killed my pack.”
The man, Ed, gasped.
Debra nodded, slipping a piece of paper out of her pocket: a photo of a man, woman, and two small boys, one unmistakably Noah. What he’d smelled was…
Family.