PacksBrokenHeart Read Online Free Page B

open for Owen and clapped him on the shoulder as he walked past. “Ever since Nath and I got mated the prime single bitches in the pack have been sniffing outside our borders for big studs like you. When you do leave, just don’t pull a pied-piper act.”
    “Can’t make any promises there, Sheriff.” Owen grinned. “Can’t help it if I’m a chick magnet, now can I?”
    “Smug bastard,” Cutler huffed then returned Owen’s smile.

Chapter Four
     
    Owen arrived for the pack run late. It wasn’t by accident.
    He’d offered to drop Ryan off at the home where the pups were being watched over that evening. There he’d stuck around longer than he’d needed to. He’d taken advantage of an opportunity to spend more one-on-one time with his cousin, sure, and he’d been happy to have Ryan introduce him to his friends.
    The pups were curious about him, curious about what a soldier did and when Owen mentioned that it had made him very happy to get the drawings Ryan had mailed to him, most of the kids started hunting for paper and coloring supplies.
    They made Owen promise to pick up their pictures when he picked up Ryan and mail them to the members of his old unit still serving in Iraq.
    Owen was so touched he actually got a little choked-up inside.
    When he arrived at the pack’s running ground he hung back in the tree line and looked into the large clearing where no fewer than one hundred adult weres were milling around.
    It was a far different vibe than Owen was used to. There was no laughter, greetings, good-natured ball busting. This group was solemn and he stayed where he was, unwilling to disturb the mood that had settled over them.
    In the middle, lit up by the huge bonfire in the center of the clearing, he made out Cutler’s and Nath’s profiles. There was a gap between them and instinctively Owen knew the much shorter Fina was standing between her mates. After a few words from Cutler the pack began to form itself in a loose line. The trail rimmed the perimeter of the clearing. In ones and twos members of the pack approached Cutler and the fire. Through a gap Owen’s wolf’s eyes picked out a long, narrow table covered in a clean cloth. On the table were various boxes. He watched as the first two weres, a mated couple from the looks of them, moved past the table. First one then the other tore open a small package taken from the first box, swabbed a forefinger with an antiseptic wipe, then from the next box took out a wrapped, sterile lancet. Each lancet was very small. They each pressed the tip of a fresh lancet to their forefinger then let their blood drop into the long-handled earthenware crucible resting across a metal rack near the fire.
    One or two drops each, the members of Cutler’s pack gave their blood in tribute and mourning to a fallen Beta.
    Some of the women laid neatly folded handkerchiefs in the crucible instead, adding their dry tears to the pack’s tribute. The handkerchiefs absorbed the blood, took it in, gave it a solemn place to rest where it waited for the second part of the ceremony.
    After all the other pack members had filed by, Nath then Fina then Cutler added their own drops of blood. Cutler picked up the crucible and, using the long handle, placed it on a series of short iron tripods set in the heart of the fire. As if overwhelmed by the burden placed within it, the heart of the fire sputtered and the flames died. But the heat of the thing couldn’t be held back. Soon the crucible was obscured by thick columns of fire. Cutler tended the crucible while his pack watched in silence. He took the end of the handle, which sat well out of the flames, gave it a gentle shake now and then tipped the crucible ever so slightly then laid it back down onto the row of tripods. Sometime later he lifted the crucible out of the fire and returned it to the metal rack set away from the flames.
    From his shirt pocket he produced a small, plain, silver box. Owen recognized it, knew the engraving