The Pack's Hacker (by Cooper) novel Chapter 26

Wendy

After a great night’s sleep and catching up on two nights of little to no sleep, I feel much better heading to warrior training.

“You look tired,” I say when I get to him. I thought he’d be well rested since I went to bed early.

“I stayed up late working, but it’s all good. Although, I do want to hear more about Henry and Piper by the river?” he says, his voice a question as his eyebrow raises.

“Oh my goddess. How did you hear about that?” I whisper.

“Piper said something about it, thinking I already knew. Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

“You mean besides the fact that I was mortified?” I ask as my brother and Cyra begin the warm-up. “Mortified because you saw two people having sex?” he asks, as if this should be commonplace.

“Mortified because Henry is like a brother to me,” I whisper-yell at him.

“So it wasn’t that two people were having sex, right? Because, as tech people, we come across that a LOT. You need to be prepared for that,” he says.

“But Piper was being loud enough that the entire Alpha Squad heard her,” I tell him.

“First, sound carries on water. You need to remember that if you’re ever working near water. Everyone on Alpha Squad knows that already, so they were just … taunting, or being jealous that someone was getting it on and they weren’t. Hijack also knows that, for the record. Second, they are fated mates. If a man can’t make his mate scream like that when they’re together, he doesn’t deserve her.” (1

I freeze, thinking about what Jude and I talked about yesterday in the car. If we’re mates …

Jude looks over at me and when Yorick calls for us to take our fighting stances, he steps close, his face brushing against mine as his breath tickles my ear.

“Believe me when I say, if we’re mates, whatever you heard from Piper will be nothing compared to the screams and moans that you will make. If you aren’t screaming loudly about how good I’m making you feel, if you aren’t so lost in pleasure that you don’t care who hears you, then I’m not doing my job as your mate,” he whispers so only I can hear. 1

I gasp. My body has never responded to any man the way it just responded to Jude’s words. Could he really make me forget where I am? So much so that I wouldn’t care about someone hearing us?

“Trust me. I mean every word that I just said, Wendy,” he whispers before pulling away from me. 1

I feel the sudden loss of his heat, the feeling of being grounded by his closeness. I’m pretty sure I sway, then shake my head, trying to focus again.

“Ready?” he says, taking a defensive stance.

Nope, I’m not ready at all. But I have been trained by my father, my brothers, and even Jude, so I pull myself together and I take an offensive stance.

Jude must realize how much he’s distracted me because he goes easy on me. By easy, I mean he takes me down again and again, but it’s not the hardest he’s hit me in the past and not the fastest he’s taken me down.

When Yorick finally calls an end to sparring, Jude grins at me. “Still thinking about what I said?”

“How can I not?” I answer honestly.

“Don’t over think it. You still have a couple of months before you might find out.”

Somehow, that makes it so much worse.

‘That’s because we want to know if he can really make us forget everything except him,’ Dasha purrs in my head. ‘I think he could. I bet Saggio could.’

“Wait, have you ever had sex outside?” I whisper, looking around quickly to make sure no one overheard me.

“Wendy, we’re part animal. Our wolves love being outside. Are you telling me that the idea of laying in the soft grass with cool breeze blowing across your skin and the warm sun shining down on you while your mate makes you feel incredible pleasure doesn’t sound good to you and Dasha?” he asks.

Well, when he puts it like that.

“I’ve never really thought about it like that. I’ve only ever thought of it as a risk of getting caught,” I say.

“Well, that adds to the excitement, sure. But there’s something about being exposed in nature that is invigorating and beautiful.”

An unexpected wave of hot jealousy pulses through me. Who has Jude been having sex with in nature? Who has made him feel’ invigorated’?

His eyes narrow, and I realize he must have seen my reaction to his comment, but at that moment, we’re interrupted by Yana. “UGH! That man is impossible!”

I quickly turn my attention to her.

“I take it you didn’t defeat Hijack?” I ask her.

“No. Not even close! And every time I brought up one of the names that we talked about last night, Hacker, he came back with some version of a novice.”

“I don’t know, ‘neophyte’ has a nice ring to it,” Hijack says as he walks over. His lips are twitching and I can tell that he’s having fun annoying Yana.

“Did you at least learn some new fighting skills, Yana?” Jude asks her.

She huffs. “Yes,” she says, glaring at Hijack like learning a new skill offended her. Now he grins.

“Why don’t you show Hacker what you learned,” he says.

Instantly, Yana gets excited and looks at Jude. “Can I?”

Jude gives Hijack a wary look, like he’s sure that whatever he taught Yana was meant for him.

“Yeah, let’s see what you’ve got,” he says. Hijack and I step back and Jude gets in a defensive posture.

The minute he’s ready, Yana attacks, swinging her leg at his head. Jude barely ducks in time, her leg swinging over his head. She uses the momentum of the kick to swing to the side. Then she shifts her weight, and kicks out, catching Jude in the stomach. He grunts but grabs her leg to shove her back.

My sister surprises me by being ready for that and instead of getting pushed to her butt, she swings her other leg up toward his head again.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jude asks.

“Maybe once you return. It won’t help for you to start something when you’re leaving in a few days,” Hijack says. “Is Vivienne okay?” I ask.

“For now. But it’s getting even more dangerous. I need to talk to Alpha Quirin before I leave. He wants a report on what’s happening, but I don’t have much to tell him, not yet anyway. Hopefully once Alpha Squad is involved, we’ll start getting some answers.” 1

“I’ll focus on the upcoming court dates while Tracker and Sphinx focus on finding our missing trio. That will give you a chance to focus solely on finding this ring of human traffickers,” Jude says.

“There’s also that prison break we need to work on,” Hijack says.

I watch as something unspoken passes between them. “I’ll focus on that too. I did some work on that last night,” Jude says. “I saw that.”

“I think C-Squad is going into the prison to make sure it’s secure and there won’t be another break out. I’m supposed to check in with Saber today. I’m sure if we find anything, you’ll hear about it,” Yorick says.

Over breakfast, the conversation shifts to lighter subjects. I take the opportunity to hold my nephew, Cyrus, while catching up with Wade and Yvonne. I watch as Quirin and Hijack step out of the dining hall together, most likely for Hijack to give him an update on what’s happening.

After breakfast, Jude follows me to my new room in this packhouse. Together we contact Tracker and get an update on where she’s been searching for Patrick, Peter, and Justine.

“I am all ears if you have any new ideas, Sphinx. I have no idea where these three are hiding, but they’re doing a damn good job of it and it’s pissing me off,” she growls. (1

“I’m happy to help and I’ll see if I can come up with any new ideas,” I tell her.

After we hang up, I walk Jude to his car.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I tell him as he tosses his bag into the backseat. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him.

“It’s just a few days, then I get to watch you graduate and THEN we get to go meet my family.”

“I can still video call you at night, right?” I ask.

“I’ll be offended if you don’t. Oh, and by the way,” he says, kissing my nose. “That flash of jealousy I saw earlier? It’s not necessary. I’m older than you are, Wendy. I’ve had relationships with women before. None of them have been serious or lasted very long. And none of them were ever invited to meet my family,” he says, making my heart flutter with happiness.

“Okay,” I say softly.

“Okay,” he says, before kissing me in that way that I love, where I forget everything except Jude.

I watch as he pulls away, waving until I can’t see him any longer.

‘You realize that if he can make us forget everything with just a kiss, that he’d have no problem making us scream when we have sex, right?’ Dasha purrs in my head.

Holy Mother Moon Goddess, she’s right!