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.

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