Almost Out of Time

Chapter 11

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Chapter 11

Nicole

            I took a deep breath and leaned my head against the seat’s headrest. This was going to be a long evening.  I felt like crap. Like a mean, stupid, idiot. Chase was only trying to show me the truth. I shouldn’t have been so mean to him. And now he wouldn’t even accept my apology.

            “Nicole, I can hear your thoughts. You think rather loud,” Chase said with a small sigh.

            “Sorry,” I said automatically.

            “Don’t apologize, it tells me what an ass I’m being,” he said. But before I could reply he continued. “Let me finish. I am not mad at you. Not one bit. I can see where you are coming from. You were raised human, with no idea you might be one of us.”

            “But I shouldn’t have pushed you away so much.”

            Chase sighed and laughed once. “It would be natural for anyone to react that way. Nicole, I’m not holding it against you.”

            He stopped the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition, making me look around confused. We’d arrived at his house. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the area around us. Chase jumped out of the car and walked around to meet me.

            “I can get out of the car on my own you know,” I commented as we walked up to the house. Only it wasn’t a house. It was more like three sort of merged together. My eyes widened and my feet stopped as I took it in.

            Chase laughed at my shocked expression. “This is the Pack house. There’s only about twenty of us though. You’ve met Mack, Gabe, Derek, Hannah, Cain, and Kelly. But you haven’t met the others. Come on.”

            I followed silently inside. There was a large group of people waiting. Most of them smiled when we entered. Hannah walked forward. “I’m glad to see you two made it safely,” she smiled. Her eyes landed on my bruised wrist. “Almost safely.”

            “Chase what happened?” a woman asked with a gasp as she walked to us. She looked a lot like Hannah, more so than Chase.

            “We had a bit of a run in with another Pack member. For some reason their alpha was after Nicole,” Chase said sourly.

            “Oh honey, let me get you some ice for that,” the woman said her hands fluttering as she walked towards the doorway leading out of the foyer.

            “That’s not necessary,” I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

            “Don’t try to argue with Liza, she’ll take your head off,” a guy commented leaning against the red wallpaper.

            “I wasn’t—“

            “Calm down, Nicole, he was joking,” Cain said sending a glare to the guy.

            “I’m Jonathan, Chase’s cousin.” the guy said walking forward with his hand outstretched.

            I put my hand in his with caution. He seemed sketchy.

            “Calm down, Nicole. Jonathan won’t hurt you,” Chase’s voice spoke in my mind.

            I took a deep breath as I pulled my hand back. Liza came back carrying a small zip-lock bag of ice. She walked straight to me and set the ice gently on my wrist. I gave her a soft smile for thanks and took ahold of the ice.