Bloodlines

Anna

I sit at the conference table with Dean, Sara, Katie, Bennett, and Dean's two uncles: Warren and Sean. They keep staring at me and its making me uneasy. I never liked them, ever since they tried taking Dean's title.

Sara, Dean, and Katie sit at the head of the table. They talk mostly of the East Wolves and it might be the talk of that that puts me more on edge. I'm the one that keeps bringing that scent to the neighborhood. How can I tell Dean without outright saying that I'm friends with an East Wolf?

Warren looks at me. I shift, looking at Sara, but she's wrapped up in Dean's words. They're words I should be paying attention to. But how can I with Warren's eyes on me, and Bennett just a few inches to my right?

Bennett takes my hand. I look at Bennett. He pays me no attention as his hand warms mine. I look at Dean. He darts his eyes to Katie. The thing about living with wolves all your life is that you learn to control your heart, but I couldn't, not with this unexpected turn.

He rubs his thumb, back and forth across my skin. Did he sense my anxiety from Dean's uncles?

I look around at the wolves but no one looks at anyone. Warren and Sean even have their eyes focused on the papers in front of them.

Pay attention, Anna. This isn't school, this is important.

I look at Dean but he's not even talking. No one is talking. I take another glance around the room. They're talking with wolfspeak.

I pull my hand from Bennett's.

I stand, pulling some attention from the room. I leave and make sure to slam the door on the way out.

Someone calls my name but whoever it was is lost with the echo of the second door I slam.

A black wolf stands guard of the office. She looks at me, nodding her large head. I smile and walk home.

Aunt Jenna is in the living room when I open the door. Aunt Holland is at her shift at the hospital. "Anna, can you get me some chips from the kitchen?"

"Yeah." I grab some chips and toss them through the kitchen and into the adjoining living room. "I'll be in my room doing homework."

"Okay, hun." She laughs at something the TV says.

I shut my bedroom door and open up my computer. I stare at the password screen for a couple of minutes before pulling my phone out and calling Tristan. He comes to pick me up twenty minutes later. I meet him outside of the neighborhood (and office) and jump in his car.

He speeds off. "So what was the SOS for?"

"My alpha was talking battle strategy about your alpha, in wolfspeak." I finger my camera lens.

"Battle? Is there a battle going to happen?"

"No." I laugh. "Dean keeps smelling you around our houses, because of me."

"Uh-oh. Are we going to end up accidentally playing the roles of Romeo and Juliet? 'Cause no offense—"

"Offense taken."

He smiles. "But I wasn't planning on a relationship happening."

I laugh. "Hell no. We're just an East and a West wolf that happen to be friends." I get a text from Sara.

"East Wolf? Is that what you call us over there?"

"Yeah, do you not call us West Wolves?"

"No." He laughs. "We call you assholes, or whatever word works at the time." He pauses. "It's mainly Alexia that does that though."