Josephine's Secret

7. Sophie

"Carly's being locked up, what happens now?"

"We work on getting your siblings back, finding out where the rest of your family is, and how all of this happened." he tells me, listing everything like a simple to-do list. None of this is going to be simple; if it were, I would have Nate and Elia with me right now. "Most likely all of this is connected. I'm going to ask Carly a couple questions and I'll report back to you afterwards."

"How will you know if she's telling the truth?"

"I'm an Alpha, my wolf and I automatically know when our pack members are lying to us. You'll be able to do the same when you become Luna." he answers. "As we get closer and progress through the mating bond, you'll slowly gain Luna abilities."

"Oh." I nod, not really having anything else to say. Now that I know that Archer doesn't actually have a secretary and that I was being played by Carly for the past two years, I'm starting to question a lot of things. Did my parents pay her to do what she did? Or did she really think that she had the right to pretend to be a secretary for Archer? This could be a completely separate problem, but it still has ties to the security breach, and the security breach is connected to my situation.

"Turns out some people thought that Carly is the 'mystery girl' from the park." Archer says to keep the conversation going. "The rumors don't bother you, do they?"

"Nope." I shake my head, being honest with my answer. "I like hearing what people say in the pack, it's funny what people come up with. It's already been a week-"

"Nine days." Archer corrects me, not even trying to be subtle. "It's been nine days since our first date."

"Date?" I ask, taken aback by his question. "That was a date?"

"I think so," he admits, just as confused as I am. "A walk in the park is considered a date, right?"

"I don't know." I shrug, actually thinking about it now. Was that my first date? "It was the first time we got to spend time together in public on purpose." I say, referring to when he and Courtney tricked me into going to the mall. "But I think we get to choose if it gets to be our first date or not."

"Do you want to call that our first date?" he asks me.

"If you want to." I shrug, not as worked up about this as he is. "It's just a first date."

"I want our first date to be special." he says. "Something like going to see a movie and dinner or something like that."

"I guess." I know that a first date is supposed to be important, but Archer and I kind of got to do that within the first week of actually making conversation with each other. He and I always get to talk in private during our frequent car rides. "We won't be able to do that for a while, though. Going to the movies or out for dinner will expose us."

"We could always go in disguises." I suggest, already imagining us in wacky costumes. "We could wear a bunch of face paint, dress up as animals, the possibilities are endless!"

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm." he deadpans, taking my words way too seriously. It was just a joke, I think that was pretty obvious. "We can always leave the territory, no one from our pack will see us if we aren't on pack grounds."

"Do you know how crazy you sound right now?" I scoff, shaking my head. Alpha's only leave their pack territories if it's for a serious reason like the recent rogue hunt. And even if they leave their territory, they never stray very far. "The closest city outside of the pack borders is three hours away."