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"Colby?"
He hummed in response.
"What were you doing before my heat kicked off?"
His head twisted away from his mirror toward me, his hands still working the buttons of his shirt. I'd been in the shower for the last twenty minutes, so how he wasn't ready by now, I had no clue. But I was stood across the room from him in comfortable clothes — a hoodie and sweatpants — because I simply couldn't be bothered to dress up in any way whatsoever.
My hands were in my hair, tying it up into a ponytail as I'd spoken.
He seemed to stare at me for a long moment before pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes clenched shut. "Shit."
I frowned, about to ask but he zipped off out the room. I flung my arms in the air in frustration and just finished with my hair, which was unreasonably difficult to tame every single day. I walked out after him in no rush at all, casually strolling down the stairs and twisting for the living room, where everyone's scents were the strongest. Colby wasn't here, nor was Reggie.
Trying not to make it too obvious, I sat on the arm of the couch by Cassie and kept my voice low as I spoke to her. "Where's Reggie? I never see you two apart."
She smiled, seeing right through my question, and replied, "They are restocking the blood bags. Or, they were about to before... well..."
I already knew they'd heard. I wasn't stupid enough not to realise that, but I didn't want to face it with everyone in one room. Jake and Kevin probably didn't think it was a big deal but I'd scratch their eyes out if they said a single word about it.
"Did Reggie go on his own?" I asked.
"No. You're the only person who doesn't listen when Colby says something, Amira." She was chuckling to herself in amusement.
I frowned. Just over two months in and the whole reason I was able to stay here was still calling me Amira? It didn't sit right. "It's Amy."
The humour was zipped from Cassie's face as she raised her brows in surprise. I just stared back at her seriously, conveying that I wasn't joking around at all. I wanted her to understand she was closer to me than anyone else.
Slowly, her lips curled up. "Alright, I won't say no to that."
"Good."
The front door slammed open then shut again, and I naturally turned my head to see two figures flying across the hall into the kitchen. After a couple of light bangs, those figures appeared in the entryway and stopped. Reggie slowly — at a human pace — made his way over to his seat beside Cassie, while Colby took his place on the loveseat. He raised his feet onto the coffee table instead of draping them across the cushions like he usually did. I was silently grateful.
I didn't know where we went from here, but I got up to join him anyway, copying his pose. I didn't have my phone stupidly, so I was forced to find something to entertain me instead.
When my nose caught a whiff of the cat again, I immediately got up. It wasn't the first time I'd abandoned everyone else as soon as I realised it was nearby. In fact, every time it came to visit, I was straight outside sitting on the floor. Usually, I ended up talking to the Goddess, too, but she was mostly leaving me to my devices now. I supposed that was because she knew things were happening, progress was being made. She didn't need to intervene so much anymore.
I crossed my legs as the cat jumped down from the wall, and something caught my eye. It dropped a little ball of fur on the ground a few feet away from me then sat down. As I narrowed my eyes, I realised it was a mouse — and the cat was staring at me like a child bringing a drawing to their parent wanting to know if it was good enough. I found myself smiling, almost giggling, as I held out a hand for it to come toward me. As normal, it purred as it rubbed itself against my fingers, slowly crawling into my lap. This was normal for me now.
Didn't cats usually bring dead things to their owners? I knew I shouldn't think about it too much but considering the lack of a collar and the way this little thing felt so comfortable with me, I was starting to suspect it really didn't have its own home.
"I don't have any of your treats on me," I murmured to it, scratching behind its ears as it stared up at me, occasionally closing one eye. I spent a little extra time on its neck, since there was no collar...
If this cat did belong to someone, they'd probably take a randomly-appearing collar off, right? So if I wanted to find out for good...
"Katrina!"
Katrina appeared outside in barely a second, but she was careful not to startle the bundle of fur on my lap. She looked a little confused as she nodded at me to continue.
"We should find out if this little thing has an owner. Could you go out and buy a collar for it?"
"Why?" she questioned, almost scoffing.
"Because if it does have an owner, they'll take it off or something. They're not gonna just leave a random collar on it."
Her brow raised. "And why is it you want to know if it has an owner?"
"No reason," I chirped, winking at her before pressing a kiss to the cat's head. It purred into me more, melting my heart easily.
"I'll see what I can do," Katrina told me, disappearing again.
After a short while, she came back with a collar and I put it onto the feline. It didn't fight me at all, which made me think even more so there wasn't a reason why it had no collar if it belonged to someone. I set it free — reluctantly — and headed back inside to drop onto the loveseat a little closer to Colby than usual.
He glanced at me for a moment without saying anything and I caught his gaze. The need to smile was too intense for my liking, especially when he broke the eye contact to look down at my hands in my lap instead. I knew what he was thinking, what he wanted, but I also knew he wasn't going to do anything with everyone else around. A part of both of us was still waiting for them to start cracking out the jokes. I was amazed they hadn't started yet.
Just as I was starting to think something was wrong, I heard Jake snicker which drew my gaze in his direction. He was whispering to Tara — not that it mattered when the rest of the room were vampires — and if I wasn't crazy, I saw Kevin grin just after Jake had said something. My eyes narrowed, but I chose not to fan the flames. Colby didn't seem pissed off so he might not have been poking fun at us.
Might.
A little buzz in my pocket led me to slide my phone out and check the name. I wasn't surprised to see it was Anna, but her message seemed a little strange. She wanted to see me — alone — and as soon as possible. I considered for a long moment what could possibly be so pressing, then told her to come here. She knew I wouldn't be alone but I assumed the people she didn't want to be around were the pack.
I waited with my feet up and my head laid back until I caught the slightest whiff of her, only that was strange, too. She didn't smell right. Although it had been a while since I'd been around her enough to properly distinguish her scent in a crowd, I knew this wasn't completely her. There was something else.
She knocked on the door, causing the vampires to snarl or snap their heads toward the hall, but I ignored them to go and let her in. The moment I could see her, she was throwing herself at me, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Amira! You're the only one I know outside of the pack. Please help me."
I frowned, gently pulling her away from me. "Help you with what?" Staring at her, I breathed in heavily and instantly realised exactly why she didn't smell quite right. My eyes widened. "You're fucking kidding."
"No!"
"How am I gonna help, Anna? I know I'm a bit psycho but I'm not gonna beat it out of you, so what do you expect me to do?"
She shook her head. "No, no, I don't want to get rid of it. It's just... there's a lot going on with the pack right now and this is going to completely ruin it all. It could be good but if Blake has to take a step back to be with me, he won't be able to make this deal and we could completely unravel without it."
"Woah," I muttered, "you're throwing at lot at me at once, here. Explain a little slower."
She slid passed me further into the house, and I closed the door behind her without arguing. Neither of us even glanced at the vampires in the living room, headed straight for the kitchen where we hopped onto the stools at the island.
I forced her to take a few deep breaths before speaking again, to gather her words rather than spewing garbage out at me and expecting me to understand any of it.
Finally, she said, "We're struggling since Dickwad left. He may have been controlling but it helped to keep the pack together, and now with Blake in charge... there seem to be so many issues coming up everywhere. I don't want to say he isn't cut out for alpha — because he is. He's won multiple challenges since he ascended and proved he deserves to be there, but I don't know, it feels like maybe the leadership side, he just can't handle. I've tried my best to help. At some point, you just gotta accept... yeah.
"Anyway, then we found this group we could align ourselves with. They're more disciplined than us so they might just be able to bring it back and help Blake to be a better alpha than before. He's so hopeful about it.
"All the meetings he's been going to, all the work he's been doing to finalise a deal both sides are happy with, will all go down the drain if he finds out about this."
"He hasn't smelt it?" I questioned in disbelief. Her scent was drastically different — something I, who didn't spend most of my time probably snuggled into her neck where it was stronger, had noticed instantly. There was no way Blake hadn't.
She looked away in embarrassment. "I'm hiding it."
"How?"
"Wolfsbane."
My eyes widened instantly. "That can kill it, Anna."
"I'm not consuming it!" she exclaimed back in a panic. "I just mean I've been including it in my showers and making sure it is clouding my scent."
"Even so," I murmured, shaking my head. All this effort just to prevent her mate from finding out she's bearing his child. I didn't completely understand, but looking at it from a leader's point of view, I supposed I could see why she was trying so hard not to disrupt any of the pack with the news when something like that alliance was on the horizon.
She brushed a hand through her hair stressfully, almost tugging at the roots. "I don't even know how you're able to smell it, to be honest. Is it still that obvious?"
"Extremely to me," I admitted, "but maybe it's different for the pack. It's been so long, I can't remember how all the bonds work at this point."
She flinched. "They should probably be able to smell it more."
"I guarantee someone would have said something if they had — definitely Blake. He always had a bit of a big mouth about stuff like that."
"Yeah... I still remember back in the day." She giggled, which admittedly brought a little smile to my face. But I wasn't sure what she was talking about and she knew it. "Really? After you and Kian broke up?"
"Uh..."
I knew. I knew exactly what she was talking about, I just didn't want to say that out loud when my recently-accepted mate was in the other room listening.
"You don't remember? You were pretty drunk, to be fair," Anna replied casually, shrugging.
"I remember. Let's not talk about that right now," I muttered, looking away from her.
She laughed. "Come on, it was years ago. You fucked the two hottest guys in our entire pack, who are brothers."
"And you're carrying the child of one of them," I snapped, "so why do you want to talk about it? That's weird."
She rolled her eyes and continued to snicker to herself. For just a moment, I extended my hearing into the living room to see if the vampires truly were listening to my conversation. Colby wasn't speaking, but I didn't expect that so it didn't surprise me.
I couldn't help but feel bad suddenly that I had brought Anna into his house and somehow ended up talking about my ex flings right after everything earlier tonight. It felt like a kick in the balls even to me, and I wanted to slap myself for it. The days of finding his jealousy amusing were apparently over... Now I gave a shit about his feelings... How weird.
"Anna." My voice was harder now, more serious, and despite her track record for completely ignoring obvious signals, Anna seemed to quickly scrape the amusement off her face. "You're not here to talk about me or even really to see me. You just want someone to tell you what to do about your own situation, but you know as well as me, I'm the worst person to ask about that. The Goddess wouldn't have allowed you to get pregnant unless she has a plan for you, it and Blake, so use your head. Fucking tell him before you weaken yourself with wolfsbane, it's a dumb thing to do anyway."
Anna glanced away briefly, her shoulders slumped as she considered my words. "Yeah, maybe I should just tell him. We have time before he needs to focus on me, right?" I nodded, so she sighed. "I didn't know you're still worshipping the Goddess."
"Just because I left the pack doesn't mean I'm not a werewolf, Anna," I scolded, frowning at her.
She smiled. "I know, it's just nice to know. Maybe we could talk to her together sometime? Don't you miss doing it with the group?"
"I prefer it alone," I admitted.
"I'll be quiet."
"I doubt that."
She snorted and I actually chuckled to myself, staring down at the island in thought. When I looked back up, she was slightly frowning to herself, her own mind plagued with dozens of scenarios of what would happen when she returned home. But that wasn't any of my business anymore. She'd gotten her advice from me, now she just needed to use it.
"Alright," she sighed, hopping down from her stool, "I'm headed home."
"Did you run here?" I hadn't heard a car.
She shrugged. "Nothing compared to the training we do every day, don't worry about it. I'll get back safe."
As she walked toward the hallway, I whispered under my breath, "Cassie, could you make sure she gets back safe? Carrying a child, she's going to be like a beacon to any vampires around."
"Anna, is it?" My head snapped up when I heard Cassie's voice in response. She and Reggie were already standing in the hall, cutting her off. She looked a little defensive. "May we make sure you get home safely?"
Anna look back at me and I nodded, prompting her to shrug, say, "Fuck it, sure," and wave me over for a goodbye. I willingly hugged her before taking a large step back.
"You can't come on the pack's territory without Blake's permission," Anna muttered up to Cassie. "Normally, I could give you permission, too, but because you're vampires, the rules are different. It's like a threshold you literally can't cross."
"That's okay." Cassie shrugged, opening up her arm. "You'll get back quicker this way."
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