"Yes," I repeated myself for what felt like the hundredth time. "That is what I said the first three times."
"I'm sorry. I'm just slightly in shock that you would actually agree to go and do something pack related with Matteo," Jack rambled in disbelief.
I'd made the courageous decision of telling Jack that I was going to the Leaders' Conference before anyone else had the chance to. I did this solely because I wasn't sure if he would squeal in excitement and embarrass himself when he found out or freak out on me for not telling him as soon as the decision became final. Besides, I had questions about it, and I wasn't one-hundred percent positive that I could stay with Matteo in his office this afternoon any longer without getting down to business.
"I really don't see why," I muttered as I ripped my socks off of my feet. I really hate socks.
"You told Daniella that you hope she chokes on electrical wire when she asked if you'd taken the chance to talk to anyone in the house," Jack stated rather bluntly. My brows drew together, and my forehead creased in annoyance.
"I don't particularly favor her."
"You told her to choke on wire," he repeated, feeling the need to remind me.
"Could have been worse," I responded thinking that I had a pretty solid defensive statement, but all that it got me was an extremely exasperated look from Jack that just screamed 'what the hell is wrong with you?' "I can't help that when I see her I want to choke babies."
"I said this once before to Matteo, and I'm saying it again now. Fate was either drunk or high off of it's ass when it made you Luna of this pack."
"Or, you know, there's no such thing as fate," I suggested causing the imaginary bomb in Jack's head to explode.
"Don't start! I'm not doing this with you, again!" Jack started shouting at me with his finger pointed directly at my torso. His shouting brought along angry footsteps that had both of us looking to see who managed to enter the Alpha Level of the pack house.
"Seriously, if I have to hear one more conversation about fate from either of you this week, I'm going to rip your heads off," Daniella threatened. She looked half asleep as she stood in the door way with her long, blonde hair thrown up messily into a bun. Considering it was nine at night, it made sense. Daniella was constantly babbling on and on about how she needs her 'beauty sleep'. I asked her why she doesn't just stay asleep forever. I even offered my assistance, but she and her middle finger politely declined.
"Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Dani," Jack acknowledged. Jack didn't seem phased at all by her presence which didn't surprise me. I assumed they got along considering the two of them and Matteo are basically the most important people of the pack. They pretty much do everything together. Without a tight bond amongst the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, the pack would most likely crumble.
"Like I didn't know already," Daniella commented as she fixed the strap on her tank top. I didn't miss the way Jack's eyes swiftly raked down Daniella's body which was only covered by a white camisole and a pair of grey booty-shorts. I doubted she even realized that he had done it.
"Can you be any more of a egoist?" I muttered under my breath. I did it loud enough to where I knew she could still hear me, though.
"Ha, ha," she laughed humorlessly. "Can you be any more petty?"
"You wanna find out?"
"No. No, we don't," Jack quickly interjected.
"No," Daniella drug out as she stared me down as if challenging me with her dark eyes, "I think I do."
"Why don't you just go crawl back to whatever hole you spawned from?"
"Why don't I just shove my fist down your throat?"
"Oh, please," I scoffed. "I'm sure you're much more acquainted with having things shoved in your mouth." My eyes drifted up and down her body as the corner of my lip turned up in disgust, and I scrunched my nose just to add to the amount of petty I was seeking to achieve.
She asked for it.
I struck a nerve with that one. I could tell by the way her jaw was clenched that she was gritting her teeth in an attempt to not rip my throat out.
She can make all of the threats she wants as long as Matteo isn't around, but the moment she acts on them, she better send out a silent prayer for her and her bleached-blonde hair.
Her eyes darkened warning me in that moment that her wolf was stepping forward and that she could shift at really any moment. She was like a ticking time bomb at this point.
"Knock it off, you two," Jack snapped suddenly becoming much more serious and demanding than he normally would be. I can only correlate it to the fact that he knew his ass would be toast if anything happened to me. "Dani, what do you want?"
"Matteo has requested to see you," she answered, crossing her arms over her fairly-large bust and leaning against the door frame.
"What for?"
"He claims you've spent too much time with his mate today." Immediately, a look of annoyance plastered onto my face.
"What does that have to do with anything?" I chimed in. The irritability in my voice wasn't hard to spot. "He's the one who assigned Jack to watch me."
"He's just jealous, Kaia," Jack commented as he pushed himself up off of the floor from where he had been sitting into a standing position. "His wolf has probably been getting at him for letting me be around you so much."
"That makes no sense. This is your job."
"I'm the closest friend he's got. He trusts me—I think, but I haven't found my mate, so that trust only goes on so long at one time before it begins to waver. It's his instinct to protect what's his," Jack explained. My eyes narrowed into slits at the mention of being his. I'd always known just based on how my dad was with my mom that I would no doubt have to deal with the label of being someone else's. I just learned to accept it, but that didn't mean I liked it.
Okay, I kind of liked it.
"Well, it's my instinct to kill the first person in the room that I don't like, but he puts a stop to that. Maybe I should just put a stop to his nonsense," I stated as I pushed myself up from the floor and started heading toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Daniella questioned as I brushed past her.
"To put a stop to my mate's nonsense," I said, making my way to Matteo's office where I knew he'd be.
As usual, I passed by many of Caedes' pack members. As if it were rehearsed a thousand times, each and every one of them stood at attention with an assertive and correct posture, their shoulders back, chest out, and chin up as I approached them all the way until they were behind me. I could only assume what they had done once my back was to them. Not one of them uttered a word to me. They never did. I had an inkling it was due to me being mated to their Alpha.
I entered Matteo's office without knocking once again.
"You've got a lot of balls," I growled out as I whipped the door open causing it to smack against the wall. A normal person would have jumped at the sudden action, but Matteo seemed completely prepared. He just peered up at me through thick, dark lashes as he sipped away at a glass containing a golden-brown liquid.
"And the bitching starts early tonight. Yay," Matteo deadpanned tiredly as he took another swig of what I could only assume was bourbon by the scent.
"You need to shut the hell up, and explain to me what gives you the right to tell Jack how much time he gets to spend with me."
"I'm the Alpha, his Alpha," he put bluntly, and then paused for a moment. "You do realize how contradictory what you just said was, right?" I assume that he took the look on my face as a sign that I had no clue what he was talking about, so he just continued. "You told me to 'shut the hell up', and then to explain myself. You don't find that the least bit amusing?"
"I need a drink of this," I said as I marched over to him and snatched the glass out of his hand. I threw back the drink, and handed him back over the empty glass.
Yep, definitely bourbon.
"My dad always told me I was going to drive my mate to drinking. I just hadn't realized it would be this soon," Matteo commented with a slight chuckle, looking down at his bourbonless glass.
"Stop trying to make this situation humorous," I snapped. "You can't just put time limits on how long I can spend time with people."
"Technically, I can," he remarked, adding a fake cough before saying 'Alpha'. I rolled my eyes at his childishness.
"You can if you want to make me hate you," I fired back. I could tell by the way he flinched ever so slightly that I managed to hit something within him. "You do understand that Jack is the reason I'm even giving this stupid mate thing a chance, right? Or has your domineering ass overlooked that little bit while you were too busy being pissed at him for doing what you assigned him to do?"
"What do you want? An apology?" Matteo asked, giving me a look that I just knew was saying he would never give me an apology over anything that had to due with this topic. "Kaia, I'm not going to apologize for wanting you to myself rather than have you spend all of your time with another guy who you happened to almost have sex with. Please correct me if what I'm saying makes no sense." I gritted my teeth as I took in what Matteo was saying. He was right. I knew he was right. I spent a majority of time with Jack and avoiding him. I'd never been a very understanding person, so I was slightly annoyed with myself that I was managing to come to terms and understand Matteo's view on all of this. It was highly irritating for me.
"I need some more to drink," I grumbled as I grabbed the glass out of his hand yet again.
"The bottle is on the desk."
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, waving him away already knowing where the bottle was.
"Are we going back to this again?" He asked while I poured bourbon into his cup. I furrowed my brows together as I set the bottle down and lifted the cup to my lips.
"Back to what?"
"The whole not being able to carry on a full conversation unless we're cussing each other out?"
"As fun as that sounds, I'm running out of insults," I replied. Matteo held out his hand, so I walked back over to him and handed him the glass of bourbon. He greedily down what I hadn't had the chance to.
"You use all your good ones already?"
"No," I shook my head, "I'm saving those for later."
"Shame, I really liked the one where you called me an 'uncultured swine'," he said, setting down the glass. I eyed him carefully as he walked over to his desk and took a seat. It was in this moment that the light from his desk lamp showed me how exhausted Matteo was. His eyelids drooped slightly, and his dark blue eyes had a bit of a red tint to them. I managed to make out what looked to be a healing busted lip that had not been there earlier, too.
Not saying anything, I made my way around Matteo's desk and sat down on his lap. He didn't say anything as I sat down and ran my thumb across his busted lip, but he did give me a very confused look. His hand slowly came up and sat itself against my lower back as the other placed itself on my thigh.
"What did you do?" I asked softly, feeling electricity shoot through my veins creating a heat in my chest.
"Went to the training fields after you left earlier. Two kids got into it pretty badly, and I had to break it up."
"Why'd you break it up?" I asked. Growing up, any time my brother and I fought, my dad just let it play out. My mom wasn't the biggest fan of it, but dad always said that the only people who can work out our problems were ourselves. It wasn't his place to step in. It's wasn't anyone's place.
"Someone could have been really hurt, Kaia. I'm not just going to allow my pack to rip each other apart," Matteo explained.
"But, how do you expect them to work out their problems?"
"I realize they aren't all going to like each other and are going to have issues amongst themselves, but I expect them to at least respect each other enough not to try to kill one another."
"They were trying to kill each other?" I questioned, drawing my brows together.
"That tends to happen when mates get involved."
"They were fighting over someone's mate," I asked in a bit of shock. I never did understand why people fought over mates considering every werewolf was destined to have one. It seemed pretty meaningless to me.
"No, she was defending her mate, and then things got out of hand," he reiterated.
"It was two girls fighting?"
"No, Nala Baidey clocked this Adam Crissman kid in the jaw because apparently he said something about her mate. I'd like to think the girls here know how to hold their own," Matteo said with a bit of a chuckle which actually managed to impress me. A lot of packs chose to not teach girls how to fight. I find it absolutely ridiculous, but often times the women are seen as needing protected rather than an important asset to an attack strategy. The fact that Matteo understood that women are strong enough to fight beside men actually managed to make me feel proud of him being an alpha for once.
I didn't really think of what I was doing. I leaned in slowly and kissed him. The kiss wasn't even long enough for him to really do anything. I pulled away before either of us had the opportunity to deepen it.
"What was that for?" He asked, staring into my icy blue eyes with his dark ones. His brows were drawn together with his head tilted to the side slightly.
"For saying something that didn't piss me off for once," I commented with a bit of a smile. This in turn caused a small smile to form on Matteo's face.
God, how I love that smile.
I rested my head on Matteo's shoulder as his hand run up and down my back. Neither of us said anything. We just enjoyed each other's company. It felt like it was the first time we actually were acting like mates and accepting it.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled.
"For what?" If it weren't for the obvious confusion in his voice, I'd think he were just asking to make me point out all of the shitty things about myself.
"Being me. Always arguing. You know."
"Don't apologize for being you, Kai. I love the way your mind works. It's intriguing," Matteo complimented, making me smile. I wrapped my arms around his toned torso feeling every ridge from his well-defined abs as I did so. I was never much of a hugger, but it just felt right. "I kind of enjoy the arguing, too. You're hot as hell when you're pissed off."
"I'm always hot as hell," I countered making him chuckle.
"Can't really argue with that." His arms wound around me and smooshed me against him. I sighed happily, loving every minute of it as I stuck my face in the crook of his neck. The only thing that could make this moment better was if we were naked.
"Let's go to bed," I mumbled as Matteo squeezed me.
"It's 10:30," he stated bluntly.
"Yeah, and?"
"If you're tired, you can go to bed, Kaia. You don't have to stay here," he advised making me pull my head out of the crook of his neck so that I could look at him.
"Matteo, you're obviously tired. You never get to bed until like twelve, and then you probably leave at like eight to come work on whatever stupid stuff you do all day. Let's go," I demanded, hopping off of his lap and pulling on his hand.
"Ha, eight," Matteo chuckled sharply. I paused in my tracks and furrowed my brows at him.
"You aren't waking up at eight?" He gave me a look that told me that he hadn't woken up at eight in the morning for a long time. "Seven?" The same look. "Six?" And, the look again. "Oh, for the love of all things holy! Five?"
"I have to get up early enough to beat the masses. The pack starts moving around at 5:30ish," he explained. To him, this all seemed to make sense, but he was speaking absolute jibberish to me.
"They don't need your constant supervision. I get that you take your whole Alpha thingamadoodley seriously, but you need to let go a little," I advised before tugging on his hand again. "Now, come on. Let's go cuddle."
"Kaia," he drug out, but I could tell by the look in his eyes just how enticing my offer was to him.
"Don't fight it. For once, I'm actually cooperating, so come on. Let's go. What could be more important than me? You can't spoon a pen and squeeze it's ass and enjoy it, can you?" I reasoned making him burst out laughing. My heart fluttered as his pearly whites were on full display for me.
"Alright, fine. Let's go," he finally agreed as he stood up from his chair. His large hand enveloped mine which was comparably smaller than his.
"And, I don't allow you to wake up before me, so I'd suggest you sleep in or stay in bed until like lunch," I said as we walked out of his office hand in hand. He pulled the door shut and locked it behind us.
"What about breakfast?"
"Swallow your spit."
_____________________
Aw so a filler kind of, but I'm really trying to show Matteo's character. I'm also trying to build a relationship between the two of them before the shit starts.
Yeah, hope your week is hype guys.
Stay Awesome Gotham 3/19/17
Also was too lazy to edit :)))))))