I would love to say that since the return of my brother things have been going smoothly.
I can admit that Daniella and I have been actually getting along. After the incident, my ties with a well-respected Beta and show of dominance over not only Aleksei but Matteo earned me some sort of admiration among the Luna of Apsens. Although I never actually spoke to her, being the Alpha Female of such a large, influential pack, her high opinion of me that I'd happened to gain through sheer luck managed to earn me the liking of many other Lunas. This in turn secured my invite to many gatherings that a group of respected Lunas had been having without my knowledge.
I'll admit, it hurt a little.
Daniella had accompanied me to all of the meetings and helped me to fit in. Apparently, it was pretty vital that I didn't shift their opinion of me from respect to contempt. I think Dani secretly likes my company now that we aren't at each other's throats every five seconds. She even went as far as to say she doesn't want to see me dead before we arrive back home. I do believe I am growing on her.
Aleksei and I are trying to figure things out. I really thought that after we'd resolved our issues and I had quickly accepted him back into my life, that everything would go back to how it used to be. Instead, a foreign awkwardness settled between the two of us. It was as if we didn't know how to speak to one another, and I suppose it's because we didn't. Aleksei was definitely not Kaden anymore, and I wasn't the same Kaia he left behind either. We were practically just two strangers with the same unfortunate past. Our only thing we could bond over was something we'd rather not remember nor think about. Our reunion was far from the ideal that I'd originally planned or thought it to be.
Onto another item that can be added to my list of unexpected occurrences over the past three days. Matteo has practically been avoiding me like the plague. At first, I thought it was because he and I were just so busy and I was overthinking it, but it's come to the point where he's actually finding himself more 'pressing' problems to solve just so that he has to stay in meetings longer while the Lunas are excused. In his eyes, 'pressing' issues require the absence of feminine opinions, but in my eyes, anything important enough that it needs to be labeled is a 'pressing' matter should be discussed with the Lunas of all packs. I was offended until I found out that one of the issues being discussed was just border rights. That's when it really sunk in that he was just trying to distance himself from me.
Where did I find my information? It was a pitiful move, but Barron certainly comes in handy. That man will sure as hell do anything if he finds out that Matteo won't like it. He didn't mind spilling any information of the closed meetings to me one bit. Why would he? He knew just as well as I did how irrelevant what they were talking about was. He was more than happy to meet with me after the meetings to tell me what was being said.
Even on our last night, he had managed to find an excuse to slip out of our room and leave me to pack alone. The thought crossed my mind that he could be meeting up with some girl to give him what I wasn't, but I knew Matteo. He wouldn't do that. That would require physical contact, and he could barely stand people standing too close to him let alone some girl being all over him.
I forced myself to stay up later than I have ever wanted to. I took much longer trying to make sure every article of clothing was neatly placed back into our suitcases. When doing so once wasn't a long enough time, I dumped all of the clothing back out and repeated my actions until it did last long enough for him to walk through the door.
I knew it had been hours since he had left when the door slowly creaked open. I could only hear him come in since my back was facing the door, but I knew his scent better than my own. The door's slow opening came to a halt as did Matteo's quiet steps into the room.
"You didn't expect me to be awake," I stated, knowing he had stopped because he didn't expect me to be standing at the foot of the bed just as he had left me hours ago. I turned around to meet the emotionless gaze of my irritatingly handsome mate. "Did you?" He didn't say anything. He just watched me as I took slow, deliberate strides toward him. "You planned to just come in here while I slept, fall asleep, and then wake up before I had the chance to and leave again until we had to go home."
Matteo didn't reply, but he didn't have to. His stoic expression said it all. I wasn't wrong.
"Why?" I asked. His dark eyes staring down into mine causing a cool chill to run down my spine. "What could I have possibly done that has made you want to go back after we've worked so hard to get this far with one another?" Again, I was met with silence and Matteo's intense gaze, so I continued to push. "Matteo work with me. Did someone say something? Did I say something?"
"It's not what you said, Kai. It's what you didn't," Matteo finally spoke up, making me internally sigh in relief.
"If you're referring to my parents, my brother, we've been over this," I defended. "I've told you things about my past that I've told little to no one—"
"Yeah, because your brother came back. You told Jack about your parents. Were you ever going to tell me?" My brows drew together, and my arms crossed over my chest as his words sunk in.
"Are you jealous of Jack? Someone who's not even here?"
"Jack is one of the last people I'd be jealous of when it comes to you. At least he doesn't enjoy crossing me, and he knows better," Matteo stated. His jaw was clenched showing me he was obviously irritated. Maybe if I didn't find his terrifying countenance so mouthwatering, I would have stopped my reign of terror for fear of him throwing me out of a window.
"So, you are jealous! Of who? Who could possibly irritate you so much that you're ignoring me?" I snapped, making Matteo even more annoyed than he had been originally.
"Just forget it," he grunted, pushing past me in the direction of the bathroom where he most likely intended to shower.
"Matteo, stop!" I demanded, grabbing his arm and pulling him to a halt. "Who's causing this? Who's crossing you?" I asked as I recalled what he said about Jack earlier. 'At least he doesn't enjoy crossing me'. No one enjoyed crossing Matteo. My mate was a beautiful man with a devil's soul. The only person really willing to anger Matteo was myself and occasionally—my eyes widened, and I took a step back. "Barron. You're not seriously jealous of Barron are you?" A defeated look rested on his face proving what I had said to be true. "Barron? You're jealous of Barron of all people! I feel nothing for him!"
"But you trust him," Matteo interjected roughly.
"I do not—"
"Don't even start," he interrupted me. "You're always talking to him and going to him when you need something. You tell him things freely that I can't even seem to force out of you."
"Matteo, I don't like him," I affirmed trying to keep my voice as strong as possible. I wasn't lying, so I wasn't worried. I didn't feel anything for Barron the way I felt about Matteo. I'd never felt anything for anyone the way I felt about Matteo.
"But you trust him," he repeated.
"I don't trust him!" I shouted in frustration. "Barron Mendax is a self-serving prick who can't even stay faithful to his own mate. How could I ever trust that?"
"Then, why go to him? Why seek help through him and not any other Alpha who was in those meetings?"
"Because, they wouldn't defy you! They're all terrified of you and what you would do to them if they'd happen to be caught!" My frustration at this point was off the charts. "Barron's ego here thrives on your irritation toward him. He would do anything that he knew you wouldn't like even if that meant getting close to me."
"That's exactly the reason you should stay away from him," he concluded. A tired groan flew past my lips as my hands clenched into fists.
"I don't understand! You ignoring me was the cause of me going to Barron for help! It's your fault!" I blamed, pointing my finger right in his face just before what I had said had a moment to work itself into my mind. Slowly, I drew back my finger. "Wait, you were avoiding me before I even started meeting with Barron." Matteo's angered expression turned back to a stoic one as I continued connecting dots. "There's something else wrong here," I accused.
"I'm going to take a shower—"
"Are you trying to regress? Is that what you want? Are you trying to distance yourself, now?" I theorized. A sinking feeling settled in my stomach.
"Kai, you don't understand," he tried reasoning, but I wasn't having it.
"Then, make me," I demanded. "Help me understand what is so far up your ass that it's affecting your head."
"Thanks to Nyla Kaul, you have the respect of some Lunas. Some of the same Lunas that were terrified of you just days ago to the point that their mates deemed you as unfit to lead such a prominent pack. Not only did they belittle you when they questioned your ability to be an Alpha female, but they belittled me by claiming I didn't have enough influence to push you in the right direction. They wanted me to reject you." I gulped, shaking my head back and forth. I searched the depths of his eyes to find some sort of lie, but he seemed to be an open book with me in that moment. He wasn't lying at all.
"They can't do that," I defied. "Rejection—that's not even possible." I was hoping that maybe if I continued to tell myself that, I might actually believe it.
"It is, but it doesn't break the bond. It's just a petty attempt to end something fated which is practically impossible," he explained calmly. I had no idea how he was calm. My heart was imploding inside of me, and my stomach felt like it was falling ten stories.
"You're going to reject me. You're trying to distance yourself from me so that it hurts you less," I accused, backing away from him.
"Kai, no. I would never reject you," he quickly recovered, snatching my arms and pulling me to him. Our gazes were matched, and for the first time I could see real emotions in his eyes. "I tried defending you. I tried telling them that you weren't what they thought you were, but when it came down to it, I didn't know what to say because I barely know you."
"You know me. I've told you things," I said, recalling our various informational games.
"You've told me your favorite color and why you hate winter. I know the shit you see on an online dating site bio. My first real glimpse into your life was because a vital piece of it happened to pop back in," he pointed out, making my jaw clench. "I know your name. Everything else seems to be a mystery."
"My personal life is complicated, but you'll know eventually," I mumbled as I tried to pull away from his hold, but he just pulled me back to him.
"That's just the problem. As I grow closer to you, you discover more about me, and there are things that I can't change or take back that might make you want to leave," he confessed, leaving me a bit confused. So he wasn't going to reject me, he was scared of the opposite?
"You're scared I'm going to reject you?"
"Kaia, I feel things for you that I've never felt toward anyone. You terrify me—the influence you have over me. I have no limits when it comes to you. There has never been a single person in my life that didn't have some sort of limit around me, but you just do as you wish. And, I let you. If you rejected me, I don't know if I'd make you stay or let you leave. I don't know which one terrifies me more, honestly." I watched his face closely searching for anything that could make me question his honesty, but I couldn't find anything. To be truthful, it hurt a little to think that he believes I would just leave after everything we've gone through so far.
"Matteo, nothing that you throw at me from your past is going to make me want to leave. You don't scare me," I stated boldly as I brought my face closer to his. "Nothing can with the past that I have." My voice was low and breathy, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted his lips on mine. I think he understood because he closed the space between us as soon as the thought popped into my head.
My body immediately reacted to the heated, lusty kiss. The blood in my veins felt as though it suddenly began to boil, and I couldn't decipher if the source of the heat was from my lips or my chest.
One of Matteo's hands held the back of my head to keep my lips against his while his other hand pressed against my lower back to keep my body exactly where he wanted it. He backed us into the bed where my knees buckled once they made contact with the bed. His mouth continued to wreak havoc on my lips as his large frame trapped me beneath him.
I was certainly not complaining.
The heat from my chest was blazing like a fire all over my body, and it left me wanting to rip off not only every article of my clothing but Matteo's as well. My hands were in a hurry to hastily attempt to remove Matteo's shirt as his lips traveled painfully slow from my lips, along my jaw, and down my neck.
"I can't risk it," he breathed against my neck in between the much welcomed torment of my skin that he caused without remorse. I'll admit, I was a bit dazed, but I wasn't lost. I'd heard what he said, I just didn't understand what he was talking about. I could hardly remember what we were talking about that had even lead us here, so his statement left me confused. Before I had the chance to ask, the answer had already come.
The intense sensation of sharp canines piercing the skin of my bare neck jolted me back to reality. It was a combination of pain and pleasure, but the pain I felt kept me sane long enough to realize what I was getting myself in to by not pushing him away or telling him to stop.
By marking me, Matteo staked a claim on me that would be near impossible to break by anyone or ourselves. The mark that I would forever bare on my neck would be a symbol to not only Matteo but to the rest of his pack as well that I was in fact his accepted mate and just one step closer to being an Alpha which was something that I was not ready for.
A traitorous moan fled my mouth as Matteo's teeth released my neck leaving behind his claim and moving back to my lips. I knew I was more in my right mind than he was in that moment, so I used that to my advantage. I forced a switch in our positions so that I was no longer below him. Instead, I used my advantage of being on top to push him back onto the bed.
"No," I said quickly. My breathing was a bit erratic. I felt like I had just walked up a flight of stairs after a midnight snack. Matteo's lusty gaze found mine. Immediately, I watched as he sunk back into his normal state. "It's not you. I swear. It's just—"
"The title," he interrupted me, concluding what we both knew. I offered him an apologetic frown hoping he would understand. In response, he placed a light kiss to my forehead. "It's alright." With that, he left me on the bed alone as he went to go take a shower.
The door shut leaving me totally alone. Just me, my thoughts, and my inner-slut that didn't seem to understand how to chill the hell out. I gulped and raised my hand to my neck feeling where Matteo had done his damage. Slowly, I brought my hand back and faced it seeing it stained with a fair amount of blood just proving once again what Matteo and I had done.
He marked me.
We just managed to set everything in motion in a matter of seconds that would change my life forever.
___________
I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY BECAUSE IM TERRIBLE.
um welcome to the start of the end Kaia. God forbid you have to embrace the L word. Lmaooooooo
Hasta la pasta 8/31/17