A/N: I'm sorry that it isn't a super long chapter! I didn't have as much time to write over the weekend as I had expected. How do you like the new cover? I am thinking about adding the story into a second category but I'm not sure which I should choose, thoughts?
Chapter: 18
"Red." I greeted, earning a warning growl from Sean and an ear to ear grin from the redhead that was slightly behind one shoulder of the scary looking giant.
"Hey Homedawg, whatz happenin'?" She asked, sounding completely ridiculous. Sean moved to block her sight of me and growled lowly, his muscular back rigid with protectiveness and uncertainty.
Over-reactive mutt.
"How do you know my mate?" he asked, his posture tense. I looked up at the Beta for any signs that Sean's position was taken as threatening but he was just standing as still and emotionless as he was before. Red grinned a grin that smelled of bullshit.
"Well it is actually kind of a funny story, you see a couple of years ago we were both recruited by a secret society that trains a select group of people in the classic forms of martial arts to become a ninja assassins and Juniper was my partner in the company trust building clinic we would have every month called fight to the death and-"
The Beta cut her off mid rant by slapping his hand over her mouth much like Kyrie did this morning but with no facial expression or signs of desperation.
"Ile's human brought Regina over to visit your human this morning." He informed Sean while he held Red's mouth shut. Regina? So that was Red's real name. He released her and Red turned to look at him with an expression that was suddenly dejected, her green eyes glistening with tears.
"Is that why you don't love me? Because I'm just a human?" she asked in a voice that sounded utterly heart broken. For a moment I was even baffled by what she had said. Why the hell would she be upset about him not loving her? Hell, I would be jumping up and down in joy if Sean didn't confess to loving me every five freaking minutes. The statue of a man's expression did not change but something in his eyes shifted and he reached toward Red with both hands very subtly, offering comfort to her. But in a split second her facial expression did a complete one-eighty and she was giggling like a slap jawed idiot as she shoved past Sean without hesitation and attempted to throw her arm over my shoulder, having to stand on her toes to be somewhat effective.
"Come on Juniper, let's leave the dogs alone so they can sniff each other's butts and what not." She instructed, already dragging me toward the kitchen. Sean growled and grabbed my hand before I was out of arms' length.
"Where are you taking my mate?" he snarled at Red, still getting no protective response from the Beta standing in the doorway. Red looked up at the large monster with eyebrows raised.
"What happened to the good old days when you used to at least blink when someone snarled at your precious mate?" she asked, huffing out a defeated sigh. Then she smiled and looked at Sean with an eager and mischievous expression.
"Hey dip shit, let's see if he'll even make a face if you see me naked." She suggested her arm leaving my shoulder so that her hands to go to the hem of her shirt. The large monster had moved past Sean so fast that I couldn't follow the movement with my eyes and his hands locked around Red's, preventing her from lifting her shirt but his face still let nothing slip. No anger...nothing.It was actually more frightening that way.
"You will refer to Sean as Gamma Blakewell and you will keep your clothes on." He commanded, his tone making me flinch. Red however suddenly looked like she was going to break down crying again.
"You don't think that I'm pretty." She whimpered and again something in the monster's eyes seemed to shift. I didn't really pay too much attention to it because I was too hung up on something else that he had said Gamma Blakewell? He was one of the Gammas? The third most powerful section of werewolves in the pack infrastructure? Holy Mother of God I was screwed. Why did the werewolf that decided to bite me turn out to be involved in the stupid pack's politics?
"Stop being ridiculous." The Beta commanded his tone and face emotionless. Her face immediately sobered and she saluted him with a big grin on her face.
"I-I captain!"
He just stared at her for a moment with a glint in his eyes that showed something stirring in that blank face of his and then turned to Sean with a business like expression.
"I needed to go over your records and Regina wished to visit with your mate." He informed him finally. Sean nodded and picked up a brief case that had been lying in the hallway that I had previously not noticed.
"I brought the problem cases home with me. I don't have an office here so is the dining room alright for you Alfred?" he asked. The staunch man nodded.
"Very well. I apologize in the break in procedure." He replied. Sean chuckled and shook his head.
"No problem." He assured the higher ranking monster before reaching a hand out to grab me and bring me with him into the meeting. Red was too quick though, she had already snatched my hand and pulled me out of his reach before he could even touch me.
"I'm sure Juniper doesn't want to hear your meeting mumbo jumbo any more that I do." She shot at Sean's offended and angry face. She ignored him and looked at me with a great big goofy grin.
"Let's go have some girl talk, it will be nice to actually talk to someone." She confessed to me, giving a pointed look at the Beta, which earned her only a slight tightening of his jaw. Without further explaination or constraint, she drug me down the hallway into the room furthest from the two monsters, which happened to be the creature's bedroom. She shut the door behind her purposefully loud and then turned to look at me with a cautious expression.
"Does this room have a balcony?" she asked. I nodded in response, taken aback by here suddenly serious tone. I led her to the door and out onto the balcony, allowing her to shut the door behind her. Once the door clicked shut she let out a deep sigh.
"Thank God. I thought we'd never get to talk without one of those two boneheads listening in." she admitted in relief as she sank down into one of the patio chairs. I raised an eyebrow.
"They can't hear us?" I asked. She shrugged, kicking her flip flops off and putting her feet onto the rod iron table in front of her.
"The sound from the street muffles what we are saying. Sergeant Stick in Butt flipped out once because I went out onto the high porch at his apartment and he couldn't hear what I was doing."
Her mentioning him brought back a new line of questioning to the forefront of my mind.
"You're Beta Samuel's mate?" I asked quietly. She sighed again and looked out over the city toward the outskirts.
"Alfred Peter Samuels is his name, making my life hell is his game." She answered, looking a little tired. I felt my hands tighten into fists and I looked back through the glass doors toward the bedroom entrance, making sure it was closed.
"Are the rumors about him true?" I asked. She sighed and rubbed her hand through her red curls.
"Mostly." She admitted. "Which one do you know? The killing children one or the snapping necks one?" she asked.
"The later." I admitted. She nodded.
"Well that one is true. I'm pretty sure the one about him backhanding a child through a wall is a little far fetched though. I mentioned it once to him and he about blew a fuse and went off about how he would never harm a child. Then again he may have just been angry because it was when I told him that I didn't want to have kids if he was just going to kill one of them every time he wanted a new doorway." She admitted. I didn't know whether to be horrified or laugh.
"What happens when he...um...blows a fuse?" I asked, having a hard time actually seeing the large monster with any emotion on his face.
"He breaks things. Usually expensive things." She answered and then shot me a sly grin. "But it's not my shit so it doesn't hurt my feelings any." She admitted. Her red hair was practically glowing in the light from the setting sun and her bright green eyes glistened with amusement and a hint of something else. I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it was different than the other emotions I had seen on her face.
"So your real name is Regina?" I asked after a moment of silence. She glared at me and then sighed exasperatedly.
"Yes. I never used to go by Red but now I do just to piss him off." She told me, putting her hands behind her head and leaning back in the patio chair so that she was lazily resting back on two of its legs.
"And why does it piss him off?" I asked. She shrugged.
"He doesn't like nicknames. His mind is all prim and proper like that." She informed me. "Also I won't respond to him if he calls me Red. I make him call me by the name he knows I don't like, which makes him feel like more of a dick than he already is. It's all just a big mind game really. Like I said before, I spend a lot of time convincing him that I am a stark raving lunatic." She admitted with a wry grin that was both mischievous and somewhat disappointed. My brow furrowed.
"What was with all the waterworks?" I asked. I knew that there wasn't any way that she was actually offended by what the monster said. She had flat out told me earlier today that she hated her mate's guts and she wanted him to go rot in hell. She shrugged.
"He doesn't like it that he can't connect to me at an emotional level and he HATES seeing me cry. I just use the mood swing game to exaggerate that inability. On a good day it will make him angry enough that he'll storm on up to his office, break something and leave me the hell alone; which is just the way I like to spend my evenings. On a bad day he tries to show me how much he loves me, which is never enjoyable. Focusing on the social emotional ties though has proven pretty reliable at getting me a bed to my lonesome. That is why I eluded that he never talks to me earlier." She explained. I was both amazed at her insight and horrified by the prospects of her mind games as she described them, baffled at how difficult it must be to tred those waters.
"How did you come up with all of this?" I asked her, amazed at how in depth and thought out her little tirade. She shrugged again.
"My parents were psychologists. You can say that I have lived through my fair share of emotional manipulation. At my parents' house it was something of a sport." She set the legs of her chair back down to the concrete. "You might not see any emotion on his face but I have been around the straight faced bastard so long that he might as well be sobbing every time that I pull some crazy emotional shit."
I nodded feeling slightly anxious. She had put a lot of thought into how she put up with the monster she was practically owned by. I didn't even have a clue of how to deal with the monster that was keeping me hostage.So far I hadn't really done a good job at being proactively cold and distant. I think the only emotion I had been able to pull off lately was scared shitless.
"How long have you been his mate?" I asked. Red sighed and tilted her head back.
"Almost two years now. He found me when I was nineteen. I was walking home after curfew because I had been over at a friend's house. I was still living in the middle district at the time. My parents were still employed as professionals so we were allowed to stay. I should have stayed at my friend's house and just called and told my mother that I would come home in the morning, but I only lived a five minute walk away and it seemed ridiculous to me to not walk home at the time. It just so happened that Alfred was on patrol duty for my neighborhood that night. He was in the middle of sighting me for being out past the adult curfew for humans when he looked into my eyes and claimed me right there in the street before I could react. I never even thought about keeping my eyes away from his. I was so stupid." she admitted with an expression on her face that was almost painful to observe. "The next day I woke up in his house and he told me that he would never let me see my parents again if I didn't become his mate and end the manic phase....So I did." She told me, her eyes looking a little lost and extremely pained by the memory. It made me feel sick, physically sick to see her face carry that kind of emotion. Red seemed so brave, Red seemed so resilient and kick ass, but yet she was still frightened and slightly broken like the rest of us. Her expression changed slightly after a moment and she laughed once in dark and pained amusement.
"He didn't know that my parents would both die in a car crash that night and I would never see them again anyway. He didn't know how much that one threat would make me hate him above all others. He didn't know. But now I will never let him forget."