Charlie's POV
Did my life long bully just say he needs me? Did my brother's life long bully say he needs me? Shock filled my entire body, does he honestly think that's good enough to make me help? I mean, I'm already helping his stupid family with the new system I have to do this weekend with people I don't want to see.
"What was that, Greyson Lockwood?" I put my hand to my ear smirking. He growled and shook his head. "I-I didn't hear you?" He shook his head at me and put his hands on his hips again.
"I'm not saying it again." He scoffed.
"Okay, well, I didn't hear a good reason for me to help, so I'm just goin-" He shoved the door closed as I went to open it. My back was to his chest. I could feel his fast heart beat. I hate him, right? So why am I getting this weird feeling from last night, again? It's Greyson Lockwood for Christ Sake, Charlotte.
"I said," He seemed out of breath, as if he was nervous. "I need you." He was almost pained, his voice showed it. He was so close to me it was almost too normal. "I need your intelligence. I need your expertise. I need your strength. I need your attitude." His lips were close to my ear, closer to my neck. "Please help me."
"What do I get from it?" He seemed caught off guard by my question. I turned to him, he basically encased me against the wall between his body and arms. His eyes were darker than normal as I looked up at him.
"Anything you want." He watched all of the features on my face.
"Respect." He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "For my brother. No more abusing him and his skills. No more long weeks away. No more hazing. No more mistreatment." He watched me carefully. "You can all hate me, and be mean to me, but not him. You've done enough to him in the years you've been around my family. You are to treat him as though he's equal." He seemed to have the cogs turning in his mind.
"Deal." He moved his hand to where my chest was. He held it out to shake, I took his hand gently, hesitantly. He moved from me slowly, then opened the door.
We walked down the hall, I kept to myself in all ways. He walked with his hands in his pockets. When I turned to go down the stairs, he stopped me.
"Where are you going?" He grabbed my upper arm gently this time.
"My brother comes first. He needs food, then I'll be up to help." He sighed, then looked to the office he was suppose to be in.
"Go down with her, son. They can wait fifteen more minutes." I looked up to see Michael standing in the hall speaking with Mason. Both men seemed to hold shock in their eyes for some reason. Greyson nodded, then turned to go down the stairs. I pulled my arm from his grasp as we walked.
"This doesn't mean we're friends, Lockwood. I still hate you." He scoffed, not saying anything as he escorted me to my brother.
When I pushed the door open to the AI room, I was met with Luke and Violet laughing at what Matthew was doing. He was showing them something he'd been working on. They all turned to see who entered and they all stopped laughing and fooling around. Matthew's smile dropped from his face when he looked to Greyson.
"I brought the food you asked." I said smiling to Matthew. He turned, and hugged me as I walked to him.
"Did he hurt you?" He asked gently.
"No. I have to go help him though, so here's the food." He took the bag and stared at me in confusion.
"She's helping with the presentation, Matt." Greyson spoke with a sigh. He seemed awkward at the moment for some reason.
"What about us?" Luke asked me softly, worried. Sighing I handed him the keys to my car.
"If you crash him, I will castrate you." I growled in anger. He laughed in shock.
"You're letting me drive, him? No f****** way....seriously?!" He got excited.
"Yes." I said through my teeth. "Danny Boy will drive me home when I'm finished. Just hang out at my house until then." He nodded, grabbing Violets arm in excitement.
"Deal." He laughed.
"Lucas!" I said warily. "Please don't hurt my car." He saluted me and smiled.
"No worries, Princess." He and Violet left the room smiling, freaking out.
"That was a horrible idea." I whimpered, Matty hugged me laughing.
"Yes it was. Go on, I'm sure the people are sick of waiting." He nudged me towards Greyson. I whined as I left.
The walk up the conference room was Greyson filling me in on what I needed to know. This isn't going to be fun in the least.
Luke's POV
Violet and myself were waiting for Charlie to come down. Matthew was showing us his latest project for the pack. It was an AI system for the high ranking officers to communicate information easier. It was cool. He and Charlie are seriously intelligent, maybe Charlie more so than him, but it's awesome some of the things they come up with. I know he talks to Charlie about ideas so he can impress the Alpha and Beta. She's gained him some respect in the pack through his ideas, but I know it kills him sometimes. He wants to provide entirely for Charlie, but she's already been an adult for a long time.
When she handed me her keys to her car, I couldn't hide my excitement. It's such a nice car! Her brother helped her get it, and oh my goodness!
"Come on, we're snooping when we get to her house." Violet said as I started her car up.
"That's kind of rude." She scoffed at me.
"She won't tell us who screwed her, and I am finding out. If it's who I think it is, we have an issue, Lucas." I stared at her shortly, confused. "Just, don't kill her car."
The ride was silent as we made it to Charlie's house. When we entered, I watched Violet start searching the house as she ate food from the fridge. Charlie is an amazing cook, so I might have ate some food too.
"I mean, she changed her bedding." I mentioned, and we went to the laundry room. It smelled familiar, not the detergent, but the underlying smell. It's as if we've been around it before.
"Ugh, she was smart and used smelly detergent. So annoying. She knows about us, Luke." She spoke gently as we went to Charlie's room.
"What?" I asked in worry.
"At the party the other day, she said she believed in werewolves, but got quiet. I think someone is leaking information to her some way. She's been oddly confident about everything as if she knows it's against our laws to harm a human." That does make sense now that she says something.
"That's not good." I mumbled as I sat on Charlie's bed. "That means she knows about her brother then."
"I don't think so, she would beat him senseless for lying. She's cut us off for lying. She'd go downhill again. I don't think she does know, I hope she doesn't." She sighed as she sat in the desk chair. "I can't find anything. She covered the scent like a pro."
"I hope it wasn't a wolf. I also hope they used a condom." She nodded at me with a sigh. "An IUD isn't accurate always." Yes we know she has an IUD. She tells us everything, that's why we feel so bad having to keep this massive secret from her.
"There's a lonely grape right here." She laughed gently, pointing to the desk. She picked it up, then leaned over the desk. "Got it." She whispered.
"What?" I said standing, rushing to the desk. The person left a note for Charlie, she must not have seen it this morning.
"What does he mean, "Don't worry about last night. I held back so I didn't ruin your life."?" Vi sat back thinking. My mind raced entirely.
"If he's a wolf, what about his mate? He'd be cheating on them." Vi said gently as she thought. My mouth dropped in shock as I turned to her.
"No if Charlie is this man's mate." She looked at me with disbelief.
"That's not possible.." She whispered.
"Charlie's mom was a human who had kids with a wolf. It would make sense." She shook her head.
"She wasn't his mate though." Sighing I sat down, thinking.
"Yeah, but, Charlie is the only product of that relationship." I spoke gently. "Maybe she's human, and has her father's genetic make up to make her have a mate." She nodded along, staring at the paper.
"It would make sense. I didn't see the mark on her body today, maybe that's what this person meant." I nodded.
"It's logical." She nodded with a sigh at my words.
"We should call Kaine." She spoke to me. Agreed.
Within the hour, Kaine was reading the note with confusion. He sat there staring at it for what seemed like ages before looking up at us.
"She has a mate, but she's human. That's the first time in a long time that's happened. I don't know how he was able to keep his wolf from marking her last night if this is the case. He would have to be very high rank to have that ability, but he would have to fight himself the entire time." Kaine chewed on his lip, thinking. So sexy.
"The draw would be too intense. He would have to have some strong reasoning not to mark her. Some kind of obstacle in the way to make him not want to..." I spoke gently.
"He would have to believe, with his whole being, that she's better off without him. She's been seeing him since we were younger, the same wolf. When she moved away, she didn't see him anymore. It's someone in our pack." Violet said pacing.
"Who did you think it was?" She laughed gently at my words.
"I thought it was Mason, it's clearly not though." She sighed sitting down. Kaine's small intake of breath made us look to him. He had his phone out looking between the paper and the phone.
"You're kidding me." He was in happy shock. He sat back in shock. "No way is that possible. It makes so much sense now."
"Who is it?" Vi and I asked him. The answer sent us both into a frenzy. Charlie is going to hate all of us, and her mate. This is not good at all.
"She cannot find out, whatsoever." Kaine said taking the paper.
"She needs to know." Vi snapped, what a loyal friend.
"Absolutely not! She will try to kill him." I snapped at her. "I love her to pieces, but...she cannot know. No until she can manage to create a better relationship with him when she can see his face during the day."
"Agreed, she can't know. Not yet anyway. She's not stupid, she find out soon enough. He's not intelligent when it comes to what's his." Kaine said putting his head in his hands. "She's going to hate us all."
Charlie's POV
Michael and Mason seemed shocked when I entered with Greyson. The people I ignored in the room previously scoffed at Greyson.
"I thought she was a pain." Some man snapped from his seat. My knuckles turned white from making fists to keep in my anger. This is so stupid, if Greyson knew how to properly run this software, I wouldn't be needed. Now he doesn't have to make a fool of himself, but I have to deal with rich, entitle, rude pieces of-
"Her name is Charlotte, and she's the best at what you all need done." Michael said, taking his seat at the head of the table. Greyson pulled out a chair, he nodded for me to sit down in it. Great, he's going to pull the chair from under me like he use to do. Sighing, I braced myself to fall, except I didn't. He pushed the chair in with me in it, shocking me.
"What do you mean?" The same man asked. "She's just a human." He tried to be quiet about his human comment. I looked at Greyson with irritation. He rolled his shoulders and looked to the man.
"Who happens to be the best hacker you've seen. You wanted us to find your weaknesses, she can do it in seconds." The man scoffed.
"Honey, you won't be able to hack our system." The woman to his right spoke, looking at me. She seemed as if she knew everything, bish please. The woman across the table from me was watching me carefully, smiling. That was the woman from before who let me use her phone to hack the system here. She slid her tablet to me, sitting back with a smirk. She winked at me, and I smiled. They continued to bicker in the room as I worked my magic. Some mans phone rang, he answered it with haste. He stared at the man speaking from before in shock.
"Someone got into our system." He whispered. "Find out who." He snapped into the phone. "What do you mean you don't know. It's not that hard to-" He was cut off. "So you're telling me you're useless?" He snapped into the phone. "I'll tell him, he won't be happy." He hung up with a sigh. He whispered something to the man before, causing him to stop speaking and look to me.
"Human. Try superior being." I muttered to myself as things started to pop up on the monitor. Greyson turned around and watched the documents appear. He shook his head smirking.
"Those are confidential! How did you-" The man stood up screaming only to stop when Greyson turned to him with some look I hated most. It was terrifying.
"Charlie, we didn't mean blackmail." Michael sighed from his seat.
"You said, whatever necessary, Mike." He smiled at me, screw you. "Look, I really don't care about your stupid little arguments or discrepancies between "companies"," They stared at me in shock. "I'm not on your side, I work for myself, sometimes Greyson or Michael." I growled in irritation. I had the attention of the room. "Just grow up, and do what's best for your 'consumers'." They stared at my hands every time I air quoted. I had stood up and faced the people.
"How are you able to do that?" The woman who said I couldn't hack, spoke. I snorted at her.
"It's called being superior to you people, duh." The woman who gave me her tablet smiled at my comment, she's cool. "Ms.Unhackable, you want to reconsider Greyson's deal? I've already brought them to their knees a few times, it's gets annoying." I laughed to myself. "Repetition is annoying. Same with rich, entitled, disrespectful, ignorant- people." I said bitterly. When I turned my back to them I laughed at the tablet.
"I said no blackmail." Michael sighed at me. When I turned to him I frowned. "Charlotte." He spoke knowingly.
"Nice one, Walter." I snorted at the tablet again. His name isn't Walter, I came up with it.
"Excuse me?" The woman said. She looked to the man on her left. I tugged on Greyson's shirt, causing him to look. He saw what I found and I saw his eyes process it in shock.
"What is going on?!" The man who answered his phone snapped. "Get off the system." He growled.
"Chill, sweetheart. I've been done with that for ages now. I'm on to juicer things." I held my left hand up at him. Greyson was almost leaning into me. I watched the reactions to people in the room. "Boring." I said in a sing song voice.
"How did you bring that up?" Greyson looked at me in shock. I shrugged.
"Searching for generic things brought it up. You owe me money now." I laughed, nudging him. He shook his head with a smile.
"We've come across some new information that - changes, things." He said looking at his father with a knowing look.
"If we have to take another break, I am crossing this dea-" I rolled my eyes and looked at Michael. He and his son were speaking without speaking. Michael's face changed to one of shock.
"Deal has changed." Michael said looking at the man.
"Because of what?!" He snapped angrily. He was old and starting to irritate me.
"Can I just embarrass him for being mean?" I whispered to Greyson. He shook his head at me, watching his father.
"Just watch, Princess."