Chapter 30
~Beau’s POV~
It was a forty minute drive from the closest airport to Shadowswood. Ves was driving once again with Lexa and me in the back. I was surprised to see a black sedan waiting for us after we got off the plane. The keys were in an envelope along with a map on how to get to Shadowswood. On normal missions I had someone meet me with my vehicle, but apparently Lucie wanted to avoid anyone having direct contact with me for the time being. I didn’t blame her at all.
I knew we were in Shadowswood the second that we entered the quaint little town. I had a love hate relationship with small towns. On one hand, they were small meaning that there was less of a chance of encountering a human during a shift. But with small towns the second you arrived, everyone knew which nearly evaporated all hope for those wanting to keep a low profile. It was doable, but it was extremely difficult. My usual black sedan was already leaving me with much curious attention from the town’s human population. Their attention would probably have left had it not been for my enormous driver that completely filled out the driver’s seat, analyzing each and every face for signs of a threat.
“Why they all staring, Boss?”
“They aren’t used to visitors, Ves,” it was a true statement, yet even Ves could guess the more likely reason they kept their eyes peeled on our black retreating form. It took about five minutes to get to the pack house from the center of town and when we arrive there were two very familiar sights waiting for us. Ves pulled up and parked, stepping out of the car and standing to his full height. I watched amused as Dominic took a step back, getting into a fighting stance. Lucie glanced back from Ves back to the sedan she had waiting for me at the airport.
“Relax Dom, he’s friendly,” With her words, Ves engulfed her in his arms, swinging her around, which was a usual sight with people he liked.
“Put her down now!” Dom screamed at Ves as he tried to figure out how to get Lucie down. Apparently her previous statement had fallen on deaf ears.
“Relax Dom. I’m almost a hundred percent sure that this is a friend of Beau’s. He always talked about procuring a bodyguard, much like this fellow here. Can you put me down, Handsome?” Ves’s smile was bigger than I had ever seen it.
“Mr. Bowen right ‘bout you Lucie. You are real nice,” I felt color flood to my cheeks. Of course he would tell her about our little exchange before we left. Instead of ferretting over what Ves had just said, I opened the door. I wiped my face clear of all previous emotions and let an amused smirk once again flood my face. I was Beau Bowen, and it was about time that I started acting like it. The expression on Lucie’s face matched what I expected it to be; a mixture of regret and sorrow. It was an expression that I was not unused to getting. But for some strange reason, it seemed to surprise me that she was looking at me that way. Lucie’s expression changed completely when Lexa got out of the car.
“Lexi!” I think my mouth dropped as two stories at the sight of seeing Lucie express this much emotion about seeing someone. Dominic’s expression almost mirrored mine to t which almost caused me to laugh. It looks like I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t used to seeing this kind of reaction coming from Lucie.
“I haven’t seen you in ages! When I first heard that you were working with Beau I didn’t believe it, but then I remembered the reason why you and I got along so well in the first place. It was the same reason that I had liked Beauregard.” My usual cocky grin spread across my face and in seconds Lucie’s fist was hurled playfully into my shoulder. Even though it was a playful punch, it still hurt, but that must have been the new found strength that had come along with being a werewolf, I suppose.
“You and I both know that wasn’t what I meant Bowen,” I felt the shift in the air along with the almost overwhelming sense of power that came along with the new presence. A beast of a man took a step out of the house behind us. His entire demeanor screamed power, down to the very way he carried himself. His features were highly defined, accented with deep piercing brown eyes. He was an Alpha, seemingly born and raised.
“Alpha Shadowswood, I presume?” The tone of my voice was almost mocking, which demeaned his status and threatened what remained of his resolve. That itself was a very dangerous game of Russian roulette. Speaking with Alphas and Betas had never been my forte and was one of the main reasons I had avoided joining a pack after my own pack’s demise years ago.
“Watch your tongue, boy,”
“Casey you shouldn’t-,” Dominic had never had a habit of sticking up for me, and now defiantly wasn’t the time to start.
“You’re defending him?”
“He did live with me for six months, Casey,” Casey looked betrayed as he glanced back and forth between Dominic and myself. With the way things were going today, it didn’t look like were going to end well. I turned to Lucie but before I could ask her for help, she had already started to speak.
“You lived with him for six months?”
“I lived with him for a year…,” Casey was fuming at this point. Usually creating this kind of trouble was everything that I lived for, but something about this wasn’t quite sitting with me right.
“Why haven’t I heard of him before? Why wasn’t I informed about him?”
“Informed? I don’t have to inform you on every person I’ve been involved with.”
“You were involved with him?”
“Casey I think you need to-,” Casey lashed out before even I could even react. Casey had been aiming for me, but instead his hand had hit Dominic’s cheek instead. Blood flowed from the wound, dripping in thick read rivets down his face and then pooling around his feet on the ground.
“Lexa, take Dominic back to his house and get him patched up. You still remember the way, do you not?” My jaw was locked and I hoped my eyes conveyed the severity of what was going on to her. Pain flashed in her eyes at my words though. I knew as well as she that Dominic’s house was the last place she wanted to go. She hadn’t spoken a word to Kaija since she had gone Rouge. She hadn’t spoken to Dominic since then either, and she and I both knew that that was going to cause even more problems to arise. Lexa swung her arm around Dom, glaring back at Casey with a look that I had only seen on her face once before.
“Ves, please go follow Miss Lexi. I want you to stand outside the door and get whatever she needs to tend to Mr. Dominic’s wounds, okay?”
“Yes, boss,” today was one of the first days in the few short months that I had employed Ves that his mere presence didn’t ease me. Silence passed between us after the three had left us. Casey, Lucie and I were the only people that remained, each of us not daring to be the first one to speak.
“Casey I need to speak with Beauregard alone.” She didn’t meet Casey’s eyes as she spoke, choosing instead to stare aimlessly in the forest that surrounded the massive pack house. My first impulse was to gloat, to let the impulsive façade that I had worn for so long dictate my response. Yet, as was generally the case around Lucie, that façade seemed nowhere to be found.
“I promise nothing will happen between us, Alpha,” the words tasted foreign in my mouth, yet somehow they glided out without a second thought. Lucie trained her eyes on me, her confusion clear as day at my words I had spoken. I knew she hadn’t heard me say much of anything to that effect when we had known each other. During the countless hours we had spent together, I had nearly had to force myself to respond with my usual vulgar vigor. But in my haste I had disregarded that mindset, in turn responding to the one that had formed during my time with Lucie… one that I had thought I had quelled long after Lucie had abandoned me.
“Your word?”
“My word,” my word was something I never promised anyone. Because when it came to the end of the day, your word and your dignity were all you had. I felt my face tighten as the instances that had taught me that flashed through my mind, causing a ghost pain to pass though my body, highlighting every part of me that had hurt during those very memories.
Casey nodded and walked away, going back inside the massive Pack House that now loomed hauntingly in front of me. My throat was tight as I forced myself to avoid watching her. I heard Lucie start to walk away, presumably leading me somewhere. I knew there were two very real scenarios of what could play out here. I wasn’t even sure which one I wanted.
“Are you coming slow poke or are you going to make me wait all day?” Lucie had stopped at a tree not too far from where I was. Her black hair was gently blowing in the wind, making her subconsciously tuck a strand behind her ear. She bit her lip as she watched me, adjusting her weight from foot to foot as she waited for my response.
“I’m waiting, Beau…,” her voice was silky sweet as she tried to use it to play with my emotions. Instead of answering her I walked up to her, not letting my eyes break from her own. As I grew closer her eyes grew wider until my chest was flush with hers. She took a step back which caused her to stumble.
“Just like old times I see, Beau,” she didn’t try to step back up to my level, instead she wrapped her arms around me leaning into me.
“It’s good to see someone from my past who isn’t trying to kill me.” Her words were muffled into my shirt, but I heard them all the same. I knew the feeling quite well. I couldn’t remember the last time I had met someone from my past that hadn’t been trying to kill me. But that was to be expected given my occupation.
“It’s the price we pay for keeping the world safe, love,” I felt her tears soak my shirt and it almost pained me to keep my own emotions in check.
“I never wanted this life, Beau,”
“None of us did.”
“I never wanted to be a werewolf. I didn’t even want to be a huntress. You know me… better than anyone. And now here I am, Luna to a pack of werewolves I had never even met. I don’t know why I’m even fighting anymore. I don’t know why any of us are anymore,”
“You wanted to be a captain and to sail around the world,”
“And you wanted to be a doctor with the group Doctors without Borders,”
“We can still be those things,” Lucie had started to plant feather soft kisses on my shirt, kissing away the tear drops that had stained my shirt. The second that her lips hit my neck I began to feel my resolve slip away.
“You changed me, Bowen,”
“You were the only able to change me,” the words slipped out before I had a chance to stop them. Her lips turned into a smile against my neck.
“All I need is one kiss,” her lips hovered over mine, almost touching in an angel soft embrace. However, I opened my eyes. I stared down at the only woman to have ever meant a thing to me, and then I broke the spell.
“There was a reason why I was never a sailor,” she froze in front of me, then bowed her head.
“The world just isn’t ready for a Bowen Sailor,” a guilty expression crossed her face as she held my stare for a few moments. I knew she was going to leave. She wouldn’t have called if this had been a battle she could have walked away from.
“You’ve changed,”
“You changed me,”
“Why did you let me leave?”
“Because, as much as I want to say I’ve changed… there are just some things I know won’t.”
“And what are those things?”
“You left because you were afraid your father would have killed me if you stayed.”
“So?”
“You left me because you thought I couldn’t protect myself from your father,” it had been eating away at me since the day she had left. She didn’t trust in my abilities. She didn’t trust me. She had been the only person I had ever been able to completely open up to, yet that wasn’t enough.
“You can’t,”
“You didn’t even let me try,”
“I didn’t want you to,”
“Looks like now you won’t have a choice,” I let all emotion drain from my voice before I spoke the words. I wasn’t here because she called. I wasn’t here because I wanted to just screw things up like I enjoyed doing in so many other places. I was here to prove something. That she should have trusted me. That just meant now I had to figure out some way to trust myself.