© Amber Kalkes 2014
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< T H R E E >
“Who the hell is this?”
Sam watches as Arden jumps out of her chair at the kitchen table and feels a bit smug when she hides behind him. He likes that she feels safe and knows he’ll protect her as best he can. He hasn’t felt useful for awhile in that way so the satisfaction he feels is a bit dusty but no less powerful. He has an idea he could run a mile no matter the bum knee with this sensation in his body.
Turning his attention to the source of the voice he rolls his eyes. May is home and it appears so is his seventeen year old sister, Kayla. His sister is a fairly tall girl with light brown hair and bright blue eyes; in fact she looks identical to their mother and May’s sister. Kayla, in her short shorts and pink tank top is all attitude as she glares at Arden’s half hidden form behind him.
“Well?” She prompt making him roll his eyes again. She’s such a brat.
“This is Arden.”
“Good for her. What is she doing in my house?” Kayla snaps, “Are you screwing girls in our house now, Sam? That’s disgusting!”
Arden flinches and Sam narrows his eyes at his sister.
“Your names Arden?” May asks while smiling softly at the frightened girl.
The girl in question pokes her head from behind him at the mention of her name before hiding behind him again. Her hands are on the back of his shirt but still he can feel those odd tingles break out across the skin there. What the hell is that?
“Have you eaten?”
Sam scoffs, “I fed her, May. No need to worry about that.”
“And you didn’t burn the house down?” Kayla snorts.
“Enough.” May snaps making both siblings shut their mouths. “Well, do you need a ride back home?”
Arden shrinks farther behind him. May raises an eyebrow but says nothing as Kayla frowns at something. Before May can speak Kayla pulls her arm and the both of them begin talking in hushed tones. Sam rolls his eyes and looks over his shoulder to look at Arden has her eyes shut.
“You okay back there, sweetheart?” he asks softly.
Arden nods and hesitantly opens her eyes. “T-Thank you.”
Sam stills at the sound of her voice. Sure, it’s choked, scratchy and barely audible but to him it’s the perfect sound. He notices how she swallows thickly after speaking and knows it probably hurt a lot to say those two words. Giving her his best reassuring smile he turns back towards his aunt and sister.
“Well what are you two hens clucking on about?” he prompts with a sigh.
May shoots him a dirty look, “Arden, do you have any family you need to call?”
Arden shakes her head.
“None at all?”
Another shake of the head.
May sighs and tucks a chunk of her red hair behind her ear. “Well, I guess I’d be rude of me to kick you into the street with no place to go. How would you like to stay here for a bit? Until your on your feet.”
Golden eyes meet his for a second and he smiles at her in encouragement. Slowly she nods and he feels slightly relieved. He doesn’t get why he feels this way toward her but he really wants to be around her more. With her staying at May’s it gives him a good excuse to come over and visit.
As May goes on about something or other Sam’s gaze falls to her neck. Shock reverberates through his body as he looks at the once destroyed patch of skin. It still looks damaged but gone is the sheen of new skin and is replaced with what looks like a days old scar. How is that even possible?
“You can have Sam’s room.” Kayla smiles, apparently over her earlier attitude. “It’s got the biggest bed and has the best view.”
His room? Pushing aside the question of how she could have possibly healed so fast he focuses on the image of her in his room. He finds himself liking the idea of that…almost too much.
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Arden sits on the large queen sized bed and caresses the royal blue fabric of the blanket as she looks around the room. The scent of Sam is faint but there enough to soothe her worries of him being so far away. He had left after dinner though he hadn’t left her side the whole night. She hopes it’s a good sign, that maybe he’ll come around to liking her.
The room is full of small personal items but its clear it hasn’t been lived in quite some time. As she looks around she can’t help but think of her own living space back with the pack. It was nothing like this room; in truth it was the exact opposite.
While Sam’s room was comfortable Arden had been living in a small concrete cell underground. She was only given a large dog bed, a scratchy army blanket and a bucket to do her business in, which was situated in the corner. She never knew when it was day or night other than on whom the guards were. Liza was daytime while Steven was nighttime. Liza usually ignored her while Steven made it his mission to be cruel to her.
When it was Steven’s turn Arden always knew to stay alert. Nighttime was never safe for her. If they weren’t coming in to drain her, beat her or have their way with her they were unhappy. Every night one or all of those things happened to her leaving her broken more often then not.
Arden grew accustomed to pain.
No more. Free.
Arden nods to herself, agreeing with her wolf. They were free but for how long?
Her eyes fall to a book on the bedside table and gingerly she brings it to her lap. It’s a book about a girl with a dragon tattoo. Opening it she peeks inside and quickly puts it back, intimidated by the amount of words.
She, like most of the lower ranked members of the pack were not educated much. She knew how to read, though it wasn’t without difficulty and she could write but it was a childish scrawl. Most of Arden’s reading was done by dim light in her cell with a second hand book of fairytales. It was scribbled on with crayons and some of the pages were ripped out but Arden had enjoyed having it.
Of course when Steven had found out she had it he had burned it before her eyes with a sick smile on his face. He, above even the Alpha, hated her most. After the loss of her book her days had mostly consisted of drawing in the dirty floor of her cell or humming aimlessly to herself.
After all when one is as alone as Arden was, one usually finds pleasures in little things.
Letting her mind resurface into the now a small brown frame catches her attention from the desk across the room. Getting up from the bed she walks over to it and picks it up to inspect it closely. A small smile works its way onto her face as she takes in the people in the photo within.
She recognizes Sam right away. He’s in his mid-teens with a more lanky build then he has now but his smile and gray eyes are the same. She can see confidence oozing off of him as he stares back out from the photo back at her with happiness radiating from every pour but something is missing. Arden looks closer and notices the burn scars are missing from his body and feels a pang of disappointment. It seems to be one of the things she likes most about him.
Sam’s arm is around a girl, around six or seven she vaguely recognizes as Kayla. The bright blue eyes are the same but the shade of her hair is more blonde than the brown it is now and wild with curls. She’s pouting out of the image and Arden can’t help but notice how her attitude hasn’t seemed to change much.
The two other people Arden doesn’t recognize but she can see the features of both children in the man and woman. She realizes these are their parents. Moving her attention to the man she can see Sam reflected in his confident body language and height though his hair is a golden blonde and shorn close to his head. The man is looking down at the woman beside him in admiration.
The woman is grinning wildly back at Arden. She has short brown hair and warm blue eyes that look similar to Kayla’s own pair. She is tall, as the whole family seems to be and is leaning her head back on the man’s chest.
The family looks so happy.
Three knocks on the door make Arden jump and put the picture back before someone opens the door. Kayla’s head pops into the room looking around with a frown before walking in. Arden drops her gaze to her feet trying to keep herself from showing disrespect and looking her in the eye. This is after all it is Kayla and May’s house and she doesn’t want to give them any reason to send her away.
“What are you doing?” Kayla asks.
Arden doesn’t answer but shifts her weight from foot to foot awkwardly.
“Sam said you’re throat was hurt so I brought some Neosporin. It’ll help it heal better and keep it clean.” Kayla says showing her an orange tube of ointment. “Can I help?”
Hesitantly Arden nods.
Kayla beams, “Great, sit on the bed and I’ll put it on.”
Arden does as she asks and sits down warily. Despite knowing the reason for the change in Kayla’s attitude she’s still not sure what to make of the girl. It seems that Kayla noticed a few of the scars on Arden’s body and told May her suspicions about her being abused at home. Though it was too low for maybe Sam’s ears to pick up Arden’s are too tuned to the low noises to have missed the conversation.
“Can you move your hair?”
Arden does as asked and hears Kayla’s gasp of horror.
“Oh my god. Does that hurt?”
Does it? She doesn’t know anymore so she just shrugs.
As Kayla begins putting the cool slimy gel onto the burn marks of her collar she closes her eyes and inhales Sam’s scent. It’s clung to her clothes from when she had hidden behind him and had even dared to touch him. She wanted to do so much more but suspects’ humans aren’t as direct as wolves are.
They need time to adjust to ideas.
“You know I think Sam really likes you.” Kayla says suddenly making Arden blush. “May practically had to push him out the door tonight. He didn’t keep his eyes off you either.”
Did he? She was so busy trying to not stare at him she must have missed it.
“Listen, I’m sorry about earlier. I just…I’m protective of him. He’s my brother and since his injury I just don’t want to see him hurt. People, especially girl’s he’s been with tend to not treat him the best.”
Arden’s wolf growls at the idea of others in her head but Arden nods so Kayla knows she’s listening to her. Despite this inside, along with her wolf, she’s seething. She can’t believe people would treat her mate wrongly just because of his appearance. Irony hits Arden hard in the gut thinking of the reason behind her own imprisonment in the pack.
Her heart aches more for him then it had before.
“I’ve never seen him like he is around you though.” Kayla says as she screws back on the cover of the tube, “Do you think he’s cute?”
Arden feels her cheeks heat but nods.
It’s a lie though. She doesn’t think Sam is cute. She thinks Sam is beautiful, handsome and perfection. But he is her mate and as such she knows that is what she’s supposed to think. He is the other half of her soul after all.
“Good.” Kayla chirps with a grin before springing off the bed, “Sleep good, Arden.”
Arden nods and watches as Kayla leaves bewildered.
What a strange girl.
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So that's Kayla. Again, a bit boring but I'm building up a backstory here. Stay with me, please. It'll pick up next chapter and we'll see of Sam's....interesting flirting skills.
What did you guys think of Arden's life in the pack?
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