When Sloane and Micah came back with food, Chrissy decided that was her cue to leave. She walked back to Tristan's house along the dirt paths, and stopped at the front door, taking a deep breath before she walked through.
She made her way to the kitchen, where it sounded like Tristan was cooking something.
Chrissy saw him and swallowed hard. Heat like she had never known bloomed in her stomach. He was looking remarkably handsome without a shirt, his hair pulled away from his face, looking contemplative and stern.
"How's your nose?" She asked softly, leaning against the counter.
His jaw tensed. "Fine."
She fidgeted with a salt shaker. "I'm sorry, by the way. If I didn't say it earlier."
Tristan didn't respond.
"Last year, my dad... He was drunk. Like, really drunk. Came into my room, tried to... Tried to do things." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "And then he did it again. And again. Finally, the last time, I couldn't get him off. I had to scream and Luke had to pull him off of me. So.. So this morning, it's instinctual. I'm sorry. Luke only knows about that last time. No one else knows about the rest."
His face softened somewhat. "I'm sorry that happened to you."
She shrugged. "He didn't really do anything, but it was some scary shit."
He was quiet.
"Um, you know Jasper, right?"
He nodded. "My right hand man. He kept the fort down this last time I was overseas."
"We kinda need Katheryn. Ryn."
His brows furrowed. "We?"
She purses her lips. "You are now entering the vow of sibling secrecy."
He chuckled. "Okay. I can do that."
"Sibling secrecy is even deeper than pinky swears." She told him.
He shook his head. "I am a sibling. I know."
"Alex is gay."
He laughed. "Very funny, that player-" Tristan looked at her, cut himself off. "You're not kidding." He tried to grapple with that statement. "I-um..." he rubbed his forehead, looking down at the counter. "It's not unheard of in this world, if a little complicated. I'm assuming this is a mate thing." He looked back up at her.
She nodded. "He thinks that my best friend Ryland is his mate. But A, we're not entirely sure because Alex met him when he was eleven, and B, we don't know what he is because he was adopted as a baby."
He contemplated for a moment. "And why do we think Ryland is his mate?"
"They kissed." She responded.
She sighed. "Yeah, that's pretty indicative. We can get Ryn, keep it on the down-low."
Chrissy's face felt warm. She ignored it. "What is that?"
He shrugged. "Steak. It was easy." Tristan looked at her and smirked. "Getting hot?"
She sneered at him. "No."
"It only gets worse."
Tristan finished up with dinner and they talked about mostly trivial things while they ate. She had lots of questions about life here, mythics, the book.
He started to clean up and Chrissy collapsed on the couch and picked up the book. She read a few pages before Tristan came over and told her to move. She was too scared as to what might happen if they actually touched that she sat up at his first request.
When he sat down next to her and his hand brushed her leg her body thrummed and she bit her lip. She moved a bit closer to the side of the couch.
It didn't help.
"I'm going to go shower." She announced, standing up quickly. I might be a while.
He said something in response and she didn't listen, rushing upstairs. She locked the bathroom door and braced her back against it, trying to calm herself. Instead, her brain churned up nasty images of her and Tristan in bed together.
She shook her head and stripped off her clothes, stepped under the shower spray before it had even warmed up.
Jesus, no!
Her skin was hypersensitive, even as she waited for the water to heat the sensation was too much to bear, and not the right kind. It felt like overload. Every water droplet was sin to her skin. The rubbing of the towel was even worse. She decided to wash her hair in the sink and just go to bed.
When she got out, dressed in her skimpiest pajamas, Tristan was waiting expectantly. "I told you a shower would only make it worse."
She grumbled, stole his brush and ran it through her hair. "What, aren't you going to try to touch me or something?"
He analyzed his nails. "Tempting, but no. You're going to have to ask."
She sat on the bed. "I'm never asking you."
He looked at her closely. "You're going to bed?"
She gave him the finger.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll come up in a couple hours." Tristan smirked as he rolled his back off the doorframe. "Just holler if you need me."
She turned off the light and fell into a fitful, dream-filled sleep.
*
Christine woke up alone the next morning. Oh, jeez... no pants, panties soaked and askew. She flushed bright red just looking at the mess.
Swallowing hard, she got up and changed. Chrissy needed to get far, far away from Tristan and occupy herself. Physically.
More of her stuff had trickled in from home. She grabbed her old running shoes and shorts and went downstairs to find that Tristan had fallen asleep on the couch.
He woke up upon hearing her footsteps. "Hey." He muttered. "Uh. I think if we slept in the same bed I would have fucked you in your sleep."
"Well," she put her hands on her hips, trying to ignore his pull, "asleep me would not have objected. I'm going to go on a run. I guess..."
"See you later?" He offered, rising up on his elbows. His brows furrowed. "Have you eaten anything?" Tristan's gaze fell to her exposed legs, obviously daydreaming about them.
"Nope!" She chirped. "Bye!"
With that, she headed out the door. Chrissy found a random path and started on it. Usually she could run five or six miles without a problem but after feeling like she was about to pass out, she checked her pace counter on her phone to find she had only run two. It wasn't even that hot outside. Shaking it off as lack of practice, she decided to walk her way back and spend as much time as possible outside.
Chrissy started planning more things to use in avoiding Tristan for the whole day. Her list came up short at visiting her brothers and sparring with them. Though she wasn't that worried, they had spent hours talking just yesterday. Her and Alex certainly had more to talk about. They could also spend some of the day tracking down Ryn and Jasper.
When she finally got to Luke and Alex's house, she was exhausted barged in to collapse on their kitchen floor.
"Jesus, Chris. You don't look good. How far did you go?" Luke asked, stepping over her to fill up his coffee cup.
The floor felt so cold. So nice. "Literally four miles. We should spar." She paused. "When the floor stops feeling so good."
Luke frowned. "Four miles usually doesn't phase you," He deadpanned, "have you been smoking again?"
"Luke, always." She told him, out of breath. "I've never quit."
Alex was eating a bowl of cereal. He laughed. "Oh, jeez. You're in heat. Have you eaten anything?"
"Fuck you." She muttered. "Tristan asked the same goddamn question."
Luke offered her his arm and she wrapped her hand around it, letting him pull her up. She sank down in a kitchen chair. "I'm fine. Just antsy."
"He asked because it's important." Luke told her. "You're not starving? Most women are."
She shook her head. "No, I'm not."
"Christine," Alex got her attention, "this isn't something you can fight or run away from. There's not a recorded case in history. You're exhausted because you ran so far away from him."
Chrissy stared at the wall. "I'm not fucking Tristan."
The boys didn't reply to that. "How about this, Chrissy. I'll make you breakfast. Anything you want." Alex offered.
She shook her head. "I told you. I'm not hungry."
"Eggs in a blanket it is." He announced, standing up with his cereal.
It was her favorite.
Luke sat down next to Chris, put his coffee on the table. "You up for some small-town gossip?" He asks.
She laughed. "Always. But first, how's your nose?"
He shrugged. "It hurt like a bitch for a good minute or two. You got me good." He smiled. "Just like I taught you."
"I would say that you and Tristan have matching battle scars from me now, but damn thing's gone."
His eyebrows furrowed. "You socked him in the nose? What for?"
Her expression grew solemn, and she could only hope Luke would understand without much thorough explanation. She didn't want Alex knowing too. "It was instinct. Woke up next to him. If you..."
He nodded. "I understand. Men can't hurt their mates, y'know."
"Her ass says otherwise." Alex interjected, chuckling evilly to himself.
"Fuck you." She told him, then looked at Luke, face warming. "He snuck up on me. I'm still winning in the grand scheme. He's got three points, I have four."
He sighed. "Not like that. He can't... Force you to do anything. And he can't hurt you, like seriously injure you."
She rose an eyebrow at him. "Shut the hell up. Small town gossip."
He took a breath. "Well, I responded to a domestic disturbance call late last night. You'll never believe it. You know Mr. and Mrs. Humperdinck?"
She nodded. "The empty-nest couple that lived down the street."
He started to grin. "Cynthia cheated on him with the pastor."
She burst out laughing. "The one from the Baptist church off of main? Creepy guy?"
He nodded. "This man was standing in the yard with nothing but his tighty-whities. She was wearing his shirt and Mr. Humperdinck was throwing her clothes from the window. All the while, the sprinkler system was going off."
She grinned. "You told them it was no use having that installed. It rains here too much anyway."
He grinned back. "Yeah, she regrets that purchase now."
"What did you do with them?" She asked.
He shrugged. "There's not much I could do." He bit his lip, trying not to laugh, "I drove them to the nearest motel while they whispered sweet nothings in the backseat."
Christine laughed and shook her head. "I thought he was into kids, just turns out he likes married women."
Luke chuckled, then grew a little more serious. "You're really not hungry?"
She rolled her eyes. "Would you leave it? No, I'm not."
Luke gave her his signature, 'you can't kick me I have puppy-dog eyes,' expression. "Can you eat for me, please? Just a little?"
She stared at him, grit her teeth. "If you'll stop staring at me like that, fine." She watched his expression, then said something that was bothering her. "You lied to me."
That statement kicked him right in the puppy-dog eyes. "This isn't the life we wanted for you, Chrissy. Not by a long shot. We've saved up for so long to send you to college. All of us. I've put over eight thousand in that account alone." He sighed. "It's yours now. To do what you want with it."
She blinked at him.
"It's in your name, Chrissy."
"How... How much money is in it?" She asked.
He sighed, "we got two mom's inheritance, I put in eight, Alex put in five, and Micah put in two."
The worst thing about loyalty to someone is sometimes you have to forgive them.
"There's eighteen thousand dollars in that account?" She whispered.
He started spinning his coffee cup by the handle. "Enough to send you to LSU."
She suddenly wanted to cry. There'd been too much crying and almost crying over the last several days, she couldn't do it. "Luke, that's like half your salary." She murmured.
He shrugged. "It's yours."
Alex put a plate down in front of her. Now she really wasn't hungry.
"Y'all seriously did that for me?" She whispered.
Alex poked at her plate. "What? You thought we were going to let that beautiful brain of yours rot in some two-year community college? Eat, Chrissy."
Stunned, she stared at the plate. "That's so much money. I can't take that from you." The thought of food made her nauseous. She had to shove the plate out of sight. "Sorry, Alex. I can't do it. I feel like my insides are about to become outsides."
He frowned, but nonetheless dragged the plate over to himself and started on it himself.
"Do you wanna go kick my ass outside? That always makes you feel better." Luke suggested.
She nodded, beginning to believe that maybe she couldn't just wait this out. Chrissy started outside and turned her ponytail into a bun so Luke couldn't play dirty and grab it when he started to lose. Sitting on the back steps, he tossed her a set of hand wraps with a serious look that said, don't you dare break your hand on my face again.
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, starting to wrap her hands, "I learned my lesson two years ago." She was down and out for six months. Never again. She smirked at him, "although, it's nice to know that you'll heal in a day if I break something of yours."
He shrugged. "Wait a couple years and I won't half-ass on you either. You'll stop aging and become immortal."
She chuckled and clapped her newly bandaged hands together. Chrissy was a lot lighter on her feet than Luke was, and much faster. Though if he did decide to do a hard hit that she couldn't block it was much more debilitating. Alex had come out to be ref, still munching on his breakfast.
They tapped fists together and started the first match. After a little back and forth Luke screwed up, telegraphing a kick. She caught it and had him on the ground in seconds.
Second match started and she wasn't that lucky this time around. He got her down easy in a single leg takedown.
The third match spelled her defeat as well.
"C'mon, Chrissy! You're better than this!" Alex called.
Luke was frowning. "She's exhausted."
Chrissy dusted herself off and got back into her stance. "Don't be a pansy. Round four."
He shook his head at her, but nonetheless tapped their fists together. Micah and Sloane turned up just in time to see her go down a third time.
She started to swear and get angry.
"Chrissy, if you can't beat me this time, I'm stopping this. I'm not sending you back to Tristan beat all to hell." Luke warned her.
"Fuck you, and fuck that." She spat, starting without warning. She got in a good two jabs to his side before blocking a kick and backing off.
Luke went hard on her this round, making sure he won. She couldn't avoid this. The lykans needed a queen. For his race and for her, he took her down a final time.
With Chrissy still on the ground, he got up and started unwrapping his fists.
She sat up. "Hey," she snapped, "We're not done."
He nodded. "Yeah, Chris. We are." He looked back at her. "Try to get up."
She tried, fell, screamed in frustration, cursed, swore, threw all kinds of nasty venom at him. The frustration became so overwhelming, the hormones crazy, she started to cry and buried her face in her hands.
Sloane came down from the porch and walked over to Christine. Patiently, she sat next to her in the grass and started undoing the bandages on her hands.
"Are you going to lecture me too? Tell me to eat, go back to that bastard?" She asked through tears.
Sloane shook her head. "You think I wanted to fuck your brother? He's rude and callous, couldn't even remember my name. Everyone tries, there is no avoiding it. My only advice is to make him work for it. That's how you win. You only have to do it once, at least for this cycle."
Chrissy shook her head. "I can't. I can't do it. Not with him."
Sloane huffed. "Okay. No more kid gloves. You need to. For yourself, for him, for us. For this whole goddamn race. Stop thinking about yourself and look at the bigger picture. You're being self-centered about this and I don't even think you realize it. We need a queen, and we don't get another one."
When Chrissy looked up and saw Tristan on the porch, arms crossed on the ledge, all she felt was devastation.
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How r y'all liking the longer chapters? I usually go for ~ 2000 words but I think my last few have been closer to 2700 or 3000