Why did he storm out?
I sighed looking around the office he left me in, it was eerie standing alone in his office felt weird.
I didn't want to live the rest of my life, knowing that the only reason the person keeping my bed warm was there because of some stupid attraction that was there thanks to our wolves. Not our humans.
We weren't completely werewolves, and that was for a reason. Our human had to control the wolf, it was a human body, we hosted them most of the time and that's who should rule it. Not some animal.
Sometimes I thought that perhaps the humans had it easy, they could find love because people liked them for who they are. For us, it wasn't like that. There were heaps of instances where mates rejected each other and lived separately, so it can't be destiny if there wasn't a 100% success rate to begin with.
Or leaving the material aspects aside, what about personality? You were manipulated to think that you love your mate, but what if without the pull you would originally hate a guy like him? But because of the pull, you were under an illusion.
I wasn't going to be under that illusion, I forbid myself to be under such a thing like that. My eyes roamed around the room, taking in its size. It wasn't like other offices, for a start, this room had more books than it actually needed.
The walls, it reminded me of a library, packed with books and even a moving ladder in the far distance. There was a black couch, big enough for someone to sleep on, with a coffee table with drinks on it.
Did he live in this room?
My eyes roamed over to the desk in front of me, pure oak, sturdy with bare essentials, it was interesting how a world map was etched onto the surface. There was another table connecting to it, in an L shape but it had a computer monitor on it that had a window that looked out onto the white snow blanketed outside.
Curiosity got the best of me and I got up walking around, I felt sneaky, and out of place as I walked around. I moved his leather chair taking a seat, feeling awfully short in it. It was the reflections on the ceiling that made me come over here, what was reflecting on it?
Not one, not two, but a collection of paperweights, that made me freeze.
Did he collect paperweights too?
I jumped as the door opened, and I nearly dropped the paperweight I was looking at.
"I'm not spying." I said as Marcus gave me an odd look, I was standing so close to a bunch of files on the desk that perhaps he did think I was spying.
Instead Marcus just shrugged, "I know, Hercules told me you were here and to see if you needed anything," as he walked over and jumped onto a chair opposite the desk.
I went back to looking at the cold and heavy object in my palm, I held it up letting the natural light reflect off it.
I thought I was the only one who obsessed over these but Hercules seemed to have the true meaning of obsession. He had at least four times the collection of me and my paperweights.
"Pretty stupid aren't they?" Marcus said.
I looked over to see Marcus sitting with his butt in the middle, legs hanging over one armrest and his elbows behind him so he could lean against them.
I turned the paper-weight, mesmerised by the colours inside. "Where does he get these from?" I asked. I placed it back down, looking at the range of he had and froze looking at one in particular. It was in the middle. It wasn't like the rest of them.
While the rest had a clear outing, this was dark. I picked it up, it was heavier as well. It wasn't dark in the sense it was a different colour, it was dark in the sense that the colours were simple and the object inside reached the whole tip. While most you could see through, this one you can't.
It was a simple picture, a wolf's head, its eyes dark as I held it up, it's gaze meeting mine. It was weird that an object like this had so much power to have you stare back at it. The detail of each line, displaying the fur, and soft red colour around its mouth.
"Would he notice if I stole this?" I joked.
"Probably, that was his first one."
Damn it, I wanted it.
"His sister gave it to him," he said as I carefully placed it back in its spot trying not to move the other, but when he mentioned that I nearly dropped it.
"He has a sister?" I asked. I haven't seen her in the house, does she live here?
"Had," Marcus said, "He also had parents, wait we all have parents, weirddddd" Marcus said, more to himself like he was thinking out loud, and I rolled my eyes.
"How else are we born?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, true point."
"What um..." I walked around the table, clearing my throat, "happened to them?"
Marcus shrugged, "They died, attacked by a rogue ambush a few years ago, I wasn't here so you should ask him for the whole story. Also what did you do earlier because Hercules came storming out really angry. I don't think I've ever seen him that annoyed in his life? Give him more paperwork?"
"Where is Cameron?" I asked, instead of answering that question because I didn't think I did anything. Maybe Hercules wasn't happy with my view on amets and that was fine, that was his opinion and I had mine.
"In the dungeons, want me to take you?" I gave him a nod and the man was on his feet pulling his shirt down and bowing, "Follow me my lady," he said, making me smile.
Marcus had some childish nature about him, he had that contagious smile and made everything a little less light in this pack house as everyone else was more of the 'serious' kind.
As I followed him out I saw more photographs on the walls on either side of the corridor. I let my fingers feel the fabric under the paintings, it wasn't wall paint or wallpaper but almost like velvet.
"Tell me about your Alpha." I said.
"There's not much to say, well good things to say," Marcus shrugged.
Marcus led me through a black door at the end of the corridor needing three sets of keys to unlock "There are stairs, watch your feet," he warned me.
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the murky wooden stairs, they looked out of place in this perfect building as I blindly followed behind him. "And as for my Alpha, well you met him, he gets what he wants."
"Isn't that a bit far-fetched? An exaggeration?"
Marcus looked over his shoulder smiling, "Not if there is a track record to prove it."
The dungeon was dark, dirty and had a weird stench that I couldn't put my finger on. I could also hear drops of water dripping somewhere and it was bothering me that no one else was turning it off. I shuddered as we walked further in, it was freezing down here making me shiver.
There were a lot of people down here, pack members turning to look at us as Marcus gave me a tour. The rogue wasn't here yet, he said that Gideon was doing some last minute arrangements but Marcus showed me to the cell that he would be in.
The silver cuffs were already against the wall, and this cell was further away. On the walk back I realised there were some rogues in some of the cells.
"Do you generally hold rogues down here?" I asked.
"We try to rescue them, we get a lot of suicidal ones after they lose a mate or family etc. we generally try to control them, let them cope down here as they can be quite violent. They generally try to pick fights with our pack members as they know that would be immediate death but Alpha Ryder has strict orders that everyone needs to be given a second chance. If they don't improve or keep trying to start fights then we can't help but kill them in defense. You know our pack isn't all bad you know."
Marcus finished the grand tour and I went upstairs to find Cameron as he wasn't in the dungeons. Instead, he was in my room, on my bed reading the book I was last night.
"About the time you came in, where were you?" he asked looking up.
Looking for you." I said as I slipped out of my shoes and joined him on the bed laying down as he continued to read the book in silence. He had an open bag of chips next to him, munching loudly as he flipped the pages.
"Cameron?" I asked after a few quiet minutes.
"Hmmm?"
"Do you believe in mates?"
There was a long pause before he replied, "Why are you asking?"
I sighed rolling over, "Don't you think it's a load of BS. I mean, the only reason they are together is because they feel this... pull."
His eyes flickered up as he propped himself up on one elbow to look at me, like I had grown a pair of horns.
"The reason there is a pull is because the myth goes like this, a single soul is broken and placed into two people. It's so faith combines the best to reproduce, survival of the fittest, the best match someone could get. It's one soul, broken and you will feel complete when they join. It doesn't make you automatically fall in love, it just helps you. Like how you use trainer wheels before you ride a bike. Or how your mum teaches you the alphabet."
Damn it, Cameron seemed to also be a big believer of mates which didn't help my cause. Was I the only one who thought it was other bullshit?
"Did you find your mate Hill?" he asked, a cheeky smile on his face as his eyes twinkled.
"Of course not," I lied jumping to my feet, "I need to go hit something."
* * *
"Ouch! Why you gotta be so rude!"
"You told me not to go easy, besides you asked me to train you" I said, narrowing my eyes at Marcus who was on the ground rubbing his arms.
"Well I quit, Gideon you can take her on."
"That's not fair, he's a hulk," I said as I helped Marcus up as a smiling Gideon rushed towards us too excited.
"Scared, Enforcer?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
I scoffed, "No. The bigger they are, the harder they fall," I smiled at him. And it was true, they moved slower. Groggily.
"No sneaky silver."he warned me, almost like he knew that I had 27 hidden items on my body.
"Fine," I agreed, it wasn't like I used any on Marcus.
Marcus was substantially easier but I wouldn't underestimate Gideon. When Marcus called 'go', we both spent the first few minutes analysing each other. I threw a fake punch to see he would react, and he did in a defensive manner moving away. I used that to calculate how long it took him to react, his movement took half a second.
We both circled each other for a few seconds, before Gideon made the next move, jumping to grab me.
I could see where he was heading so I jumped over his hand and kicked his shoulder, letting him stagger forward. He didn't waste time in turning around and grabbing my arm, twisting it behind my back till I heard a bone crack, he wasn't going each on me.
My bones always cracked so I used that distraction to swing under him taking my hand back and using my hands to hit him behind his knee, at the sensitive skin.
Gideon fell to his knees and I stood up wrapping my right arm around his throat, and using my left to hold the top of his head, "Now you twist, and snap." I said. "Are you paying attention Marcus, this is how you bring down a big man that is double your strength." I said proudly as Gideon froze.
"Fine...you win." Gideon admitted. Sometimes weight and strength wasn't the defining winner, you had to use their own strength to their weakness.
I let Gideon go, but he tried doing a surprise attack by knocking me off. I had expected that I quickly moved, his arm missing my ankle. Instead I leaned forward, pressing my elbow into his ribs earning a groan from him as he fell down.
Then...I sat on him. I perched myself on his stomach facing Marcus, my legs streched out onto the ice in front of me. "Sometimes you just need to win dirty." I taught Marcus who was now laughing.
"Can you get off me?" Gideon asked as two shirtless men ran towards us, and I recognised one from earlier, Hapeon.
"Gideon, Herc wants to ta—" Hapeon stopped as he came into the clearing, going from Gideon, to me, to Marcus and the few others training who had probably stopped to watch, and back to Gideon, "You let her beat you?"
"He didn't let me, he was weak," I said leaning over to pat Gideon on the head "Go doggie go!"
There was a growl from Gideon making me laugh.
"Okay games over, Herc is coming and needs to talk to you." Hapeon said shaking his head at us.
"Can you get off me now?" Gideon asked again.
I leaned down to stare at him, "What's the magic word?"
He gritted his teeth, "Fuck off?"
"Oh..actually yeah," I said jumping up, "How did you know that was what I was thinking?"
I wiped the snow off my pants as the infamous brooding Alpha came into the clearing, he looked at me and then nodded to Gideon who fell into line with him as they rushed off somewhere.
"Well," I said rubbing my hands together, "I might go for a walk," I said, I needed to blow off more steam and whilst we had been mock fighting for an hour I still had heaps of energy.
I didn't miss the look that Hapeon and Marcus gave each other as I turned around and started heading North-East, at the caves I wanted to explore. I had seen them on my morning run and I really wanted to see what was in there.
"Wait."
I looked over my shoulder to see both of them following me.
"Yes?"
"We have to keep an eye on you."
"The left eye or the right?" I asked, confusing them, not getting my joke. I rolled my eyes "Sure." I shrugged. It didn't bother me, maybe they could tell me what was in the caves. It was the lack of snow that caught my attention in the first place.
"Where are we going?" Marcus asked as he caught up and paced himself beside me. Hapeon still followed at a distance behind us, almost like he was in a trance.
"Caves."
He faltered, "That's out of bounds."
"Why?"
"It's not part of our territory. It's just National Park"
"Awesome," I nodded, "But I'm still going."
It wasn't that far, I could see the dark caves contrasted against the snow, it just had an ice-lake in the middle to cross.
A set of patrolling wolves passed us, their heads lifting up briefly to see who it was as their legs carried them away, it felt so weird seeing three white wolves blend into the snow, the only recognition of them there was the sounds of their paws on the snow, incredibly soft.
"How many wolves do you have patrolling?" I inquired, this wasn't the first bunch I saw in the span of an hour.
"Six groups of three, and two lone wolves."
"That's a lot," I said surprised. That's twenty wolves patrolling a territory, and what I noticed was that in the morning in daylight the white wolves patrolled, their fur blending into the snow and at night all the dark grey and black wolves were patrolling.
It was something so small but something very well thought of, it gave them that extra advantage in case they had a rogue or a trespasser on their hands. Their murky brown and red wolves patrolled near the trees rather than open land.
"So, you're either training, or patrolling?"
"Correct," replied Hapeon as we cut across the last of the trees to more open snow and the frozen lake.
"That's...a lot of exercise," I remarked. I mean they were always on the move, always.
"I know, it sucks," Marcus groaned from beside me and I gave him a small smile, "Thank god I get stuck with paper work, I have never loved paperwork this much."
I stopped conversing once we were three feet away from the icy frozen river – I could only imagine what this would look like on a perfect summer day. Water coursing through the hills, maybe the rocks would be visible and maybe there would be fish.
"Luna watch out!"
My heart skipped a beat when my foot dug into the ice, the ice giving away and I plummeted knee deep into the water before I felt arms around mine pulling me out.
My leg felt frozen, it was the briefest touch of water, but it was so cold.
"Shit," I swore as I patted the water away from my thick pants. They were meant to be waterproof, but they weren't really doing their job.
"It's melting, the ice is unstable," Hapeon said as he looked across, "the weather is getting warmer you can't just walk across it."
"How do I get across then?" I asked. It wasn't small enough for a human, or a wolf, to just jump across. It was at least five hundred meters wide and the water would be way too cold for me to swim across.
"We can come back tomorrow with the right gear, that is, if you still want to go."
"Okay good, we can come back tomorrow" Marcus said, "I think you should take a hot shower before your leg goes all blue." he said.
I nodded and then paused, "Wait, what did you just say?"
Marcus looked at me, "that you need a ho—"
"No not you," I turned to Hapeon, "you, what did you say?" I asked trying to remember it had slipped past me as I was distracted by the sound of the ice breaking and the wind in my ears was enough for me to miss out on the words he said. "When I fell in..."
"Oh," he said turning his head back and walking, "I said 'look out.'"
I frowned, "Sure you did." that was definitely not what I heard.
The bastard told them.
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