Liberty POV
I pull a large black T-shirt from out of his drawers and a pair of grey boxers to put on. If I was going to stay here after all, I needed to have some of my own clothes…but use what? I had no money to my name.
Very quickly, I use the dressing gown as a cover to hide my personal parts as I got changed before returning onto the bed.
Pierce was right, small bit sized chunks. I was finding things easier to process as we slowly discussed things, and had him next to me to talk to about it. Right now, I didn’t feel alone.
I open a file to find my mother’s death certificate laying on the top. For something I never contemplated it’s existence before, it was actually hard to have sight of. I think I’d like to go back to thirty seconds before and not have opened the file.
“Do you remember your Mum being ill?” Pierce calmly asks, his arm wrapping around my back. I couldn’t feel the tingles as my back was covered with his T-shirt but even his touch was comforting.
“She worked a lot…long hours. As a younger child sometimes I would go to bed without her being home. She was very healthy, into her yoga like me.” I honestly respond before glancing at the cause of death.
“Pneumonia? Isn’t that what old people get?” I’m flabbergasted, rechecking the medical condition listed.
“Not always, did she not have a cough?”
“I don’t remember, she did smoke…” 1 shrug, maybe it was linked to lung cancer and she didn’t want to tell me.
“Hhmm.” Pierce makes a disapproving sound.
“How did Reuben’s mum die?”
“She became ill… Reuben was only eight.”
“You knew him back then?”
“Oh yes, Reuben and I used to play when our fathers met. We didn’t become firm friends until we were teenagers. But then we fell out, stupidly over both liking the same girl.”
“Boys!” I tut playfully before continuing.
“Your fathers didn’t force you to make up?”
“Odin and my father were firm friends, until Odin put pressure on my father to join his alliance. My father refused, I didn’t see Reuben again until Evelyn invaded my pack lands. Ended up being attacked in the same warehouse district that you were in.” His chin now rests upon my shoulder as I continue to look through the files. Pierce talks about his father in the past tense, like I do my mum. I haven’t pushed the subject but it leaves me to believe that he has also passed.
“Your men attacked her?”
“Not my men. Vicky’s man tricked her, they had Rex at the time. Reuben came to her aid, I was rather shocked to see him carrying a lifeless body out of a warehouse after all those years. Even more shocked when he claimed it was his already dead wife..” I can tell by his tone that he found the situation amusing. I’m sure it wasn’t at the time, but Pierce had a way of looking on the brighter side of life.
If my Mum was definitely a human, then what’s to stop me from being a human? Maybe I didn’t get the wolf gene, maybe that wasn’t given to me.
“Pierce, if my Mum was a human… maybe I am too. As you say, I could be your mate which is why I feel the tingles …but it doesn’t mean I have a wolf.”
I look at him, I shouldn’t have looked. His eyes and that Hollywood smile have a way of making me weak at the knees.
“Trust me you have a wolf!”
“How do you know..” I whisper, looking away from him.
His hand moves to my chin, gently gripping it and bringing my face back to his. So close that our noses are almost touching. His eyes burn into mine, his green eyes starting to bleed black as he starts to smell my face… moving to my neck. I’m not sure what he is doing but I’m enjoying his closeness too much to protest.
His lips kiss a sensitive part of my neck before his lips trail back up to my jaw line. I’m breathless, his motions have created sparks across my skin. His lips move towards mine. My heart races as I prepare for his lips to touch mine, my own lips pouting out..readying themselves, offering themselves up in anticipation.
But he stops at the last moment, smirks and places a kiss on the side of my mouth. An anger that I don’t identify at first, rages through me and a growl rattles from the depths of my chest. I’m so shocked by the noise I just made, that I slam my hand over my mouth.
“See, there she is.” He chuckles, before pulling me to him and laying back down. I’m not even sure what time it is but as soon as my head rests against his chest, Pierce turns the light off and I fall asleep.
My eyes open to find the room still dark except for some attempts of dawn arriving shortly. I actually slept better than I have done in years being next to Pierce.
Even now, as I move he searches for me in his sleep, and I place the pillow I used next to him. Why have I woken up so early? It takes me a minute to realise, the loud grumbling of my stomach being the main giveaway. I didn’t eat dinner last night, I was running on empty. I need to eat but I don’t have the heart to wake him, he looks so peaceful when sleeping.
I venture downstairs, wrapping the dressing gown around me for comfort and warmth. It still held some of Pierce’s scent which I oddly found soothing. I hope I wasn’t showing signs of being a secret bunny boiler towards him.
As I enter the kitchen I find I am not the only one awake. Nate, Reuben’s second in command, is at the table with his laptop and files.
On closer inspection…files of me.
“Morning…coffee?” I sing out, intrigued to know what was in the files that he now placed carefully back into a folder. I couldn’t miss the large photograph of me that Father took on my eighteenth birthday.
“Good morning, yes please. Just a top up for me.” Nate responds trying to act unfazed by my arrival. I grab the coffee jug with freshly brewed morning sweet nectar and walk over to him, refilling his mug.
“Milk?”
“No thanks.”
“Have you eaten? In my attempt to escape last night I actually missed dinner. I’m beyond hungry…do you mind?” I point to the fridge, asking permission to open it. I found rooting around in other people’s kitchens odd but I was so hungry, I had to do something.
“No please, help yourself.” He responds looking at his laptop. I busy myself making an omelette when I notice his eyes darting towards me.
“Do you want one?” I smile at him. If I wanted to see those files, I was going to have to play along.
“Sure, why not.”
I plate him up first before making a second omelette and joining him at the table.
“So why do you have more files one me?” I don’t think he thought I was going to ask so blatantly, or that I had even noticed…but my question still catches him by surprise judging by the cough from choking on his food.
“It’s a reward notice uploaded on the dark web, your father is willing to pay big money for you to be returned.”
“What’s the dark web?” I ask having never heard of such a thing.
“It’s the dark side to the internet, lots of underground business deals happen… especially human and werewolf cross overs of business dealings. It’s means people will come to take you away, that security will have to go up.”
Then I really can’t stay, not if children live in this household. I may not know them, but I could never put Reuben’s children in danger. As if knowing where my thoughts are going, Nate leans forward in his chair.
“Pierce and Reuben will put a plan in place together. You don’t need to worry.”
I smile, pretending that his words have soothed my inner turmoil of what my presence is doing here.
We continue to talk, enjoying another mug of coffee each when heavy fast footsteps rush down the stairs. We both turn wondering what on earth had caused such a racket when Pierce runs in wearing just a T-shirt and pair of boxers. His eyes flash to me, before his shoulders relax, realising I hadn’t done a nighttime slip.
