by S. Young
He would have to learn to control his animal responses.
Lucien stared surreptitiously at everyone around the table. He was being overbearing, and he knew it. His only excuse was that Caia’s presence left him feeling unbalanced. He was glad she was getting along with the pack, that she’d taken a shine to Ryder.
Really. He was.
After everyone had finished dinner, Caia offered to help Ella clean up. Magnus yawned and took his leave. Irini and Aidan, on the other hand, watched each other with obvious heat in their eyes.
Huh. He hadn’t seen that coming.
“Uh, Irini, you want to go for a run … with me?” Aidan glanced warily at Lucien.
His sister beamed at Aidan and nodded, jumping up from her seat in the same motion. She hadn’t even asked Lucien for permission, which was expected no matter what age she was.
Ryder laughed under his breath as the two disappeared out the back door and into the yard.
“I’m invisible,” Lucien grumbled.
Ryder stood up from the table. “Leave ’em be. I haven’t seen my brother so happy in ages. He’s been talking constantly about Irini since you announced she was coming home.”
Lucien was confused. “I can’t even remember them having a thing together before she left.”
“You were gone at the time.”
Right.
As he followed Ryder up from the table, Lucien’s attention was drawn to Caia. She tucked a lock of pale hair behind her ear before she picked up their now empty plates, her long eyelashes fanning her cheeks. He sighed softly. Something about her awoke every protective instinct he had. He couldn’t explain it.
“Let me help,” he offered.
Caia’s eyes flew to him and he was struck dumb for a second. She really had the most beautiful goddamn eyes.
“We’ve got this.” Ella broke the moment. She gestured for him to back away from the table, teasing, “You’re better out of the way. You know you stack the dishwasher all wrong.”
He sighed at her teasing and Ryder clamped a hand on his shoulder. His friend guided him from the room and Lucien forced himself not to look back at Caia.
They walked out of the house onto the porch, and Ryder leaned against the porch frame. There was incredulous laughter in his voice as he asked, “Were you jealous in there?”
“What?” He scoffed, more than irritated that he’d been that obvious. “No.”
“You were certainly something.”
He leaned against the porch railing and stared unseeing at the tops of the trees that edged the circular driveway. “Well, you were a little …”
“A little what?”
“You were flirting.”
Ryder guffawed. “I was not flirting.”
“‘I think I’m in love’?”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“It was flirting.”
“I wasn’t flirting with Caia. I was trying to make her feel at ease. She’s had this pained look on her face since she arrived.”
Guilt took the edge off his irritation.
Ryder was right.
The move back to the pack had to be overwhelming for Caia. He just didn’t know how to handle the whole situation. And this unexpected attraction to her wasn’t helping matters.
Lucien ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m just … It’s just … I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.”
“You’re a born leader and you’ll do this because you have to. Just try to keep your head on straight.”
“By that, you mean?”
His friend glanced back inside the house, a sarcastic tilt to his mouth. “You can start by not getting all dreamy-eyed around her.”
“Dreamy-eyed?” He hissed defensively, lowering his voice to continue, “She’s eighteen and sheltered. I may only be six years older than her, but the shit I’ve seen and done … There might as well be a century between us. I don’t get dreamy-eyed around high school girls. For Gaia’s sake.”
“Eighteen and sheltered, yes. But that doesn’t make her any less beautiful. Or unique to this pack. And unique can be fascinating.”
“The only thing I’m fascinated with is her interaction with my pack. I’m keeping an eye on her, not eyeing her up.”
Ryder laughed, obviously unconvinced. “Man, whatever you say.”
Lucien leaned against the doorframe of Caia’s bedroom. He could hear her moving about in her bathroom, the water running. The laptop he’d bought her was open on the desk, what looked like a word document, homework, on the screen. Her bed was neatly made, and there were no clothes scattered about it like most teenagers’ rooms. Yet she’d placed her belongings throughout the space to claim it and that pleased him. When he’d checked this morning, her suitcases were, worryingly, still at the bottom of the bed, unopened.
“Oh.” Her startled voice ripped him from his thoughts.
He looked at her, noting how wary she seemed with him and not liking that at all. “Just checking you have everything you need.”
She looked pointedly around the room. “More than.”
“Good.” He jammed his hands into his jeans, trying to think of something else to say. But then she moved from behind the bed to shove something in her laundry basket, and he stopped thinking entirely.
She was wearing girl boxers and a vest. For a lykan who was shorter than most, her legs certainly seemed to go on forever.
Caia cleared her throat, bringing his attention back to her face. She’d scrubbed it clean, patches of her skin flushed from it. It made her look young and innocent.
He wished he could keep it that way for her. He wished he could prepare her for what was coming.
“Caia …” Lucien began.
“Yes?” she asked.
There’s that wariness again. Is she scared of me? That was the last thing he wanted. “You should know that you can come to me if you need anything. That’s my job here. To make sure you have everything you need; to make you safe and content.”
Those stunning eyes of hers grew round with surprise. As if she hadn’t expected something nice or sincere from him.
Great. He’d clearly made a wonderful first impression.
“Thank you.”
“You’ll be okay,” he promised, more for himself than for her.
Suspicion flickered across her expression, then bewilderment.
“Well.” He heaved up from the wall. “Good night.”
“Good night, Lucien.”
6
Unwanted
She woke up the next morning feeling a little more optimistic about her return to the pack, and dare she say filled with that dangerous thing they called hope. Caia was calling last night’s dinner a success. There had been a few awkward moments, but in general, the mood had been jovial, and the brothers seemed to like her.
To her surprise, and perhaps disappointment, Lucien wasn’t at breakfast. He’d already left for the store and Irini was sleeping late so Caia had breakfast alone with Ella. Caia found the Elder’s presence soothing, despite how anxious Lucien’s mom was to make sure Caia transited into the pack smoothly.
“You know, you have your father’s eyes,” Ella observed, her smile bittersweet.
“Were you good friends with my dad?” Caia jumped on Ella’s comment. This was the first time anyone had mentioned her parents since her arrival.
“I was friends with Rafe before Albus was.”
“Really?”
“We dated.”
Wow. “I didn’t know that.”
“It was a long time ago. Your father was hunting a rogue, and he stayed with my pack—”
“Your pack?” Caia interrupted in confusion.
“I was born into a different pack.”
“Huh.” She shook her head in amazement. “I didn’t know that either. Or that my dad was a Rogue Hunter, for that matter.”
It was unfair that there was all this history, their history, her history, and she knew very l
ittle of it.
Damn the Hunter.
Ella frowned at her bitter tone. “Irini didn’t tell you much, did she?”
“It upset her too much to talk about the pack.” Caia wanted to know as much as possible. For years she pretended like it didn’t matter. But surely everyone needed to know where they’d come from. She pressed, “So you were in a different pack?”
“Hmm?” Ella blinked, having been lost in her own thoughts. “Oh. Yes. A younger pack. I met Rafe, and we dated. After he left, I had a falling-out with my family.”
“What happened?”
“Well, my father wanted me to mate with a potential Alpha from my pack who everyone suspected would one day become Pack Leader. I hated the guy, so I ran away. To Rafe’s pack. This pack.”
“And you met Albus.”
Ella chuckled, resting her chin on her palm. Her eyes sparkled with happy memories. “It was instant. Albus and I just wanted to be with each other all the time. I felt exultant when I told my parents I’d mated with another Pack Leader … but we never spoke again.”
Having never been given the opportunity to know her own parents, it seemed like a crime against nature that Ella’s parents had, in their own way, made her as much of an orphan as Caia was. She murmured an empathetic sorry.
“Don’t be. They were never the family this pack has been for me.”
Caia nodded, letting that sit for a moment. And then … “What happened with my dad?”
Ella was patient, seeming to understand her curiosity. “Albus and Rafe had never been close. Albus really only trusted Magnus, and Rafe’s father didn’t have the best reputation.”
Caia inhaled sharply at this information. “My grandfather?”
Ella nodded. “Yeah, he was quite the trip. He tried to take Albus’s father’s leadership from him.”
Great. My grandfather attempted mutiny. Nice legacy. “Wow.”
“But your father was nothing like him.” Ella hurried to assure her. “I helped Albus see that, and they eventually became great friends.”
“How …” Caia trailed off, wondering how her father could have been friends with them after dating Ella himself.
Again, Ella seemed to understand. “By the time I ran away from my parents to this pack, your father and I were just friends.”
Caia smiled softly, looking down at her bowl. “It’s nice to hear something about him.”
There shared a moment of silence then Caia jolted at the sound of Ella’s chair scraping back loudly from the table. The Elder smiled down at her. “Wait. I have something for you.”
Caia watched as Ella dashed out of the room. She heard her running upstairs. The sound of drawers being pulled open and shut and Ella’s amusing mumblings filtered down through the ceiling. Caia wondered what on Gaia’s green earth she was up to. It was a few minutes before she came sauntering gracefully back into the kitchen, clasping something in her hand.
“Caia,” she announced, “you should have had these before we placed you into hiding. But everything was done in such a rush… anyway, you should have them now.”
Caia took photographs from Ella’s hand. She gasped, gazing at the first one. It was of a toddler standing in between a man’s knees as he bent down to cuddle her close. They had matching green eyes.
“Is this my father and me?”
“Yes.”
Goddess, her dad had been just as gorgeous as the rest of them. She snorted as she looked at herself. Even as a toddler, she looked scrawny and weird, her head just a mass of blond curls and her eyes too large for her face.
There were two other photographs: one of her father by himself, staring into the camera with a weary sadness in his eyes; the last of them together again, joined by a younger Magnus. Magnus had her on his shoulders and her father was trailing behind, seeming to protest at her being up so high. His eyes were happier with her, his love palpable even in these old photos.
Caia felt a searing stab of loss in her chest. She blinked against the run of burning emotion and a tear escaped, splashing onto the photograph.
“What the hell?” Ella jumped from her seat.
Startled, Caia watched Ella rush to the kitchen tap. Water gushed out of it, hitting the sink with such force it was spraying up onto the counters. She hurried to switch it off, muttering under her breath. As she mopped up the water off the counters, she looked over her shoulder at Caia. “Sorry about that. I’ll have Lucien take a look at the pipes. You okay? The photos, I mean?”
Caia brushed the tears from her cheeks even as she smiled. “I’m good. This means a lot,” she gestured with the photos. “Ella?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have photos of me with my mom?”
Ella’s expression turned guarded. “Uh, well I—”
“Hey, party people!” Jaeden bounced through the doorway.
“Hi, honey.” Ella seemed almost relieved by her appearance. “Nice timing. I’ve got errands to run.” She strode toward the kitchen door, brushing an affectionate hand down Jaeden’s cheek. “Look after her.”
She was gone before Caia could ask about her mom again.
Jaeden chatted nonstop in the car on the way to school. Upon learning Ryder had made an appearance at dinner the night before, she was full of questions.
“And you spoke to him?” she asked in awe.
“No, we had a conversation through the power of thought,” Caia answered wryly.
“You know what I mean.”
“The guy is really not that intimidating. Not compared to Lucien.”
“Pfft. Ryder makes Lucien look like a border collie.”
Caia didn’t believe that for a second. “He really is cool, Jaeden. You should try talking to him. Mention movies.”
The girl shook her head in disbelief. “Here for two days and you already managed to speak more words to that guy than I have in a lifetime.”
Caia studied her, concerned she may have upset her new friend. Pop culture had educated her well enough to know girlfriends could get weird about guys. Plus, Jaeden had warned her off Ryder. Even if she’d be light-hearted about it, Caia could tell Jae was crushing really hard on the Rogue Hunter. She didn’t want a male coming between them.
To her relief, Jaeden shot her a cocky grin. “Movies, huh?”
“Movies.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
“Class, this is our new student, Caia Ribeiro,” the overly enthusiastic English teacher singsonged. “Why don’t you take a seat, Caia?”
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. There were several seats available in the classroom, but the problem was one of the vacancies was beside Alexa. Everyone had seen them sitting together in the cafeteria yesterday, so if Caia didn’t sit with her now, it would look like she was snubbing her.
Enter the real problem: Alexa’s obvious dislike of Caia.
Crap, she thought, as she teased her lip between her teeth as she walked to the seat. This was why she’d been a loner at her old school; to avoid situations like these.
She gave Alexa a small smile. The dark beauty practically snarled at her.
Pretending not to notice, Caia slid into the chair, fully aware she had the attention of the class. It seemed like forever before the teacher finally started doing her job, and the class was once again preoccupied.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Caia murmured under her breath, aware that Alexa could hear her with her sensitive lykan ears. “About the seat?”
“You can sit wherever you want. It’s a free country.”
Well isn’t she a bundle of warm fuzzes.
Caia let it go, listening to the English teacher while she handed out copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as part of the American Literature curriculum. Lit class was her favorite subject, and she had sort of been hoping the class would be interesting enough to take her mind off the she-devil sitting to her left, but she’d already read this book at her last school.
Around fifteen minutes into the class
, an adult Caia didn’t recognize walked into the room and murmured something in the teacher’s ear.
The teacher sighed and then instructed the class, “Open your books and read the introduction while I deal with this.”
Then she was gone.
The hum of conversation in her absence rose to an extraordinary level, not that any of the noise pertained to the book being discussed.
“You understand I don’t trust you,” Alexa suddenly hissed.
Caia was curious about what she’d done to elicit this reaction. “Why?”
“You’re not like the rest of us, Caia, and that’s plain to everyone. Even you’re not dumb enough not to notice.” She sneered, “In fact, I bet you think you’re better than us.”
Caia was instantly confused and agitated. There was that “you’re not like us” stuff again. She felt the heat under her cheeks and hoped to goddess Alexa couldn’t see it. Unused to confrontation of any kind, Caia attempted to defuse the tension between them. “I promise I don’t think I’m better than anybody.”
“Right.”
She scowled at the wolf’s disdain. What had she done to deserve it? “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough. And you should know that I’m watching you. I’m not buying your ‘I’m so fragile and innocent’ crap, and I’ll make damn sure Lucien doesn’t either. And if you do anything to jeopardize the pack, I’ll be the first one to gouge a piece out of your hide.”
Caia felt a flush of what could only be described as white-hot heat. It flickered over her skin, up her neck, and into her face. All of a sudden, Alexa’s chair flew backward and into the desk behind her, causing its owner to shriek in outrage.
The class gaped at Caia in shock as if she’d been the one to push Alexa. Her packmate stumbled out of her chair, throwing it back at her desk, all the while glaring at Caia. The brunette bristled with fury.
Why was Alexa mad? Caia was the one she was deliberately trying to make look bad by her pretense.
“Girls, what on earth is going on over there?” the English teacher demanded as she reentered the room.
Alexa slid back into her chair with enviable grace, crossing her long legs in a way that attracted many eyes. “Nothing is going on,” she replied smoothly, sweetly.