Aga switched his attention to Melanie and very calmly answered, “That’s something I’m going to have to think about and decide.”
Think about? Did we have a chance?
“They can’t leave,” the blond harshly spoke to Aga. “If they leave, we’re exposed, and you don’t know what will happen.”
“I’m aware of this.”
“Then do something about it!” he barked, and then very slowly, almost like a robot scanning the room, the blond man’s eyes rested on me. They were these sunken, darkened sockets only lit up by the blue in his eyes, but despite the beauty of the color, his gaze remained hateful and bordering on soulless. He looked like an infuriated, hungover frat boy with an ax to grind. Unfortunately, I was the ax.
“What is going on here?” a female voice shouted from a distance. Every pair of eyes around us, including the blond, Aga, and the two other men who shoved us into the car were distracted momentarily by a petite woman standing in an open doorway from a hallway at the end of the room. She was far away, but the space we stood in was so vast and bare (resembling a ballroom, really) that anyone entering caused a massive amount of noise in the echoey, empty room.
Her heels clicked loudly against the hard, polished floor, powering her way toward us like a woman on a mission. Her black hair was done up in cornrows, reaching down just a little past her shoulders, and a few of the braids were a hot pink that matched her lipstick almost perfectly.
She spotted us knelt on the floor and approached Aga at his left shoulder, very quietly asking, “Who are these girls?”
“Brinly, sweetheart, you shouldn’t be here,” he responded, ignoring her question. He looked distressed that she was witnessing this. I was under the impression her mere presence made him feel a little ashamed of what might be going down here and it brought me hope. Maybe this girl needed to stay.
“This doesn’t concern you,” the blond told her, and although I could tell he was snapping at her his voice seemed lighter and more aware of how he was sounding. Like he was trying to keep his cool.
Her eyes remained on Aga. “Papa, what is it?”
So, they were related.
“It’d be better for you if you weren’t involved,” he whispered to her.
The girl slowly turned her brown eyes in my direction, looking at me like I was a lost cause. “They know, don’t they?” she responded.
“Please,” I said, breaking up their conversation. “I wasn’t trying to break in or expose you or anything. I was just looking for my friend.”
That piqued their interest. “Who do you speak of?” Aga asked.
“Max Reid,” I replied, and nearly held my breath after uttering his last name. I didn’t want my mentioning his name to somehow get him into trouble. It was bad enough Melanie got dragged into this because of me.
“You know Max Reid?”
“Yes. We met a year ago, long before he ever came here. I wasn’t looking for trouble when I came into town, I was only looking for him. I just wanted to get into contact with him. I had no idea what I was walking into, I swear.”
Aga quickly looked to the blond and said, “Paul, go fetch Max.”
Paul. What a fitting name for an asshole.
The now named blond headed out of the entrance hall and down a long corridor in search of Max. If I was being honest with myself, I felt more relieved at the idea of Max joining us than I did guilt. Maybe he could fix this.
Aga and Brinly whispered to one another as Melanie and I remained knelt on the floor. I was happy I was still in my pair of teal sweats, so I was comfortable, but Melanie was in super tight jeans that she had to keep pulling up over her ass after they slipped off her hips.
Aga was stone faced, so I couldn’t really get a reading from him, but Brinly’s doe shaped eyes told a much more in-depth story. They looked weary of us, verging on scared, but at the same time, she almost looked sympathetic. Maybe her fear wasn’t for herself but for what could happen to us.
There was a loud slam in the distance and it echoed throughout the spacious room. It was the sound of a door being thrown shut, followed by the thumping of feet running down a hallway, getting louder the closer they were to us.
I saw Max come racing into the room, and the second his pale blue eyes focused in on mine, he froze right in place. I don’t know if he was stunned to see me here or if he was terrified of what me being here meant. The hopeless look in his eyes only heightened the pure terror pumping through my veins, and in that moment I wanted so badly to run to him and lock my arms around his legs in hopes that he could protect me, like I was some scared little kid afraid of the boogeyman. He was the only familiar face among the wolves, and he was my only comfort, my only hope that I could make it out of here alive.
Max was shaken out of his funk and quickly returned to walking toward me. His eyes never left mine, but he spoke to Aga, asking, “What the hell is going on?”
“Do you know this woman?” Aga asked, his voice unemotional and steady.
“Yeah, I know her,” he responded in the most casual tone possible and then stood beside me in a very protective fashion. He may have been standing directly to my right, but he was a few steps forward, keeping his left arm out straight for me to use as a personal shield. I couldn’t even vocalize how happy I was to have him with me.
“Why is she here?” Max asked.
“Because we caught her snooping,” Paul answered, his arms folded with a sour look on his face. “I had to do something.”
“You brought her here?”
“That’s right,” Paul responded arrogantly.
“What a dumbass idea,” Max spat, and Paul shot him a cold glare. “You don’t want them to find out about us, but you drag them here as prisoners? Only you, Paul.”
“Fuck off, Reid. You’re the one leaving bread crumbs for people to follow.”
“Her cousin didn’t even know about any of this! She does now, thanks to you.”
“That’s enough,” Aga ordered and the two went silent. “Paul is not in the wrong here, Max. We took you in, and per our agreement, you were to cut off ties with anyone who could track you down, anyone who could put our way of life in danger. You’ve broken that promise.”
“I get that, but Cora is not a danger. She’s known about all of this for a year. Hell, she knew the truth before even I did. She was attacked by our kind not once, not twice, but three times and never did she expose us. Never did she go to the police or blab her mouth to reporters. She was also the only one there for me when I was bit, and if it weren’t for her, I’d probably be dead right now.”
“You’ve known this entire time?” Aga asked me.
I nodded.
“And who have you told?”
“No one.” It was the truth. There wasn’t anyone who would believe me, anyway. The official story was in fact wolves, but no one really knew much beyond that. I didn’t dare tell the men before me now that there were others from that town that knew their secret as well.
“But you brought family with you.”
“Just for the trip. She didn’t know the details, only that I was looking to reconnect with an old friend. I wasn’t going to be here long enough to need a cover story.”
Aga pressed his fingers into his temple and massaged. “This just makes it all the more complicated.”
“It’s not complicated,” Paul interjected. “Get rid of them.”
What? No!
“You’re supposed to be an honorable man, Aga,” Max spoke. “We’re not executioners. You go around making rash decisions based on panic and we’re the beasts you’re afraid the world will see us as.”
“Keep them around and the world will see us as beasts. Mark my words. You let these girls go and, eventually, they’ll break down and tell the truth to someone, and when that happens we are all fucked. They’ll come for us and we’ll be circus acts.”
“Is that what we do now? Persecute first and ask questions second?”
“Pack above all else. Or have you forg
otten that, Max?”
“With you, Paul, it’s hard to.”
Aga was practically mute at his throne, no doubt taking in both sides of the argument and contemplating his next move. Brinly was at his side, her eyes dancing back and forth between Max and Paul as they argued, and Melanie and I just did our best to hang in there. It was hard being a passenger in a fight for whether we got to live or not, but my word meant virtually nothing to them. I was a stranger and one they found potentially lethal to their way of life.
“Brinly,” Aga said very softly.
She put her hand on top of his cracked, thin skinned arm, and with a shrug she said, “If she’s known for this long, who’s to say she’s a danger?”
A wave of hope flowed through my body. If this stranger could see I wasn’t a threat, maybe Aga could, too.
“Okay,” Aga began with a long, deep breath. “This is a decision I cannot come to lightly, nor can I come to swiftly. Because of that, I have decided, for the time being, that you two are on probation, meaning that you will stay here in our quarters and we will observe you. By the next full moon, we will decide whether you are trustworthy enough to be released.”
“Are you serious? Probation?” Paul groaned.
“Are you second guessing my decision?” Aga snapped.
Paul’s eyes darted to the floor, his lips in a permanent scowl. From the looks of it, he knew his place.
“Brinly, take Miss Cora to a room. Get her settled in, let her rest, and then we’ll speak in the morning.”
Brinly left his side and came toward me, grabbing me by the arm and helping me up off the ground. She didn’t even look me in the eye when she let go of me and headed toward a grand staircase to our right, like she expected me to follow her without question. Max’s face was deathly serious as I walked away and he did his best not to give lingering stares in my direction. I had to wonder what he was thinking.
I looked behind me and saw Melanie was also being guided upstairs, but using another grand staircase on the opposite end of the room. They were separating us.
I walked up the loud, uncarpeted stone steps of the staircase, trailing my hand along the polished banister. At the front of each banister was a statue of a bronze angel with their wings tucked behind their backs. Their hands were reaching up toward the sky, and in their flattened palms were a tray that held six lit candles. I looked around and realized there were several fixtures hanging from the walls with candles on them. There was such a warm glow as I headed toward the second floor that I felt like I was walking into a fire.
Once the stairs took a turn to the right, we traveled up a few more steps until we were lead into a long, narrow hallway with red carpeting. There were oak doors on each side, and after we past a few, Brinly led me to the final door on the left, stopped, unlocked it, and walked inside.
It was like stepping into the Victorian Era. Inside, there sat a four post queen sized bed, heavy red comforter, dozens of golden throw pillows, and decorative wooden chairs with frilly pillows to sit on were placed near every corner of the room. Along the far wall, sheer white curtains swayed from the cold breeze of the storm beyond the open balcony doors. This room was facing the beach, so I could see the waves of the lake through the glass doors, hear the water crashing against the shore from the active storm outside, and smell the cold, rainy air.
The room was dimly lit, minus a few string lights decorating the tall golden headboard of, what I guessed I could call my bed.
It was all so fancy and gorgeous. If only I could stop shaking to actually enjoy it.
I was still a nervous wreck, and the only thing comforting me was that Aga had promised this would all be resolved in the morning, meaning these next several hours I could breathe easy, knowing nothing would happen to me. But what about after that? What would happen to me then?
I stood awkwardly in the center of the room, tugging at the strings of my sweatpants just so I had something to do to occupy my mind and so there wasn’t all this uncomfortable silence between me and this stranger. Brinly lingered at the door, her expression puzzling, to say the least. It looked like she was observing me in the same manner a customer would an animal in a cage at the zoo. Was I some anomaly to her? Or was she scoping out the girl who had just a few hours to live? Was it pity in her eyes?
I didn’t want to stare at her, but she was a mystery to me that I was trying to crack. Who was this woman? Why had Paul’s voice softened when she entered the room? Why did she seem to hold authority, yet Aga wanted to leave her completely out of this? She looked younger than me, but still a woman, so perhaps she was on her way to taking over the place? This was a pack, after all, and maybe there was a constant change in hierarchy.
Whoever she was, she was absolutely beautiful. Dressed in a pink halter top, her defined stomach remained peeking out from over her loose fitted blue jeans. With the cornrows and the fit body, she looked like she spent a lot of time at the beach. She had soft, beautiful mahogany skin with glowing undertones that looked to be an effortless fusion of orange and red. Her face was like a palette of unique swirls of colors that made her skin unlike anything I had seen before. I could tell she wasn’t wearing a drop of makeup, minus the dab of eyeliner to really pop out the brown in her eyes, yet her skin was still perfection. Was it normal to have a girl crush on another woman’s skin?
Just as she was about to leave the room, I cleared my throat, and she reacted, stopping mid step.
“Uh… thanks,” I said to her. “For what you said back there.”
Her face flinched, almost like she was going to politely smile at me, but she changed her mind and immediately fell back into an indifferent stare.
“The bathroom’s down the hall. Third door on the right,” she told me and then promptly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Not much of a talker.
I was left alone, essentially trapped in a room that was completely foreign to me. What was I to do now? Sleep? That seemed completely implausible. I wanted to sneak out into the hallway and hear what they were discussing. Had Paul convinced Aga to kill me already?
No, Aga said I had until the next full moon. I heard him. Wait, when the hell was the next full moon? A calendar would be handy right about now.
I stepped lightly to the open balcony of my bedroom, clicking the doors shut to keep the outside chill at bay. I pressed my face to the rain smudged glass and stared. There was a beach down there, struggling not to turn into mud from the heavy downpour. The water was barely visible anymore due to the low hanging black clouds that bounced lightning back and forth across the sky like a game of ping pong. I realized I was no safer in here than if I were standing out in the middle of that storm.
I sighed. It was better than a full moon, I guess.
The door behind me tore open and I didn’t even have a moment to be startled over who it was coming inside. I just whipped around and saw him, standing there with a troubled look on his face.
“Max!” I was so relieved to see him that I found myself rushing away from the balcony and throwing myself into his arms. I just needed to feel something comforting and familiar—someone I could trust would never hurt me. I nestled my nose against his chest, breathing in the faint aroma of men’s body wash that had managed to burst through his white t-shirt. I couldn’t quite place the scent, but it was a popular one among men, and it was fresh and subtle, drifting into my nose so sweetly I could have fallen asleep in his arms.
After a minute long hug, he pried me off of his chest and cupped my face with his hands, focusing deeply into my eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked. He could tell I was terribly shaken.
“I don’t know,” I honestly replied. “How could I have let this happen? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to fix everything.”
“How?”
“Aga is waiting for me in his den. He and I are going to talk it out and everything is going to be settled, I promise.”
“Y
ou mean you’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to check on you first.”
I suddenly felt like a five-year-old being dropped off at school for the very first time, terrified of being left alone and what would happen when the one familiar face was no longer in sight.
“Don’t worry,” he said and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be fine here and when you see me again, everything is going to be on the road to recovery.”
Don’t worry? Yeah, that wasn’t happening. And here I thought Max knew me well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I barely slept. I was a nervous wreck. Under any other circumstance, my staying in a lavish room like this would have been a dream come true, but instead, the Victorian queen sized four post bed with the heavy blood red comforter felt practically unusable. No matter how comfortable the mattress was, it was still the bed I slept in after being taken against my will. It could have been a steel floor and I wouldn’t have noticed a difference.
I had no idea how much sleep I got since the room had no clock. The only way I knew to get up was by the rising sun pouring through the balcony windows to the east of my room. Thankfully, it had stopped raining.
In the middle of the night, I had contemplated crawling out to the balcony and shimmying my way down the side of the building, landing on the sand of the beach, and then making a run for it to the nearest house. But I couldn’t leave Melanie, and they knew that. It had to be the only reason they trusted me in a room with an easy exit.
I curled up on a small loveseat in the corner of the room, trying to wait out the next few hours as comfortably as I could. I was just thankful I was still in sweats and didn’t have to sleep in jeans.
The doorknob rattled and I cowered in my seat like a scared child.
“Cora?” It was Max. He entered the room, oblivious to me in the corner of it. The cherry colored loveseat blended in with the wallpaper. Once he spotted me, he looked relieved, like for a moment, he thought I had been dumb enough to run away. “There you are.”
“Here I am,” I responded with a shrug. “Alive for now.”
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