Chapter 6

Selena POV

My eyes fluttered open as the rest of my body slowly caught up with my brain. A line of sunlight streaked into the room through the window blinds and I had to shield my eyes from it.

“Good morning, princess,” I heard Tristan’s rich baritone voice call out from the corner.

Somehow, he’d beaten me to waking up early and now he was sitting in a chair by the dresser with his legs crossed and arms folded across his chest. His lips were drawn in a charming smile that made my insides mushier than I’d expected. In e light of day, his eyes sat beautifully under a canopy of long lashes—beautiful, yet manly in every sense. My mission was going to be very tough, especially with this distraction.

“Hey. Good morning,” I greeted in return, blushing immediately I remembered I wasn’t wearing any clothes under the sheets. He seemed to understand my plight at once because he cleared his throat and rose from the seat.

“I’ll just let you freshen up while I go attend to a couple of important issues—y’know, pack politics. Mostly boring stuff. But we could have breakfast in the garden together afterwards,” he said, never taking his eyes off me for once. They held so much desire, it made me struggle with listening to him.

“That would be lovely,” I finally said—more like croaked, before looking away in embarrassment .

“See you then,” he nodded before exiting the room.

I waited till the door was securely shut before venturing out of the sheets and stepping into a bathing robe. Tristan had obviously put it there while I was still asleep. How thoughtful of him. His niceness was disarming and disorienting. It made me second-guess my entire mission in the Moonrise Pack. When it came to it, when I was finally confronted by the truth, would I stay logical enough when reacting?

I let out a sigh and stepped into the bathroom. He had scented soaps laid out for me—it had to be, unless he planned getting in the shower with me. The thought of his body against mine inside the bathtub sent a wave of heat spread from my core to the tip of my toes, nearly sending me toppling like a sack of potatoes into the tub. I was very glad for the privacy he’d given me.

After my shower, I walked over to the corner of the room which was lined with a finely crafted cupboard, and I began searching for something, anything at all that could point me in the right direction. I pulled out a drawer on the bottom compartment of the cupboard and skimmed my fingers along the rims of the folders nestled inside it. One of them had to have something.

Just as I was about settling for one of them, I heard a knock on the door. If I hadn’t thought to bolt it shut earlier I’d have been walked in on by whoever it was on the other side. I quickly put the cupboard back in order and patter myself down before walking up to the door.

“Who’s there?” I asked cautiously, wary of getting into any bit of trouble on my first day.

“Good morning, ma’am. I have orders from the alpha king to leave a little parcel with you,” a lady said.

I carefully opened the door to find a nice-looking middle-aged lady with bright golden eyes, standing before me with a box in her hands. She gave me a polite smile and dipped her head a little in a nod.

“I’m Agatha Young, a steward in the King’s service,” she introduced herself. The look in her eyes said she had questions to ask but knew rather not to ask them because it would mean interfering with the alpha king’s business. I nearly looked away in embarrassment as I imagined the thoughts she might have of me already.

“This is for me?” I asked, still uncertain as I stretched my arms to receive the box from her.

“Yes, ma’am. From the alpha king. He’s also asked that I give you a tour of the place until breakfast is ready,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll just check out what this is. Thank you,” I said as I slipped the box through the door and gently shut it.

When I opened the box, I found a nice velvet dress in it. Nothing too fancy for a normal day in the pack house, but expensive enough to catch my breath in awe.

Once I was dressed, I opened the door and rejoined Agatha who’d stood patiently outside the whole time.

“The dress is lovely,” she said. I noticed the way she didn’t exactly compliment me but said something nice about the dress instead. The smile on her face didn’t quite reach her eyes as she spoke, and she didn’t give me anytime at all to respond to her compliments.

“If you’d just come with me this way,” she turned and led the way down a long corridor.

“The Moonrise pack boasts of a house of warriors and individuals who’ve impacted their world. It’s no wonder we’ve held the central seat of power over the other packs for so long,” Agatha began saying as she took me through the large house.

I distracted myself by looking at the figures in the framed photos hanging on the walls. From the looks of it, they had to be the important individuals Agatha was speaking about. My eyes came to rest on one of them, a face I recognized from the family album.

“Who’s that?” I asked, interrupting something she was saying. The look on her face gave the impression that she wasn’t entirely pleased I’d cut her off the way I did.

“Andrew O’Hara, the nineteenth wolf king, and father of our gracious wolf King, Alpha Tristan O’Hara. He was powerful even to death, and he would have lived a little longer if the healing lady had showed up on time,” Agatha finished off with a displeased scowl.

“What woman?” I asked curiously.

“These walls have seen a lot of things. The Moonrise Pack and the house of O’Hara have a way of swallowing up the weak. Only those who are deserving of life survive out here. Good day, ma’am,” she finished off and walked away through a side door.

Only after Agatha was gone did I realize that we’d come out of the house and were at the entrance of a lovely garden. Her words kept ringing in my head, raising up a pile of questions in their wake.

I walked along a path that cut through the garden. In the early morning sun, the place gave of a little feeling of paradise. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, momentarily forgetting about my investigation and Agatha’s haunting words. When I opened my eyes, I was standing face to face with an older werewolf, a man with greying hair, who held a pair of gardening shears in his hands.

The look in his eyes was one of shocked recognition and it confused me because I could swear I had never seen him. Just as I was about to comment on it, he looked away abruptly and began trimming the leaves of a plant. If our eyes hadn’t met I’d have been convinced he has no idea of my presence.

“Hello. Excuse me,” I called out to him as I took tentative steps closer to where he was.

“Good morning, ma’am ,” he greeted without looking at me.

“I’m sorry have we met before?” I asked.

“No, ma’am. I’m Phineas, head gardener in the alpha king’s service,” he introduced himself with a polite bow.

“Selena. I am umm… a friend of the alpha king’s ,” I said, hiding the embarrassment on my face at the lack of an appropriate term for my relationship with alpha Tristan. He was yet to announce our mating bond to the rest of the pack so I was pretty much a stranger to them.

“Glad to meet you,” Phineas said with a little smile before turning back to his work. I had a feeling he knew something that might help my mission in the Moonrise pack. His eyes looked heavy with secrets, a visual diary of things that had happened in the past. And why did he look at me the way he did?

“But the way you looked at me…”

“I’m an old man with failing eyes,” he interrupted me defensively.

“You’re a werewolf,” I pointed out to him. If he didn’t have any grey hairs he’d have passed for someone in their mid-forties.

“I mistook you for someone else. My apologies,” he said with a bow.

“Someone… Who? The healing lady?” I ventured. The man’s eyes momentarily widened in surprise, a gesture I could see even though he was looking away from me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m done for the morning,” he added and bowed politely before walking away. I followed his retreating figure with my eyes until he completely disappeared around a bend. What was with everyone here and running away from a conversation?