Chapter 12

I stop to put on the shoes Soraya let me borrow earlier today, but Azaire seems to have other plans, as he spins around with his back towards me.

“Hop on,” he ushers.

“What? No!” I protest, and bend down to put the shoes on.

“We don’t have time for this, I’ll carry you,” he says, pulling me up again. “And I think you prefer a piggyback ride instead of me carrying you bridal style.”

He smirks at me, and I scrunch my nose up. He is right, but we’re wasting time. I could have put on my shoes by now if he didn’t complain so much.

“No,” I tell him firmly, and rip my hand from his hold.

He sighs excessively, but waits for me as I slip them on, and I send him an over-exaggerated smile as I’m done, and brush past him to exit the house. Once I’m a few meters away from the house, I feel his warm hand wrap around mine, and I look down at it, before arching a brow at him. Even though I know he wants to be my mate and all, he isn’t. And he won’t be. I don’t want to give him false hope, so I retract my hand, and wrap my arms protectively around myself, so he can’t get a hold of it again.

So much for that, though.

He puts his arm around my shoulders next, chuckling lightly as he walks next to me, and I feel like I was just outplayed. I got rid of a green slime-blob, but I was killed by an exploding creeper that came in behind me. It’s really fucking annoying. Especially with his mood swings.

“I have to make sure you won’t run away from me, little mate,” he whispers into my ear, knowing I’ll hear every word he ever utters as long as he’s near. He then kisses my cheek, and I shudder, feeling the sparks flow through my body, traveling at the speed of light.

“I won’t,” I say, trying to get away from him, but with no luck.

He tightens his arm around me, as a blonde man, around Azaire’s age, yells his name and starts waving. He is grinning so widely, and I swear, I think the man is taunting my mate. He makes smooching sounds, kissing into the air, and laughing loudly as we approach the house he’s standing outside. Azaire doesn’t let go of me, but he smacks the man on the back of his head with a growl rumbling deep down inside his chest. The man still laughs, but he backs off, and then he looks at me.

He’s got baby blue eyes, and so blonde hair it’s almost white. His face is clean shaved, and he looks to be just as strong as Azaire, and he’s definitely competing with him in the handsome category, but I have to admit, I haven’t ever seen anyone as good-looking as Azaire. Ever.

“So you’re the unlucky girl that has to spend her whole life with this fucker,” the blonde guy says, grinning widely.

“Be nice,” Azaire sneers, hitting him in the head once again.

“Alright, alright,” the man says while struggling to contain his laughter, “hi, I’m Aiden.”

He holds out his hand to me, and I take it reluctantly.

“Yohanna,” I mutter.

I really enjoy this. I like how Aiden seems to get to Azaire, but they’re still best friends. Aiden wiggles his eyebrows at Azaire, but Azaire growls again, and pulls me with him towards the small house, and opens up the door.

It’s… not what I expected. We step into a small room with coats and shoes everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and as Azaire takes off his own shoes, I do too. Azaire then reaches for my hand, as if he’s still afraid I’ll take off running or something, but I don’t think I will. Yet. This house is poking my curiosity in ways I never thought were possible. It smells amazing, too, like they’re burning some kind of incense somewhere.

As we step over the threshold to the living room, I’m met with a chaos of colors and decorations. No color is anywhere more than twice, but everything has a color. There’s no black or white at all in this room. There’s candles everywhere, in every shape and form you can imagine. There’s a unicorn one with the wick sticking out of its ass on a chest of drawers against the far wall, there’s a dragon one with the wick out of its mouth, and I’m pretty sure I saw one that looked like two people having sex, too, before Azaire pulled me through the room towards the kitchen.

The kitchen has white cupboards and a black countertop, but the rest of the stuff in there is pretty much like the living room. My mouth is agape as I take it all in. There’s a huge Pride-flag hanging on one of the walls, with several polaroids of Aiden and a black-haired man kissing, laughing and hugging scattered around the flag. I guess the black-haired man is Aiden’s mate, then.

“Zander!” Aiden yells behind me, before he walks past me, and sits down on one of the chairs sitting by the dining table in there. “We have guests!”

Azaire lets go of my hand, surprisingly, and sits down by the table, too, reaching for a deck of cards. He starts shuffling them just as I hear a loud thump, like someone has fallen down, and I turn around to see the same black-haired man from the polaroids on his ass on the floor, scrunching his nose up.

“Quite a first impression, huh?” he says, before rolling his eyes, and then he gets up, looking like he’s never done anything other than getting up from the floor his whole life. I wish I had that much grace every time I was clumsy.

He smiles at me, and holds his hand out once he’s closer. I take it, and I instantly feel a lot calmer than usual. Like I’m supposed to be here. The feeling is very strange, and I’m not sure if I should trust it or not. If Azaire is my mate, shouldn’t I feel this way when he’s near? Why do I feel like this with this guy instead?

“Alexander,” he says, smiling at me. “But these dickheads probably told you my name is Zander.”

He nods towards Aiden and Azaire, who are both grinning, before Azaire looks at me questioningly.

“You want to play, Yohanna?” he asks, emphasizing my name, so I don’t need to say it to Alexander.

“What are you playing?” I ask, dropping Alexander’s hand as I walk closer to the table to sit down next to Azaire.

I feel so conflicted. I want to be close to Alexander, and see why my gut is telling me he’s okay to trust, but at the same time, I feel like I should be trusting Azaire. My mate.

“Texas Hold’em,” Azaire answers, grinning at me.

Fortunately for me, I know how to play that game. My grandmother didn’t play anything else, and she might have had a gambling problem, but I digress. The point is, I can totally keep up with this.

“Deal me in,” I say, smirking at Azaire.

He seems surprised, but raises an eyebrow as if he’s accepting my non-existent challenge, while Alexander retrieves an aluminum suitcase, probably holding chips and other stuff for the game.

I smile at him as he sits down opposite me, and he smiles back, before he opens up the suitcase.