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.
“How’s Alba?” I ask, attempting to change the subject, at least for a couple of minutes.“Oh! She’s great, they’re all great!” she gushes. I can tell by the way her eyes light up that she is really happy for them. “Marco was wonderful, as expected, and their little girl is doing so well! I think they agreed to call her Anna.”She continues to tell me about the baby’s weight, height, who she resembles most and everything in between as we both empty our cups, and she looks so happy, I don’t have it in me to ask if she thinks Azaire and I will end up with burning hearts over this. I can handle my own, but the thought of him suffering because of me, is killing me. Which is why I believe we’ll end up like that in the first place.Despite my wish to get to know my brother and my own pack, I do want to try to work things out with my soulmate. As crazy as it
I stare at Azaire. Did he really just say that he wants me to stay with him? As in… he won’t even consider going with me? If mate-relationships are going to be like this, with the man deciding everything, I don’t think I want to be his mate. Or anyone’s mate, for that matter.“I didn’t even say I was going,” I explain calmly, “I said I wanted to, but I want to talk about it first.”“Then talk,” Azaire demands, as he lifts his ice cold stare to look me in the eye.I cross my arms and scoff at him. He has managed to go from worried, to vulnerable and now to angry, or maybe even distant. It’s like he’s pushing himself away from me, to make it easier for him if I want to leave him. He’s a stupid jackass who should really try to control his feelings a little more.“We’ll go home to talk for a bit,” Aiden
“I don’t think Azaire will let Yohanna go that easily,” Juan says with a slight smile, “he’s become quite attached to her in this short period of time.”“But they’re not mated, or marked?” Tristan asks, and Juan shakes his head in confirmation. “Then it’s not a big deal to take her with me. She belongs with us, we’re her family.”“What if I don’t want to leave this place?” I ask before I can let my brain process that I’ve even opened my mouth at all.As soon as my Alpha turns around to look at me with his terrifying glare, my stomach drops and I feel like I should just drop down to my knees to let him know I acknowledge his power and authority. It’s ridiculous.“You don’t?” he asks, tilting his head and taking a threatening step towards me. “You don’t want to know
“No,” I say, “I have been a lot of places.”Tristan looks at me, and his expression turns back into the serious one he had before.“Like where?” he asks, crossing his arms.“I grew up in Dalen,” I tell him, and grip Azaire’s arms as he holds me. I’m not sure how my angry Alpha slash brother will react when I share with him where I’ve been, and why, so for now I’ll choose to trust Azaire a little bit more than my pack. “I was adopted by a human couple, and lived with them ‘till I was fifteen, and then I shifted for the first time, and made the mistake of confiding in them, so they kicked me out. I’ve been on my own since then.”“You’ve been alone for five years?” Tristan asks, the growl in his voice is back already, and I fight the urge to let my spine chill.“Ye
My feet carry me to the nearest window, where I can see the cars come up one by one, parking in front of the big house we’re in. The first one is a midnight blue sports car, different from the other two, who are also fast-looking cars, but they’re painted a bright yellow, and bright green. Once the cars stop, the music stops, too, and I see Paul exiting the house. He stands looking at the cars, with his arms crossed, without a doubt ordered to do so by Juan while he tends to his daughter.Azaire puts an arm protectively around me, and leans closer to the window to listen, as I feel the warmth radiating off of Alexander and Aiden, when they approach us to see, too. The blue door opens up, and a tall, broad guy with hair as black as night exits the car. His face looks narrow, but chiseled, with a five o’clock shadow barely visible under his dark locks. The door of the bright yellow car opens up, too, and a guy with matching yellow hair steps out,
“This just adds to what I’ve been saying all along,” he says, and turns to his father. “Yohanna should never have left that basement on her first day, she can’t be trusted. She is clearly not mate material, for anyone, especially not my little bro-““Alessandro,” Juan growls loudly, staring angrily at his son. “That’s enough. You are entitled to have your own opinion, but you’re not the Alpha yet, I am. And I decide that Yohanna and Alexander are both under our protection, until we know their pack has good intentions.”“Dad, she forced him to go into Rogue territory, they were found, and let go. Rogues never let anyone go, one of them must have a foot on the other side,” Alessandro protests, shaking his hands in front of him as if he’s showing us all some kind of evidence.He has a point. After what I heard, and how we prepared for