Chapter 1: Bad Joke

*5 months later*

~Adriana POV~

“You’re running late,” Sari says with a tight smile. 

I look down at the watch my father gave me before he died and note that, damn it, she is right. The little hand on the face of my father’s watch clearly stopped working thirty minutes ago.

“Shit,” I mumble. “I’m sorry Sari, I know you have lunch with Hans planned. We can reschedule.”

Hans is Sari’s weremonkey mate. Yep, not only do werewolves exist, but all sorts of shifters. Which was a very interesting little fact I learned while being tortured by a maniac who wanted his dead wolf back. It was all very eye-opening, to say the very least. And the crux of all mine and Liam’s current trust issues. 

Sari chuckles lightly. “No, no, we will just try to be quick, and if it runs over, you can walk me to the living room while I wait for Hans.”

“Or that works too,”

“Let’s start with the usual questions, shall we?” Sari asks. 

I heave a sigh. 

Axel, the best friend I kind of hate right now and Liam decided I needed therapy to help me adjust. Not only with life as a werewolf but as someone who can walk on her own. Before meeting Liam almost two years ago, I was in physical therapy for a gunshot wound to my spine when I saved a child as a police officer. It had single-handedly been the best and the worst day of my life. I always wanted to make a difference, and that day I did. Unfortunately, it also altered my life plan. And for a while, my will to live. 

“Yay,” I say sarcastically. Sari offers me a sympathetic look. She, too, is new to being a werewolf. Not as new as me, but still new. “Let me save you a little time. Yes, I am still adapting well. Warrior training has been great. I am loving life and enjoying having a community I can be a part of.”

“And the nightmares?” Sari asks. 

I close my eyes and bite my bottom lip. It was really stupid to hope that we would just somehow skip the ‘nightmare’ part of my sessions. I hate talking about them. For the first time, I feel physically able and near-invincible, yet my stupid human mind can’t seem to stop the trivial little nightmares that replay some of the worst pain I have ever felt. 

“Only twice this week.” I try to play it off like it’s not a big deal, but damn it, Sari is an impossibly astute doctor and friend. 

“Better or worse Adriana.” Her voice is stern as she moves to take a seat across from me. The leather chair creaks in the silence of the room and I sigh heavily. 

“Both? The first one was… bad. The second one was ok.”

“Do you want to tell me what they were about?”

I shrug. They never really change much if I’m being honest. How can they when they are just memories that I get to live through? Hip hip hooray for me. So much sarcasm there.

“The usual stuff. The feeling of being all alone, the pain, and the withdrawal of the pain meds. I woke up in my cold sweats.”

“Both times?”

“Uh, no. The time I stayed at Liam’s place it was better, it was easier to handle.” I admit. 

Sari frowns at me.

“Maybe you should stay with Liam more often. I mean, you guys are mates.” 

“It’s complicated, Sari.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. 

Everyone who doesn’t know much about Liam asks this. They don’t understand our circumstances. I am a high-ranking warrior in the Ultima werewolf’s pack. Liam is an outcast, a punishment for the things he did before he met me. He can not live and stay on pack grounds for more than a few days in a row.

Instead, he stays in a small cottage on the Alpha’s Freakshow amusement park meant for rogues and misfits. We try to spend every night together but sometimes I’m tired and need quiet.

“Have you thought more about what you guys will do? I mean, you can’t live like this forever, Adriana.”

“I know,” I groan in frustration, slapping my hands down on both sides of me on the leather couch. “Liam is being so great about being patient.”

“Liam is a good guy, and he loves you. Of course, he is being patient.” She pauses for a minute. “Do you ever wonder about his past?” 

“Not really, no. When I met Liam, he was just as messed up in the head as I was. I swear when he looked at me, I felt like someone actually saw me for the first time in my life. He just knew me, understood me and the next thing I knew, he wouldn’t let me push him away as he forced himself into my life. People can tell me who he was when they knew him. But I don’t think anyone knew him, you know?”

“I do.” She smiles softly.

“No one knows his soul and the way it aches when he is reminded of the past. And He shares some things with me, about how he grew up. I mean, talk about a dysfunctional family.”

“Mmm, have you two talked about meeting each other’s family?”

I snort and shake my head.

“I have no one left. I mean, aside from a million and a half random cousins and aunt and uncles I haven’t seen since I was ten. And Liam’s mom is gone, his dad is a primo dickhead.”

“I thought you weren’t judging people on their past.” Sari jokes and I roll my eyes. 

“Nope, just not Liam. His dad is fair game because of the things he did to his son. He locked Liam in the dungeon for a week when he was six for being nice to an omega girl! Who the hell does that?” I shiver, thinking about a little Liam afraid and alone in the dark dungeon waiting for his father to come and let him out. I cried when he told me that story. There is so much darkness in his past that it makes my heart ache. 

“Wow,” Sari says, her eyes wide, looking stunned. “Maybe Liam should be seeing me, too.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “I doubt he would come.”

I catch her checking her watch, and then looking a little nervous. It’s all I can do to keep from smiling. 

“Come on, we can do this later if I think of more things to talk about. Let’s get you to Hans.”

“I am sorry, Adri.” She says, her professional voice switching off and my friend coming to the surface. I wave her off as we both stand and walk for the door.

“Stop, I was a half an hour late. I am positive the fault lies with me.”

“Maybe get your watch fixed,” Sari chuckles as we enter the hallway.

-I’m finishing my meeting with Sari. Want to meet me out front of the packhouse? I miss you-

I can practically feel his grin. 

-See you soon - He sends back through the mind link.

“So,” Sari says, bumping into my side. “How are you and Liam doing?”

I frown at the immaculate hardwood floors, hoping they might have the answer I don’t have. Since the floors won’t tell me what to say, I shrug my shoulders with indifference. 

“We are good most of the time and then we aren’t. Liam can be… moody.”

“Maybe he just wants you to live with him?”

“But I have to have a residence in the pack to be a pack member.” I remind her. 

“Right, and he can’t live on pack lands, I know.”

When we get to the living room we find it empty, so we wander to the window that oversees the pack gardens where Maggie is waddling around with her pregnant belly protruding as she tries to keep up with Axel, who is taunting her with food. They must have gone for a picnic and, knowing Axel, he stole the last bite of the thing she is craving.

My heart pinches at the thought of not being able to have that with Liam unless I leave this pack. The pack that became my home and my family while I struggled to get through the truths Liam keeps from me about what he was. I feel so torn, so damn unsure of my future, of our future together. I want him, but I also want this, a pack, a family to raise my kids around. 

“I wonder if I did the right thing,” I say out loud. Sari hears and turns to face me.

“What do you mean?”

“About accepting Liam as my mate. I was so excited to do it. I mean, I needed to if I wanted to walk again.” My chest is heavy and I try to lighten it with a joke. Albeit a terrible joke, I know Sari will understand it’s because of my uncomfortableness with the topic.

I know why I accepted him. Because I want him and I love him. Even when it’s hard. But sometimes, I wonder about the what if?

“Adriana,” Sari says in a judgmental tone. I roll my eyes.

“I didn’t—”

Someone clears their throat loudly and we spin to see Hans standing next to Liam, who is looking at me like I just sliced open his gut. I move towards him and wrap my arms around his waist while he stares at me, a look I haven’t seen in such a long time.

He looks utterly destroyed, my heart falls and my face must pale as my body temperature seems to drop to freezing as I stand before him knowing I just spoke the one line that could break us, and I stupidly did it in a joking manner to deflect from the seriousness of the conversation Sari and I were having.