Chapter Four

Aaron should have anticipated that she wouldn’t overlook the silent interaction between him and Ro, and it was foolish to keep it from her. Looking at Ro one more time, to his brother’s shrug.

Arms folded tightly across her chest, Piper fixed a piercing gaze on them. “Someone better start talking.”

Aaron turned to his sisters to deliver the news. “Bonnie’s sister Drew. She is my mate.”

With joyful laughter, his three youngest sisters hugged him tightly. It was good to find one’s mate. But Piper stood there watching him.

“Aaron has only just found out and hasn’t claimed her or …told mum yet. It’s very important that until Aaron claims her and brings her into the safety of our home, no one finds out.” Roland explained.

“Are you happy about this, Aaron?” Piper asked at last.

“It couldn’t come at a worse time and I haven’t got the time to get to know her. But finding your mate is special. So yes, I’m happy about it.”

Piper nodded but frowned, “Is she anything like Bonnie.” Bonnie was a weak wolf and was low ranking within the pack. They didn’t treat any wolves poorly, but having a weak wolf mated to the beta would weaken him. Weaken the pack. The beta required a companion who could fight alongside them.

Roland burst out laughing. “Not by what Aaron tells me. She was going to hand Aaron here his nuts.”

Aaron said “Fuck off, asshole.” But was silently proud of his fated mate.

Piper relaxed over this. Pleased “Then she will be welcome to the family and the pack. Boy! is mum going to be happy one of us has finally found their mate? Though she always hoped it would be Roland first. But the beta is always a close second.”

“Mum would be happy if it was any of us, really, Piper. She just wants grand babies.”

Piper came closer to Aaron and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “How are you handling it, Aaron?” She meant the pull of the bond.

Shrugging, Aaron said, “I’ll live.”

“The mate pull must be getting stronger by now. It’s only going to get worse. It’s like nothing anyone can truly explain…..”

Aaron looked sharply at his sister. How did she know? She was right. It was challenging to make someone understand if they hadn’t gone through the same thing.

The pull was a total body experience. Your body felt itchy, almost like you have been on drugs and needed a fix and when you couldn’t get it, the withdrawals hurt. Not like any wolf could take drugs. It had little to no effect, due to their fast metabolism.

Aaron grabbed Piper’s hand, looking her in the eye. “Piper …” she pulled away, shaking her head.

He knew then she didn’t want to talk about it. Not here or now. Why wasn’t she with her mate? Why hadn’t she told them? When had it happened? He had so many questions. If her mate wasn’t dead, he fucking was going to be. No one did this to his sister and lived to talk about it. It dawned on Aaron that she had been acting differently lately, being more distant and unusually quiet. Squeezing her shoulder to let her know this conversation wasn’t over.

“I’m going to head back to Drew’s place in the morning. I will need all the alpha’s guard to fill in for me while this is happening. The first stage of mating is distracting. Until I know she is truly mine and I have her safe.”

His four sisters nodded their understanding. He was their commander, all of them worked for him. They didn’t have to choose this job. The pack had multiple companies and they could have worked in any or strike out on their own. But everyone of them had chosen the security of the pack and their alpha. In their inner circle, they kept mostly family siblings, cousins. Them being the most loyal and strongest.

A few of the guards under his direct command had no relation to them, but Aaron had personally vetted each member. They made sure that the protection detail was strong now, so that when Roland mated and had kids, they had a well-oiled machine looking after the alpha family.

Roland was strong, but even he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Roland didn’t argue with this because he knew that Aaron’s job was to protect him and the pack.

Drew closed the door after the wolf boy had left. Her heart was pounding partly because Aaron Hemming was a fucking big dude and he could have ripped her limb from limb after she had pulled the knives on him.

Why did he have to be so hot? That was the problem with werewolves. She had found they all seemed to be so good looking. She hadn’t met Aaron when her sister had ended up in hospital with that bite that had changed both their lives. But the whole Hemming family seemed to have the same colouring.

Aaron was 6 feet 4 inches, had black wavy hair and ice-blue eyes, tanned olive skin. The dark blue jeans clung to his thick muscular thighs, and his broad chest filled out the stretched white shirt. He was a walking, wet dream.

Peeking out the window, she saw him stroll to a silver BMW parked across the road and slide that large, muscular body she had been thinking about behind the wheel. He made her feel tiny. She wasn’t tiny at 5 feet 6. She noticed he wasn’t leaving straight away. Instead sat in his car with the window down.

She hadn’t been able to shake his tail today like the others. Not that her sister had contacted her directly. Drew wondered what shit her sister had got into this time.

Sighing, it was always something with Bonnie. Trouble always seemed to gravitate towards her sister, and this hasn’t changed as she’s got older. Bonnie had never danced to her own beat, and followed others, normally the wrong crowd and always into something stupid or dangerous. Just expecting Drew to dig her out.

Life hadn’t been easy for them after their parents had died, but Drew tried her best to make a life for them both after she had got out of that group home. Bonnie had just bounce from one bad situation to another. The friends and boys she had been around had never been anyone’s idea of a role model. Anytime Drew had said anything, it would just push Bonnie closer to them, so every hole she had fallen into only got bigger the next time.

Drew heard a car start up outside. Looking out the window again, she saw Aaron leave as another car pulled up. So she had someone watching her, well let them sit there. She wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

Scratching her shoulder, Drew wondered again what Bonnie was into now. She hadn’t talked to her when she had called. Drew thought Bonnie had timed it deliberately when she called two days ago, knowing Drew would be at work and left a message on her machine, saying she was going to disappear for a while and not to worry, she needed the dust to settle around the pack and she didn’t know who to trust. When Drew had tried to call her back, she had found the phone turned off.

Drew had really thought that when she had been turned into a werewolf that Bonnie would have felt like she belonged somewhere and settle down. Drew loved her sister, but she was too much for just her to handle. It was tiring, always running around after her.

Now she had brought trouble to her door of a different kind, as Drew left the window and headed to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich, still scratching her skin. What was wrong with her? Pulling down her top over her shoulder, Drew saw nothing there but the red marks she had made. Her clothes felt itchy and uncomfortable. Even her skin was a little warm.

Dropping the knives on the kitchen table, Drew fixed something to eat and drink. Once she was done, she sat down to eat. What was her next move? Did she try to find Bonnie? Who did she trust?

Laughing, yeah right! Since their parents died, trust wasn’t easy for her. The group home wasn’t a great place for two young girls and if it hadn’t been for Daniel teaching her how to fight, then she wasn’t sure how she, let alone Bonnie, would have turned out. Daniel, she hadn’t thought of him in a long time.

Looking at the picture on her fridge was a sandy-haired man, only one year older than her. He was holding a chubby baby and grinning down at his beautiful wife, Mandy. Daniel had been like a brother to the Pennyworth sisters during that time in the group home. She wished he was still nearby so she could turn to him now on what to do. Daniel lived in Australia with his family.

Daniel had left the group home and joined the army. Then used the skills he had learnt to start up his own security company. During one of his jobs, he had met and fell in love with Mandy. This love had taken him to Australia.

Before his marriage that had taken him away, he had spent a lot of time with Drew and Bonnie, when he had been home from leave during his time in the army. He had always spent time training Drew on how to defend herself and offered to train Bonnie as well. But Bonnie hadn’t been interested.

Drew thought maybe she should contact him, then shook her head. She couldn’t call Daniel. He would fly over here in a heartbeat, but he had his own family now, and they needed to come first.

What were her options? Obviously, something bad had happened. It was dangerous or Bonnie wouldn’t have run like this. Were the watchers outside protecting her, or was it more menacing than that? Did she need to get out of dodge for a while herself?

She made a life for herself here. She didn’t want to leave. Granted, her job was boring and she could do it with her eyes closed, but it paid the bills and she never worried about not being able to meet the next mortgage repayment. Her life wasn’t brimming with excitement. She didn’t have heaps of friends, but this was her home.