Chapter 9 On Wolves and Family
On Wolves and Family
The moment we hit the road, Lucien said, “The first thing we need to do is find who tried to kill me.”
That was one way to start the conversation. “When I found you, I wondered who hurt you,” I told him, frowning. I’d been so busy caring for him, I had put that thought in the back of my mind. “It also begs the question why you were outside my apartment building in the first place.”
“Yeah,” Lucien said in a somewhat strained voice, and I looked up. He was facing the road, one hand leaning on the gearshift and the other grabbing the wheel. There was something so sexy about men driving. “That’s a long story, though, and for now, I’d rather we focus on the most pressing matters.”
My curiosity wasn’t curbed, but I let it go for now. “So we need to find the perpetrator of your attempted murder,” I said, studying him. “But why do you need me for that?”
I didn’t ask that out of malice or not wanting to help him find the culprit. It was just that helping me escape the fate of having my memories erased was one thing, but involving me in his affairs was a completely different matter.
Lucien grimaced, hand tightening on the wheel, flexing his biceps and making my thighs jerk involuntarily. “Because, if what I think is true, you might be in danger now too.”
I tensed. I didn’t even consider that as an option. “Do you mean because I helped you out?”
“Not only that,” he said, glancing at me, and there was something remorseful on his face. “But because there is a big chance someone saw us together when we ran through the streets. That puts you in danger by far more than mere association.”
“Oh,” I murmured, seeing him return his gaze to the road, his jaw set in a hard line.
He opened his mouth to say something before he seemed to think twice about it and closed it, clutching the wheel and gearshift instead.
Clearing my throat, I returned to the subject at hand, if only to alleviate what I believed was his guilt—even though he had nothing to be guilty about. “And where do you suggest we start?”
“I already have a few suspects in mind,” he replied, motioning with his chin toward the folder in my hands, visibly relieved that we had moved back to our most dire topic. “While I drive, can you read through the files for me?”
“Sure,” I said, pulling the envelope open with a little smile. “You know, I haven’t met many people like me who prefer using hard copies rather than digital files.”
Lucien’s chuckle made my belly flutter. “I’m old fashioned in a way, I guess,” he said, and his light voice drew my gaze back to him. I couldn’t help myself. The small smile on his face made my chest squeeze. “Besides, a manual paper trail is far harder to follow than digital.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “That’s right,” I said, before I returned my attention to the files and flipped through the pages.
“So, werewolves live in packs,” I said as I read through the files. They mostly consisted of pack members’ profiles, logs of the comings and goings of the members from the pack territory, and handwritten notes about any suspicious activity Remi had found.
“Most supernatural species live in close-knit communities,” Lucien replied. “We’re not very different from humans in that aspect.”
“A community,” I murmured, thinking this through. “Does it work like in the wild, though? I know there’s an alpha wolf that leads the pack, the omega who’s the weak link, and so forth.” I paused. “It works like that in pop-culture books as well.”
To my surprise, his face lit up, and his lips twitched. “You know quite a lot about wolves.”
I arched my brow. “I didn’t realize this was niche knowledge.”
“It isn’t,” he said, “though it was disproved long ago. In the wild, there are no alphas or omegas. Instead, there are family units.”
Intrigued, I leaned toward him. “Family units?”
He nodded. “These units consist of the breeding pair and their children, mainly,” he explained. “There are no battles for dominance or any of those things. One thing is true, though.” He paused, glancing at me briefly before returning his stunning eyes to the road. “Wolves do mate for life.”
His last words made me even more intrigued, but first things first. “So for werewolves like you, does the pack symbolize more of a family, rather than a community?”
Lucien visibly tensed. His knuckles on both hands turned white, he was clutching the wheel and gearshift so hard. I wondered what it was about my question that triggered this reaction, but while curiosity urged me to nag, I kept my mouth shut.
Eventually, he replied. “In most cases, it’s a community, a safe place for werewolves to live their lives. Within that community, there are family units, of course, like with wild wolves.”
He spoke as though he were reading a sentence out of a textbook, his voice was so emotionless. But I didn’t pry and ask him what was wrong. I had some tact. So, I simply scribbled down what he’d said. “So you belong to a pack, then?” I asked once I was done.
He was still tense, and yet his face, which had been lined with tension, was now cleared of any and all expression. As if he’d sucked it out to keep his face carefully, unnaturally blank. “Yes,” he answered plainly, his voice giving nothing away.
I frowned, wondering if I should change the subject, despite the fact I had so many more questions. As I mulled it over, I returned my gaze to the files and saw that at the top of every page, there were three small words written: Pack of Montrévère.
But before I could ask anything, Lucien interjected. “Let’s get to the point. Will you read the profiles for me?”
Hearing the finality in his tone, I didn’t argue. “All right,” I said, my shoulders relaxing. I hadn’t even realized his tension brought mine out.
Grabbing the first profile, I began. “Mack Page, twenty-seven years old. Works as a . . .” I squinted. “Um, a Beta?”
Lucien chuckled, and the sound made any remaining tension in the air lift.
I looked up, saw the lopsided smile on his face, and did not feel flutters in my stomach again.
“Unlike wolves in the wild,” he answered my implied question, “werewolf packs have hierarchy. Starting with an Alpha, his Betas, and so forth. Mack is one of those Betas.”
“Oh,” I murmured, and a memory suddenly hit me out of nowhere.
Seventeen-year-old me was sitting in my parents’ home in Seattle, in the backyard.
There was a hammock there I was always afraid to climb into for fear of it toppling over, but my younger sister, Willow, who was fifteen at the time, had no such qualms. She was reading a book, leisurely resting in the hammock, and ignoring the giggling and yelping sounds of our youngest sister, Jules, who was twelve, playing with Thayer, our elder brother.
It was summer vacation, and I was already done with my summer homework, so I was utterly bored. I tried tanning on the beach chair, but Seattle didn’t provide such good sun for that, so I gave up and went to annoy Willow.
“What are you reading?” I asked, trying to peek at the words on the page.
Willow jolted and closed the book with a thud. “None of your business,” she replied with flushed cheeks, irritation and guilt written all over her face.
Curious, I pretended to be nonchalant and shrugged. “Gee, Wills, I was just asking. No need to get all worked up about it.”
She glared at me and was about to reopen the book, but in her moment of distraction, I stole the book from her hand and stepped back, grinning smugly.
“What the hell, Drew?!” she yelled, struggling to get off the hammock. “Give it back!”
It was amusing, seeing her try to get off the hammock without it throwing her down on the muddy ground, but I was more interested in her book. Its title, The Alpha’s Bride, was especially intriguing.
Prying it open, I landed on a random page and read. It was a scene between a woman, whom I realized was abducted from the context, and the love interest who’d rescued her. The perfect damsel-in-distress situation to show the heroic fits of the male lead.
The words werewolf and Alpha jumped to my eyes, but before I could read any further, Willow finally reached me and tore the book from my hands. “Don’t ever touch my books again!” she said angrily, her gray eyes glaring daggers at me.
“Then don’t act so suspicious when I ask what you’re reading,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. I might’ve been the older one between the two of us, but sometimes I acted far more childish than my mature sister.
“I’m not joking, Drew,” she said, and I could finally see she was dead serious. “If you touch my books one more time without permission, I will never forgive you.”
After that, I remembered I’d apologized to appease her but didn’t really take her threat seriously. Because a few months later, I had stolen a book from her room, a book she refused to let me borrow—a book I needed for a book report too—and when she found out, she was true to her word.
Until the day she cried for me to help her, which I failed to do.
Before we could make up, she was already gone.
A touch on my cheek made me tense as I returned to the present. I blinked, realized a warm, large hand was cupping my cheek, and turned my head to see Lucien leaning forward, his arctic-blue eyes concerned. The car had stopped moving too.
“Hey,” he said softly when his gaze met mine. “Are you okay? You seemed . . .”
He let his voice trail off, but I knew what I seemed like. I probably had the same look on my face, reflecting the same feelings, as I always did when I was triggered into remembering a memory I’d tucked away for far too long.
Despair. Misery. Helplessness.
I sucked in a deep breath, my chest heavy, before I spoke. “I’m okay now.”
He searched my eyes, and his thumb caressed my cheek, which made a bolt of electricity shoot down from his touch to places it had no business reaching.
“All right,” he said slowly, not entirely convinced, as he withdrew his hand.
The moment his touch was gone, my body instinctually leaned forward, following it, missing it already, and I had to force it back so I didn’t look so desperate for his warmth.
Our gazes were still locked, and something passed in his eyes, an inexplicable glint I couldn’t quite decipher.
But then, his eyes lowered a little, and if he wasn’t a gorgeous man way out of my league, I would’ve thought they lingered on my lips before he turned to face the road, taking off from the shoulder where he’d stopped.
My heart, which had stopped throughout the whole interaction, too, began beating again.