Chapter 18
Cassius
Ihad a lot of time to think. Survival mode demanded it. Look at every detail. Let all your senses absorb the environment. If you didn’t have real wolf instinct, trust your gut.
For all his smug bravado, Malin was generous.
Even nice. He didn’t want to show it but I saw.
I observed. Everything he did was calculated to show what he wanted to show, a mask.
But that slipped more day by day. He hadn’t tricked me.
Not from day one. Any alpha who could stand up to Klonis for me, who offered me his non-see-thru swim trunks and tipped big to hang onto me for the whole night without asking for sexual favors was the definition of nice.
Even if he didn’t want to show it.
That first night in my new bedroom, I slept soundly. Lots of covers. Lots of pillows. Along with a feeling of safety. I hadn’t felt that in a long time.
I almost didn’t want to get up the next day afraid the feeling would go away, that I wasn’t sane and everything was some delusion.
I went downstairs and encountered a breakfast buffet all laid out on the dining room table. Malin was in the kitchen.
I walked in. “You did this?”
“It all came by delivery.”
Glancing back at the full table of food, I said, “Every morning?”
“When I’m hungry.”
“You know, breakfast is one of the easiest meals of the day to cook.”
He came toward me, juice glasses balanced in one hand, a clump of cutlery in the other. “Really?” He moved past me and put everything on the table.
He smelled like he’d just come from the shower, like the woods after a rainstorm.
“I could order groceries and do breakfast,” I offered.
Malin gave me a look like I was ridiculous. “You don’t have to pay me back.”
“No, I mean I would like it. I used to do omelets really well. Everything else is pretty easy.”
He waved a hand. “Order the groceries you need. Make whatever you want.”
I glanced from him to the kitchen. It was huge. I’d never cooked in such a large space. The counters were marble and endless. The sink had two faucets. There was both a fridge and a freezer. It would be something to focus on. It might be fun.
I walked in and looked around while Malin made noise at the table like he was removing lids, dishing stuff up.
Randomly, I opened a cupboard. It held a few mugs and four glasses but was otherwise bare.
I opened another. Wine glasses on the lower shelf.
I slid open some drawers. One had silverware.
The second was empty. Where did he keep the plates?
We’d used them last night so I knew he had them.
But mostly this kitchen was unused. I found one brand new set of pots and pans under a stove that looked like it had never been turned on.
Moving back to the dining room, I saw an empty plate waiting for me, a fork and knife by its side. Paper napkins sat in a holder. I helped myself to eggs, fruit, hashbrowns and bacon. There was even country friend steak beside thick, white gravy.
Having eaten so much last night, I wasn’t completely hungry, but the food was hot and tasty and I cleaned my plate.
I wondered what Malin’s plans were for the day but was too shy to ask. As it turned out, I didn’t have to.
As if reading my mind, Malin said, “I have plans this afternoon with friends.”
I was just about to pop a strawberry into my mouth and froze. I had no idea what to say. I heard myself murmur, “Okay.”
“I might be out the whole night. I’ll text you when I know.”
“Um, you don’t have to check in with me.”
Both his eyebrows rose. He looked thoroughly put out. “You wouldn’t worry?”
I coached myself. Don’t answer wrong.
I stared at my plate. “I might wonder a little.”
He laughed without smiling, something he did often. “Right. And I know very well I don’t have to check in with you. But you’ll be alone. Will that be all right?”
I nodded, pretending the idea was fine. But I didn’t feel all that fine.
I knew he had people in and out but not when.
Obviously, people delivered the breakfast buffet.
He had cleaners and yard workers. I couldn’t picture him doing anything like that on his own except maybe dusting and polishing his hoard..
“And if someone comes by?” I asked.
“No one will bother you. The cleaning crew comes early on Fridays. My friends never show up unannounced. If they do, I’ll get pinged on my phone and the ring cam will show me who it is. But you know not to go out front. The back gates are locked. You can use the pool.”
“Good to know.” My heart was racing. I hadn’t noticed until my body relaxed. I would be fine. It wasn’t like this was solitary back at the ranch. “It’s a bit cold for the pool, though.”
“It’s nicely heated. There’s a hot tub attached.” He shrugged. “Your choice.”
Had we gotten swim trunks with all my new clothes? I didn’t remember any. That part had been forgotten, which was funny after everything I’d gone through that first afternoon at the party.
After breakfast, my mind wouldn’t stop throwing different scenarios at me. Malin would probably have parties here. Friends would visit. What was I supposed to do during those times?
Before he left, he told me not to order out. “I don’t want you opening that door for anyone.”
I could have any of the leftovers from last night and this morning.
He showed me chips and popcorn in one of the tall cupboards, along with an array of canned foods.
In the freezer were some microwave meals and ice cream.
Maybe he didn’t cook, but he could heat things up and dish up readymade desserts.
He left and the whole house went quiet. I played video games. I watched TV. But the greatest thing was going online with my new tablet. At Brimstone, that was strictly forbidden. I hadn’t been online since living with my pack.
I had access to everything. I was tempted to go find updates on my pack, my parents and my old friends but stopped before my fingers could type in any searches.
I didn’t want to know. That was a vanished landscape.
Why would I ever want updates or news on a world that had heartlessly rejected me?
I didn’t want to see or hear anything about them.
It was weird being in a strange house when night came.
But it beat the ranch. I’d be dodging my brothers about this time, fighting over a single TV in the break room, avoiding Elf who always tattled on every little thing we did that he decided was wrong.
It was nice to have peace and quiet. I could eat as much as I wanted when I wanted.
I didn’t have to wait in line for a shower, letting the pregnant omegas go ahead of me.
I could sleep in privacy. Best of all, I wasn’t dreading being called to the breeding rooms in or out of my heats.
No more drugs. No more blurry nightmares of being taken without consent.
The past year, I’d been spared a lot of that, having only been taken during my heats.
If alphas suspected you weren’t fertile, they didn’t want you.
Since I hadn’t quickened in a year, I was already turning into an old maid at twenty-two.
Later in the evening I grew bored. I wandered back upstairs and entered Malin’s hoard room again. It was incredible and I was drawn to the majestic beauty of it. I’d already examined every glass piece downstairs. I wanted to look at more.
There was one whole aisle of abstracts. Globes and cubes, pyramids and rods. Some had rainbows deep inside of them. I picked up a sphere about the size of my two fists put together and held it high so the track lighting in the ceiling reflected within it. It was glorious. Too beautiful for words.
“What are you doing?”
The voice startled me and the sphere slid from my hands crashing to the floor and splintering into a million pieces.
Malin stood at the end of the aisle, eyes hard and dark, unreadable.
“Oh gods! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I bent to pick up a piece of the sphere. For a moment, I thought if I had enough glue and time, I could fix it. Which was completely irrational of me, but that was where my mind went.
“Get out of here.”
I froze, my mouth open.
“Now!”
Still clutching the broken curve of glass, I ran forward. He smelled of alcohol as I hurried by him and out the door. I sprinted to my room, slammed the door, and stood in the center of the room breathing hard. Something stung. I looked down and saw the glass in my hand had cut two of my fingers.
I went to my bedside table and gently set it down. The glass still ran with rainbows. Even broken, it was breathtaking.
Blood ran down my fingers. I grabbed a tissue and held it against the cuts.
Only then, did the dread and horror of what had just happened settle into me.
What had I done? There was no question now.
Malin was going to return me. Brimstone wouldn’t want to give the money back.
Not eight mil. And if Malin sued them for it, I would become the pariah of the ranch, a nobody, a burden.
They would let the alphas at me for free. More than one at a time.
I’d just signed my own death warrant.