Chapter 6 - Camden
As soon as they were married, Camden had asked his uncle for a separate home that he could take his new bride back to. He had expected his uncle to ask for payment—which he had been more than willing to give—but instead, the alpha had given him a modest home with three bedrooms.
“Room for you to grow a family,” he had said. “Hopefully, that mate of yours will be able to give you plenty of children of your own.”
The comment hadn’t set well with Camden, but he was grateful to his uncle for the gift, even if he was uncomfortable with the way it had been presented to him.
Uncle Harold had taken Camden in after his parents died.
He had been the one to raise him and teach him everything he knew.
It was because of him that Camden had been successful in life.
Without having a steady hand to guide him, it was entirely possible that Camden would have turned into an angry and ill-equipped man.
It had taken leaving the pack for Camden to realize that he had been privileged because of his birth.
He had the good fortune of being born a male and being given opportunities by his uncle.
If he had been a girl, it was far more likely that he would have been pawned off on another, lower-ranking relative or member of the pack.
Alpha Hughes was an unforgiving and misogynistic man.
Those viewpoints had been shared by the majority of the men in Camden’s life until he left for army training, and it hadn’t been until he was exposed to more diverse ways of life that he had begun to question what he had been taught growing up.
Joining the black ops squad had taught him about the joys of having unique experiences, and that conformity wasn’t always a benefit.
With a new perspective, he had been able to see just how much damage his uncle’s opinions had done to the women in the pack.
His comments about Flora giving him children only highlighted the old-fashioned and harmful beliefs he still clung to.
Flora had a child already, and Camden had no expectations that she would go through pregnancy again.
From what little he’d heard from Flora about her pregnancy, Camden understood that it had been a difficult and trying time for her.
He had no intention of forcing her to go through that again unless it was something she wanted.
If anything, he was grateful because having a home away from the pack house would allow Flora and Sofia to have a respite away from the others.
The separation would keep them away from judgment and prying eyes until he had the opportunity to do something about the pack’s views.
There was a lot of work to be done if the others were ever going to welcome Flora as one of their own.
Camden didn’t see much of Flora or Sofia as he went through the process of furnishing the home and getting it ready for them to move in. A few days after the wedding, he showed up at the pack house, full of nervous energy as he knocked on the door to Flora’s room.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, grinning wildly.
“Will I like this surprise?” Flora asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“Can I see it, too?” Sofia asked excitedly from somewhere out of sight.
Camden chuckled at the differing responses from the two members of his new family. “Yes, and yes,” he answered. “Come on, let’s go.”
Reluctantly, Flora followed him. Her face betrayed surprise as he led them to his car and opened the door for them.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” he said with a grin.
Sofia jumped inside without hesitation, and her mother followed behind her. As they approached the house, Camden’s excitement was barely containable. His foot was tapping on the floor, anxious to see what the girls’ reactions would be.
“Are we there yet?” Sofia asked from the backseat.
“Yes,” he said proudly, pulling into the driveway of the white, two-story house that was now theirs.
“Who lives here?” Flora asked.
“We do,” he said. “Welcome home.”
Sofia squealed with excitement and ran to the front door, bouncing up and down as she waited for Camden to unlock it and let them inside. Flora, on the other hand, was less impressed.
“When did you get this?” she asked in a prickly voice.
“After the wedding,” he said. “It was a gift from my uncle. I’ve been getting it ready for us to move in, and I finally finished everything this morning.”
He opened the door with a flourish, revealing a cozy and clean living room that opened up into a dining room and kitchen. A vase of daisies was on the table, and he had made sure to include Flora’s favorite colors when he selected the furniture.
“You still like pink, green, and cream, right?” he asked, pointing to the decorations he had chosen.
She didn’t answer. Her brow furrowed as she walked around, looking at the space.
“Mr. Camden, where’s my room?” Sofia asked.
“Upstairs,” he said with a smile. “Do you want me to show you?”
She nodded, a wide smile on her face, and took Camden’s hand.
He saw Flora’s frown deepen as the two of them headed up the stairs, and a moment later, she followed behind them.
There were two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor.
They were meant to be children’s rooms, but he had decorated them for Sofia and Flora.
The primary bedroom was next to the kitchen.
Camden had made that his own bedroom to ensure that in case of an emergency, he would be the first on the scene.
He opened the door to Flora’s bedroom first and showed her inside. “If there’s anything else you want in here, just let me know and I’ll make sure you get it,” he assured her.
“Took the big bedroom downstairs for yourself, I see?” Flora asked.
“I assumed you would want the room closest to Sofia’s,” Camden said, confused by her dissatisfaction. “But if I was wrong, I’m happy to switch with you.”
“No,” she replied simply.
“This room,” he said, turning back into the hallway to talk to Sofia, “is for you.”
She reacted exactly as he hoped she would.
The walls had been decorated with pastel flowers and fairy lights.
Along one wall was a bookshelf filled with books and a toy chest that he had already filled up.
A child-sized desk was under the window, filled with art supplies.
A bed filled with pillows and stuffed animals completed the room.
“Is this mine?!” Sofia asked, her voice going up in pitch.
“All yours,” he assured her, pushing her gently into the room.
She ran immediately to the bed and threw herself on it. “It’s so comfy!” she shouted. “Mom! Look at all the toys!”
Camden grinned broadly and turned to Flora for approval, but her expression was even more dour than before. He couldn’t understand what he had done wrong, but he would rather focus on Sofia’s excitement than Flora’s disapproval, anyway.
“Sofia, did you see your new desk?” he asked, and the little girl turned to the art supplies with fervor.
***
Moving in together was both rewarding and challenging for Camden.
In the days following the initial revelation of their new home, they had done their best to adjust to their new living arrangements.
Each morning, Camden cooked breakfast for them before he left the house to deal with pack business alongside his uncle.
After a morning of work, he caught up with his squad, who were enjoying their reprieve from military duty.
Even though he was enjoying the break from work and seeing his friends outside of their usual environment, he couldn’t help but feel like his time would be better spent at home with Flora and Sofia.
“Boss, just go home,” Thompson said out of the blue while they were playing darts at the bar.
“What?” Camden asked in confusion. He had thought he was keeping his daydreams a secret, but the rest of the squad was looking at him with knowing eyes.
“He said go home, Camden,” Jasper echoed. “Your mind isn’t here right now. Go home to your mate. We’ll hang out again tomorrow.”
Camden smiled sheepishly at them, but with their encouragement, decided to head back home.
It was only three in the afternoon, far earlier than he usually went home.
He felt like he should know what their schedule was like during the day, but Camden wasn’t even sure what Flora and Sofia did with their time while he was gone.
As he pulled up to the house, he spotted the open windows and heard music flowing through the air.
An upbeat children’s song was playing, and Camden smiled.
He imagined Flora and Sofia dancing in the living room, having a good time and enjoying their newfound freedom.
But when he opened the front door, he saw Sofia coloring at the dining room table while Flora scrubbed the baseboards.
Her hands were pink, raw from her toiling, and sweat was glistening on her forehead.
“When you’re done with that, make sure you put everything away,” Flora said to Sofia, not realizing that Camden had returned.
“Okay, Mommy,” Sofia replied. She gathered her utensils and hopped off the chair, heading for the stairs. “Hi, Mr. Camden,” she said as she passed him.
“Hi, Sof,” he said quietly.
He turned his attention back to Flora, who was emptying the bucket of water into the sink. He watched as she rinsed it, sprayed it with bleach, and placed it underneath the kitchen sink before washing her hands. She winced as she dried them on a towel.
“Flora, what do you think you’re doing?” he said incredulously.
He had assumed Flora did light housekeeping while he was away, just like he did when he was at home, but he never expected that she would be working herself to the bone to maintain its spotless condition.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. It was an automatic response, and Camden could see the fear in her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were coming back early, or I would have finished sooner.”
“That wasn’t what I meant at all,” Camden said, emphasizing his point. “I meant, what do you think you’re doing by spending your time cleaning like this? Look at your hands!”
Instead of looking at them, Flora hid them behind her back. Her apologetic look shifted to one of anger. Camden was confounded by her. All he wanted was for her to rest and be at peace, but she was insisting on making things more difficult for herself.
“I cleaned what needed to be cleaned,” she said harshly.
“The floor was clean,” Camden argued.
“Of course it was! Because I cleaned it two days ago!” she hissed.
Camden inhaled sharply. “Two days ago?” he asked. “Why are you cleaning things every two days? Flora, that’s insane. A deep scrub like that only needs to be done every few months.”
Anger turned to confusion as they both stared at each other in bewildered shock. Camden had always had high standards of cleanliness, but the thought of deep cleaning every single day was beyond him. For her part, it seemed that she had never considered that she was doing too much.
“Flora,” he said, more gently, “before you lived here, how often were you expected to clean?”
“If I wasn’t working, I was cleaning,” she replied. “It was the only way to earn my keep with Stella and Ben.”
“Is that what they told you?”
She nodded. “It was that, or they’d sell me to the highest bidder. They threatened that more than once.”
Camden’s anger returned at the thought of Flora being treated so harshly by the people who had promised to protect her.
Even more alarming was that her behavior hadn’t changed when they got married.
He felt guilty that he hadn’t made his intentions for her known before, but now that he saw what she was doing with her freedom, he needed to make it right.
“Flora, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he began. “You never need to earn your place here. Not with me. You are my wife, not my servant, and as my wife, you will be treated like a queen. There will be no more scrubbing floors or injuring your hands like this. Are we clear?”
Flora didn’t take his declaration as positively as he had hoped. She hung her head as if she were in trouble and inspected her fingers cautiously. Slowly, she shook her head.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said quietly. “I’m not really your wife. You only married me because of some weird obligation to protect me. I owe you. And I hate owing people.”
“Flora—”
“Mom! Is it time for dinner? I’m hungry.”
Camden sighed, realizing their conversation was over.
He couldn’t make Flora see just how serious he was about her taking it easy when Sofia needed her attention.
This wasn’t a conversation he could have in front of Flora’s daughter.
He wanted to assure her that he did see her as his wife and mate, that it hadn’t been a mistake to marry her, and that she owed him nothing.
But it would have to wait for another time.
“I’m cooking tonight, Sof,” he said brightly, turning his attention to the young girl.
If he had to step in more to force Flora to rest, then that was what he was going to do.