*Grayson*
I turned again, like I’d been doing for the past four hours, this time lying on my right side. It was no wonder that sleep had eluded me. Having my pack members killed off like chickens and not being able to do anything about it was beginning to mess with my head, my wolf and my sleep. And then there was the fact that I’d finally found the one person that was supposed to help me get through my rough days, and she happened to be the most insufferable human being I had ever met. Literally.
Who was currently sleeping just a few feet away from me.
I let out an irritated sigh and turned, facing the other side. I’d let my curiosity get the better of me today when I’d walked downstairs and into the kitchen pretending to get something to eat. There was a kitchen on this floor, smaller than the one downstairs, but a kitchen nonetheless. I hadn’t let Keera know about it because I hadn’t been prepared for her to invade that part of the house yet. Which I somehow knew was exactly what she would do if she found out.
When she found out.
I’d just wanted to know what they’d been up to. What she’d been up to. It was the only reason I’d gone downstairs. I threw my arm over my eyes and sent a prayer of help to the goddess because I knew I was going to need it. It didn’t matter how much I despised Keera or how much she despised me back. The mate bond was going to start messing with my head soon enough. Especially since she was in such close proximity. Oh, well. I was going to cross that bridge when I got there.
It was only a matter of time before that happened anyway.
***
I let out a deep breath, feeling myself. rousing from sleep. Like almost every other day, the nightmares had woken me up. Somehow they were circled around gruesome physical assaults leading to the death of a pack member. I checked the time on my phone, surprised to see it was already six in the morning. Everywhere was still a little dark for six o’clock and I usually woke up in the middle of the night.
And not in the morning.
I rose to my feet and took a shower and put on sweatpants and a white vest before walking to the kitchen upstairs to get my coffee. Werewolves initially had the basic food we ate but over time, especially when the resources for making continued getting more and more scarce, we adapted to almost everything humans ate. And I’d developed a special thing for morning coffee.
Light illuminated the hallway from the upstairs kitchen, making me realize that someone had turned the bulbs on. Not someone, I corrected silently as I stepped into the kitchen, Keera. I walked into the kitchen and then leaned against the wall beside the door, taking her in. She was wearing some sort of really short shorts, her well toned legs on display. She had on a black tank top and her red hair had been tied into a messy bun.
“It didn’t take you as long as I thought it would to find out about the kitchen.” I said from behind her, half consciously startling her. She jerked back in fright and the cup in her hold slipped and fell to the ground, immediately breaking to pieces just as the contents of the cup spilled all over. My eyes widened in surprise as I kicked myself away from the door, heading to where she stood. I meant to scare a little.
This was definitely not little.
She rubbed her chest with her palm, taking a calming breath and throwing daggers at me. “Why on earth would you do that Grayson?” She hissed, staring at the mess on the floor before looking back at me. I paused for a second, wondering if she realized it was the first time she was saying my name while talking to just me. It caused a bit of stirring below my waistline. I looked away from her, hating my reaction to just hearing my name on her lips.
Not when she hadn’t even noticed she’d said it. Not with the way she was still glaring.
I walked past her, careful not to step on a shard of broken glass, and then picked up the tissues lying neatly at a corner of the counter. I bent down dabbing at the coffee she’d spilled. A part of me knew that it was all my fault and I should probably apologize to her. The problem was that I had no intention of saying sorry to Keera. Ever. My pride wouldn’t let me.
Not unless she admitted to having a change in Ginny’s behavior and apologized for it.
I took the soaked tissues and threw them in the trash, turning to find that Keera was still standing rooted to her spot. I walked to another corner of the kitchen and picked up a sweeping brush and parker. “I didn’t expect you to get so startled.” I finally admitted. I reached for her elbow to carefully pull her away from the broken pieces but she jerked away before I could touch her.
My eyes immediately shot to hers and I found her already looking at me. If eyes could kill I was certain I would have been six feet under already. I clenched my jaws together, my teeth grinding as I withdrew my hand and went back to sweeping the shards. So that was how it was going to be. She didn’t want me touching her for any reason.
Fine. I was more than happy to live with that.
She released a deep breath and then went back to remaking her coffee. I finished up with the sweeping and threw the pieces in the trash, going back to lean against the wall beside the door so I could watch her. She slanted a look in my direction before going back to making her coffee. She poured the ground coffee beans into the machine and secured the handle of the coffee maker and then pushed the right buttons. We both stared as coffee slowly poured out of the nozzle of the coffee maker and into the cup she’d placed beneath it.
“You were never going to tell me about the kitchen.” She said after a while. It hadn’t been a question. I watched her start up a second cup, careful not to let it show that I was surprised she wanted to make mine. She added cream and sugar to her cup, twirled a spoon around it and then brought the cup to her lips, turning to face me. “Well, I can’t honestly say that I’m sorry I found it myself.” She continued with a shrug. “Not when I don’t intend to stay away from it.”
I met her eyes, taking the coffee she handed me and thanking her for it. I felt a tinge of. . . something in the air and a part of me wondered if she felt it too. Some kind of weird connection between us. Kind of like an invincible rope that seemed to be drawing us closer together. She broke our eye contact first, her gaze falling somewhere around my chest.
“You have a tattoo.” She stated, her features showing her surprise. Her eyes shot to mine for a second before she leaned in a bit more trying to make out what it was through my vest. The tattoo spanned from my chest to my right shoulder. It was just really complicated and unique designs drawn around the image of my wolf’s head. She could only see the designs in my chest. “How did that work?” She asked, sounding a little curious. “I thought your healing abilities wouldn’t let you guys have any sort of mark or pigmentation on your skin.”
I cocked my head to the side, wondering how she knew that. It wasn’t exactly basic knowledge. I wondered if she’d done some digging and research about us. And if she had, when she’d done it. Had it been around the time she had the fall out with Ginny? Or was it more recent? Like just days before they’d arrived here. “We have to use something different.” I informed her simply. There was no need to go into details. She might exactly be an enemy but she was also far from being a friend. “So it doesn’t heal and fade.”
She made a sound at the back of throat before nodding and exiting the kitchen. For some reason my mind flashed back to when she stepped out of reach so I wouldn’t touch her. That had stung a little. And not just because of the fact that she was my mate. It showed how much of a low opinion she has about werewolves. Yes, we had some superhuman abilities and we did things differently from humans. And it was true, as evidenced by the killings, that there were a few psychopaths amongst us.
Still.
We were not all monsters. And that was exactly what she thought. Even her team seemed to be more comfortable around us than she was. I swiped a hand down my face, taking in the rest of my coffee. Keera has never been my problem. I had never been concerned about what she did or what she thought or what she was up to. And despite the fact that she was my mate and I’d promised to watch her specially, I wasn’t about to start being concerned now.
If there was anything I knew, it was definitely the fact that she wasn’t worth it.
***
“Thank God so much,” Josie said, echoing her boss’s words a second earlier. We’d managed to get each of them a map of the pack, adding as much detail as we could including highlighting all the houses of the victims as well as the places their bodies had been found. The team had revealed the plans they’d put together in order to find the killer and I had to agree that it made a lot of sense.
My only problem with it had been the fact that they’d revealed they were going to be conducting a series of tests on the bodies of the dead victims. Somehow I found it extremely disrespectful to the victims. It was something I was going to have to talk to Keera about. And then there was also the fact that they had talked about meeting up with the family and friends of the deceased to ask a few questions. Not only were they going to be poking holes in their wounds, they were going to be indirectly hurting them as well.
We concluded the meeting, everyone quickly retiring to get on with their work. “What was it like having them here?” Ria asked, walking beside me as I took the stairs to my room. I wanted to get ready because I’d informed some of the pack warriors that we were going to go round the pack today. Ria had said she wanted to tag along with us. We had to check the perimeters and boundaries and also try to stall the killer for as long as we could giving no room for another body to be discovered.
I pushed the door open, letting her in before closing it behind her. Ria and I had gotten close over the past few weeks. Close enough that we talked even in my bedroom. Of course, nothing was going on between us. I wasn’t sure what her plans were about finding her mate but she didn’t seem to be bothered about it yet. For the most part we just talked while I grabbed one or two things and exited the room almost immediately.
I thought about her question for a while as I picked up my phone and made sure I’d taken care of everything I needed to before leaving the house. My mind drifted to how curious I’d been to see what Keera and the team had been up to last night. And then I remembered the little incident in the kitchen early this morning. I turned to Ria and gestured as I answered her question that we could leave.
“It was torture.”