Chapter 9

Jason

 

I rolled over and Mason grunted when I accidentally kicked him in the shin. We had fallen asleep in the pit of the movie room last night along with Anna’s two puppies. Eeyore heard me move and came over to lick my face.

I knew he was just asking me to let him outside, but I needed a couple more minutes before I got up and started the day. I tucked him under my arm and gently stroked his fur absentmindedly as I thought about yesterday.

I had pretended to be asleep while Mason talked to Anna last night. While I wish it was me who she had curled up to and traded kisses with, I knew Mason was the better choice for that talk. I would have just fucked things up with her by joking around at the wrong time.

Mason was much better at communicating how we felt about things. He was always the one who took the lead when things got serious. I usually panicked when emotions started to get real and made an ass of myself. I did not want to risk what we had with Anna by being an insensitive jerk, per my usual.

I leaned over and grabbed the pillow that she had been using last night before she went up to bed. Her scent was still all over it, so I inhaled deeply. Mace and I had let her into our lives because she seemed cool, unlike the rest of the females of our kind. When we had started out we were accepting her as a potential pack-mate, but now things were changing. We both wanted Anna as more and I think she wanted us back.

Eeyore had managed to squirm away from me while my attention was elsewhere and had immediately pounced on his brother. Now both of them were up and wrestling. I smiled, they reminded me a little of Mason and I when we were pups. The difference was that these pups had Anna to take care of them, while we…

Mason had pointed out that the reason why we may have reacted so strongly to Kelsey immediately was because she reminded us of dear old mom. Kelsey had two little pups who she could care less about and was constantly manipulating Anna to see what she could get out of her.

Austin had let it drop that he had to bribe Kelsey to get her to give him the info he needed to keep Anna safe. That was mom all over again. She would do anything for money and wasn’t above sleeping with whomever was at the top of the pack at the moment in the hopes that their status would rub off on her.

I had asked Austin what the plan was to keep Kelsey far from Anna and make sure that she never got her hands on these puppies again. Austin had just frowned at me when I expressed my concern for the two dogs. “She keeps them in a cage!” was what I had shouted at him.

He had merely raised an eyebrow and looked at Mason. Mason was able to explain our concerns calmly and rationally, unlike me. At the end of the conversation, Austin had simply said “I’ll see what I can do.”

I realized that Austin had much more to deal with at the moment. I felt sick to my stomach when I thought about Caleb and what he was facing. Caleb was a good guy. Mace and I had a difficult time bonding with him at first, maybe because he was so different from us.

Caleb was quiet and tried to avoid being around other people. At first I thought he just didn’t want to associate with a couple of knuckle-headed marines because he was some kind of genius.

It didn’t take us long to figure out that Caleb was the opposite of arrogant. He was actually very self-conscious of how intelligent he was. He thought we would look down on him for being a dork because he was so smart. I had shaken my head in disbelief at that one.

After training with Caleb, we realized that he was tough, excellent at what he did, and very loyal to Austin and the pack. There is nothing more that we could ask for in a pack-mate.

Marines never left a man behind and we never would let an enemy take one of our own. The only way that Austin had been able to make us stay here was to tell us that he needed us to guard Anna in his absence. Otherwise we would be right there by Caleb’s side.

I sighed. Anna.

I still didn’t want to get up, but I had the feeling that she would be making something delicious for breakfast soon. I climbed out of the pit and the two pups followed me. Mason didn’t look like he was ready to get up, so I started throwing pillows at him. Eventually he threw one back and followed me up the stairs.

I let the pups outside and let them do their thing before leading them back inside in search of Anna. Anna wasn’t in the kitchen, but her scent lingered, telling us that she had been there recently. We went upstairs but her room was empty. Mason pointed his chin in the direction of Caleb’s room and I followed him there.

We found Anna in Caleb’s bed. She was curled up there and holding his pillow close, no doubt for his scent. She watched us as we came in the room and sat on the bed with her. Her iPad was lying on the bed next to her and I was careful not to sit on it. She had probably been working on it before we came in. 

Anna had been working on making us stick to more of a budget. Mace and I went to the store and just bought whatever we thought we needed at the moment. Anna was more of a planner. She had been keeping all of our receipts for a project she was working on and had made all kinds of charts and graphs to show Austin. What I understood was that she was going to have stuff on automatic order so Mace and I had to go to the store less. She also said we were going to spend less on necessities and have more money for fun stuff. I supported her plan one hundred percent.

I watched her hold Caleb’s pillow and wondered what Anna felt for Caleb. I knew she spent a lot of time with him while we weren’t around, but I couldn’t see either Caleb or Anna making a first move on the other. They were both a little hesitant when it came to physical touch and neither of them was aggressive.

“You okay?” Mason asked her gently.

She squeezed the pillow a little harder. “Yeah, I’m just worried about Caleb.”

“Me too.” I told her with a sigh.

The two puppies jumped on the bed to see her and she happily greeted them, sitting up to play a little.

“I talked to James this morning,” she offered, looking a little brighter.

Mace and I exchanged glances but waited for her to continue. I doubted that James had told her anything. He was very close-lipped and would only give info to Austin or Cody. He trusted them to disseminate the information to the rest of us however they saw fit.

“We called Austin and talked to Caleb.” She told us quietly as she picked up Tigger so that he would stop biting his brother’s ear.

“How is Caleb holding up?” Mason asked.

“He’s okay.” She told us. “Austin is sending a lamia here to get info from his computer.”

“What?” I jumped up in shock. Austin was going to let one of them in here when he wasn’t even on the premises? With Anna in the house? And he’s going to let them in all of Caleb’s confidential files? Had he lost his mind? Or was he that desperate to save Caleb? The situation must have been bad for him to agree to this.

Mason probably came to that conclusion more quickly than I did because he stayed seated. “When is he going to be here?” he asked Anna with a frown.

She shrugged. “Austin just asked me to get things ready in Caleb’s room. I figured he will probably need me to get into Caleb’s computer. Plus, I can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get into anything personal.”

I nodded. Anna was always thinking ahead.

“So…” she started. I grinned a little on the inside. This is how she started one of her really weird questions that would make us laugh.

“Are we supposed to offer him a snack like a normal guest? Because I can make snacks, but I don’t want to give him my blood.” She blurted out.

Mace and I both laughed.

“They can eat regular food.” Mason told her. She looked very relieved. Did she really think that we would allow anyone from outside the pack to touch her?

James sent us a mental nudge. The lamia was here at the front gate and headed up to the house. We were not to let Anna out of our sight for any reason. That wouldn’t be a problem. That had been our plan all along.

Mason let Anna know and she looked down at the pups, as if wondering what to do with them. She chewed on her lip, which I found adorable, but I knew she only did it when she was really worried about something.

“We can put them in their playpen.” I offered. “That way they never leave our sight.”

Anna smiled at me in relief and handed Tigger to me before picking up Eeyore. I really wish we could change those names. Thor and Loki would suit them much better. I hadn’t brought that up to Anna yet. I was hoping that Austin would announce we never had to give them back to Kelsey before proposing we changed their names.

We put the pups in their pen and Anna made sure that they had fresh water. Mason answered the knock on the door and we saw James lead a group of lamia in.

I tensed. The deal was for one lamia. I did not like that there were three of them right now. Yeah, we could probably take them down, but it would cost us. Two of these guys looked like the military type whereas I was guessing the third was the computer geek.

The skinny guy with the blue hair waved a hand. “Hey, I’m Emerys.”

Mason and I both gave him a nod. His gaze turned to Anna and his eyes widened. “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you again!”

Anna looked confused for a moment, but I saw a flash in her eyes that meant she was up to something crafty. She gave Emerys a warm smile.

“Good to see you, how long has it been?” she asked as if she were pondering the question herself.

Emerys grinned at her. “Oh, over twenty years I bet. Everything work out okay with the baby?”

Her eyes widened in shock before she had her features back in place. He didn’t notice because his gaze had already wandered to the computer system.

“Sweet system!” he grinned as he took a seat. “I’ve heard Caleb brag about this a million times. I didn’t think I would be sitting here without him though.” His mood turned a little more somber as he finished his thought.

“You know Caleb?” I asked curiously.

“Oh, yeah.” He said absentmindedly. “It’s a small community. We trade info and help each other out with projects all the time. Never met the guy in person though.”

He turned around to face us. “Anyone have permission to use this? I can hack into it, but it will probably take me a while. Caleb is good.”

Anna raised her hand. “I do.”

“Excellent.” He murmured as he motioned her closer.

She used her finger to log into the system and within moments he was typing furiously. All of us watched silently, but I had no idea what he was doing. I glanced at Anna out of the corner of my eye. If anyone knew what was going on, it would be her. She was the smartest person I knew after Caleb.

“Uh, do you know what you’re looking for?” Anna asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, Arminius told me what to look for.”

“Umm..” Anna looked like she really wanted to question him but was holding back. I tried to send her some encouragement. This dude was much more likely to answer questions coming from a hot chick.

He waved a hand at her. “I mean Damien or whatever he’s going by now.”

“Oh.” She watched him carefully as things flashed by on the screen. It looked like he was working on something out of the matrix to me. Hopefully she was getting something out of this.

“So, you must be the white wolf Caleb has been talking about.” Emerys said to Anna conversationally. “I knew there wasn’t that many of you, but I thought you were determined to stay in your homelands?”

“Um…” I could see Anna chewing her lip in decision. She let out a breath. “Okay, I can’t even lie. I’m not who you think I am.”

He looked up in surprise and then eyed her critically. “I guess you do look a little younger than the last time I saw you. I knew you guys aged slower than the humans, but you probably can’t age backwards, huh?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Anna answered, obviously taken off guard.

Emerys sat back in his chair. “This is going to take a couple minutes to run.” He told her. “So we have some time to talk.”

“Cool.” She said and sat down on the corner of the desk. I didn’t like how close she was to him, so I took a step towards them. Mason was thinking the same because he circled around the other side of her. Our eyes met. If anything went wrong, he would go after Emerys and I would grab Anna.

“Is it possible that I’m the baby you were talking about?” she asked enthusiastically. “Did you know my mom? Is that why you thought I was her?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” He answered slowly.

“Arminius has always had a close relationship with the white wolves.” He told us. “I just happened to be around when Astrid came to him for help.”

Anna’s eyes lit up and I could see her delight at hearing her mother’s name. I didn’t want to rain on her parade, but I didn’t want to her be devastated if this turned out to be about someone else and not her.

I could see James giving Emerys a ‘shut the fuck up’ look, but Emerys was completely ignoring him. The two bodyguards closed in on James and made it clear that they were not going to allow him to interfere. Did James know something? Was he hiding it from everyone else?

“Astrid needed help hiding her babe until she worked out some kind of trouble with her pack.” Emerys told Anna, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the room.

The computer made a noise and he turned back to his work, once again typing furiously. I could see the hope in Anna’s eyes, but I was worried for her.

Anna watched over Emerys shoulder, but I could see the wheels turning in her head. I doubted that she was paying much attention to what he was doing at the computer. But who could blame her? I wouldn’t be half as patient as she was. I would have demanded to know everything by now.

He turned around in the chair to face her again and it looked like the computer was working on its own now.

“If you’re the baby, what happened to Astrid?” Emerys asked with a frown.

“I don’t know,” Anna said honestly. “I was adopted as a baby and had no idea what pack I came from.”

“If you are a white wolf, wouldn’t you have to be from the arctic pack?” Emerys asked obliviously.

Anna’s eyes searched out James. He was the one who told all of us that Anna was an arctic wolf, he had to know more than he was letting on.

James avoided looking Anna in the eyes and she seemed to deflate. I don’t know what she had expected to get from James, but she was clearly disappointed.

Anna turned back to Emerys. “What can you tell me about my mom?”

He frowned. “It was a long time ago, and there were a lot of other things going on. She looked just like you, though. I made up some fake records so that she could hide her baby in the US until she could take care of things in her pack. She said it was only going to be for a week or two.”

“You never talked to her after?” she asked in disappointment.

He shook his head. “You should probably go ask her pack in Montreal, though. She was heading right back there later that day.”

Anna perked up a little. I could see her hope. She probably thought that she could show up there and be reunited with her mom. Mason met my eyes. We both knew that this was not going to end well, there was a reason that Anna’s mom had never come back for her.

We both looked at James. He had his stone-cold face on, but we both knew that he was hiding something. It was going to be our job to get it out of him and do what we could to protect Anna.