"I will see you in the morning then," Cain says as we both get to the top of the stairs.
"Er, yes," I mumble, sounding like a damn teenager or something. How can one bear do this to me? I watch as he walks away, my eyes tracing the muscles on his back that I can see through the tight shirt. I blink as he turns around, an amused look on his face when he sees me watching him.
"I forgot to say, I checked in on your rogue and gave him food earlier," he tells me, never losing the sexy smile.
"Thanks, well for everything today. I worried that I wouldn’t fit in here, that even though we are mates, we wouldn’t get along or something. I spent a year worrying and not admitting that I was both curious to come here and very scared too, as well. Thank you for…well you know," I say, pretty much blurting it all out.
"Anything for you G-G," he says playfully, and turns around, walking to his door. I quickly move to my door, pulling it open and stepping into the cool room. I stare at the dark room for a second, just calming down from how much I want to go back in the corridor and claim one of my mates. It takes a few moments before I turn the light on. I glance to my right, seeing the file on the cabinet, and know I've left it for far too long to not open it and have a look now.
"Come on, Gold, it can’t be that bad," I mutter under my breath, convincing myself to walk over and pick up the file off the cabinet. I look around the room and know I don't want to open it without a drink in my hand and chocolate nearby. Let's hope the bears have decent stuff in their kitchen. I walk back out of the room, down the corridor and to the stairs, briefly glancing at the two rooms on the other side and knowing Cain is in one of them. If I wasn't so stubborn, I could knock on his door, and he would read this with me, but I still keep walking down the stairs, holding the file. It’s only been one day. One day, and I’m ready to jump into one of their beds. God help me. I walk to the right into the kitchen area, which has white cabinets and black granite worktops. There is a massive island in the middle, which has one huge piece of wood as the top. I pause when I hear a noise behind me, and I swing around, scanning the empty corridor, but I don't see anything. I shake my head as I turn back around and walk over to the fridge, opening it and searching for anything chocolate looking.
"Hey darling, so did you finally get a chance to read up on me?" my rogue’s voice comes from right behind me and making me jump, barely able to withhold my shriek of surprise. I slam the fridge door shut, turning to face him as he sits on the island, eating Snickers bar like he hasn’t got a care in the world. And I want that damn Snickers bar.
"How?" I ask, staring at his now neatly cut black beard, and his black hair that has been shaved on the sides and cut at the top. He looks amazing and so bloody attractive. I can feel the mate draw when I’m near him, when usually, females can’t feel the draw at all. He has on grey tracksuit bottoms that lay low on his hips and a blue shirt that shows off a red tattoo on his collarbone. It is lots of swirls with what looks like numbers written on the edges around them. I run my eyes over his sides, not seeing any weapons on him.
"I'm good at escaping, and that room got boring after a while," he says, like it isn’t a big deal, and his eyes drift to the file. "So, what do you think about my crimes?"
"I haven’t looked yet," I say, briefly glancing away from him to look around the room for anything to defend myself with if this rogue decides to attack me. I spot a block of cutting knifes a few steps to my left.
"I won't hurt you. I really have no interest in fighting with you, either," he tells me. My rogue is way too smart and good at escaping, apparently.
"Then why escape? Why not just stay put until I came to you? And why are you still here if you know we are likely to just lock you up again?" I ask, sighing in disappointment when he finishes the Snickers bar, and I remember there was no chocolate in the fridge.
"I told you, I got bored. Plus...I think it’s best we get to know each other rather than you are thinking the worst of me without giving me a chance to explain," he says, meeting my eyes as I try to relax a little.
"Is this going to tell me the worst of you?" I hold the file up as I speak.
"That is going to tell you half the story, and not the good half. I am not proud of what that says," he admits, and his blue, haunted eyes stay locked on mine for half a second before he looks away. I don’t know why, but I believe him. I believe he isn’t proud of whatever this file says and that he likely regrets his actions.
"Will you explain everything to me? I have to believe there is something more to whatever this file says," I ask, walking over and sitting on the other side of the island. I turn, crossing my legs and waiting for him to look at me, but he doesn’t as he starts speaking.
"I was the alpha of a pack of twenty. The Tresan Pack. Tresan is my last name, it was my father’s and his father’s. The pack was given to me when my father felt I was ready. We owned four houses on a street, shifted in the nearby park and woods at night...we kept to ourselves for many years," he humorlessly chuckles. "We thought we were safe, that we could live happily for the next ten years or so, and then move around so the humans don’t get suspicious of us not aging. We had the next place planned out, and the place after that. We knew we would need to find somewhere move private eventually, but there was no rush in our minds.”
"What happened?" I ask.
"In one week, three of my pack members disappeared. They just vanished, and I couldn’t find any clue to what happened to them. I went mad looking, searching. They were my pack, and I was meant to protect them, and I didn’t." he says distantly, staring at the floor.
"Did you ever find them?" I ask.
"Yes. Another alpha had taken the three women. Two of them had children in the pack. They had lives...I still can never forget when I first saw them in that dirty room," he pauses, his hands tightening into fists as dread fills me. "The alpha was collecting women, human, wolves, elves, vampires...it didn’t matter to him what species they were. If they were beautiful, he collected them. He would rape them, lock them in a room, and use them until they died. Two of my pack were dead when I got there. I killed the last woman, Mila, because she begged me too," he stops speaking but I can feel the guilt and sorrow pouring out his words. They did not deserve that torture, and I am happy he killed Mila if she asked for him to end her pain. That is an alpha’s job, to look after his pack, and in my eyes, he did exactly that when faced with a horrible decision.
I jump off the table, walking slowly over to him and stepping between his legs that hang off the island. I place my hands on his face, lifting it up so he will look at me, feeling the wetness on my hands from his silent tears. When his eyes meet mine, there is nothing but sorrow and guilt in them.
“You do not have to feel guilty for the choice you had to make as her alpha,” I whisper.
“I will feel guilty for my entire life for not protecting my pack better,” he says.
"What happened next? Why were you hunted?" I ask, needing to know what happened. There is no way the royal family would have ordered him hunted for doing what he did.
"I killed the alpha, the betas, and everyone I scented guilt on. I let the rest of the pack go, and the women that were left alive. The next thing I know, I was shot with something in my neck, and everything went black," he says, his wolf's scent slowly drifting over to me and making me relax, even as he tells me such an awful story. He gently places his hands on my waist, pulling me a little closer to him.
"Where did you wake up?" I ask, moving my hands off his face, sliding them down to his chest where I can feel his heart beating rapidly under his shirt.
"In hell. I don't know exactly what the place was, but they took me and five people they managed to catch from my pack. Including my parents. We were all in separate cages, with hundreds of wolves and other creatures next to us," he tells me, his heart beating even quicker as he continues with this story.
"What?" I hiss in shock, feeling the truth behind his words and the fear coming from him. He is scared of the place he is telling me about, and I need to know why.
"They tortured us, performed tests on us, and did things I can’t even remember because I’ve made myself forget. I was the only one of my pack who survived. I had to watch, helpless, as they killed each one of my pack. My parents died together, the day before I escaped. I was going to break them out too, but I was too late…" he says so sadly that it breaks my heart.
"Do you know who they were? They have to pay for what they have done. If I tell my old pack and the Bearlay’s, we will have a big army for revenge and to free the other people still there,” I tell him, feeling so angry that anyone could do something like that.
"I broke out, killed three guards and ran out of the doors in a blur. I saw a man as I was escaping. I don't know who he is, but I would recognise him again if I ever saw him," he tells me. “I want revenge too, but now I have a mate to worry about…I won’t risk my past finding you.”
"Do you know where it was you were taken to?" I ask.
"No, I shifted and ran and ran. It is all a blur, and my wolf was too frightened to allow me shift back for a week," he explains, which is pretty normal. We have all had moments when our wolf is hard to control.
"So how did the royal family come to send us? They gave us a cloth with your scent on it that we used to find you," I question because I just can’t believe the royal family, our leaders, would have anything to do with something so evil.
"Can I see it?" he asks.
"Sure," I open the file, not looking at the information inside as I pull out the clipped rag on the top. It is cut off a bigger blanket, and a dirty one at that.
"This was my blanket in that place, the place they..." he stops, dropping the blanket and looking away as his jaw tightens.
"How did they get it then?" I gasp in horror at the realisation that the royal family could be behind all this.
"That’s what I want to know," he replies tightly.
"Do you think they could be the ones doing all that?" I ask quietly. If they are, I have to get Snow far away from the prince. He may be her destined mate, but if he has anything to do with this…
"Honestly? I don’t know. Do you have a photo of the royal family? I haven’t seen them in a long, long time, and I did see some people while I was in there," he asks.
"I don’t have one, but I know my sister in law had photos taken of them at a ball recently. I will ask her to send them to me," I answer.
"You must think I’m weak," he says carefully, traces of despair breaking through his words. I shake my head. I don’t think that at all, and I want to explain all that to him, but I don’t get a chance.
"What the fuck are you doing out that room?" Cain snaps from behind us, and I turn around, seeing Cain storming towards us from the bottom of the stairs. My rogue jumps off the table, darting in front of me.
"Talking to my mate, do you have a problem with that?" he asks, his voice going from sad to cocky in the blink of an eye.
"Yeah, I do," Cain calmly responds, and he swings his fist straight into my rogue’s face.
"Shit," I mutter as my rogue tackles Cain, and they both slam into the wall before rolling to the floor. I glance around the room quickly to find something to break them up as I hear their fight head into the lounge and something that sounds like glass breaking. I run out the back door in the kitchen, remembering I saw a hose on one of those circle holders near the door.
"This will do," I say to myself as I grab the hose and turn the water on, holding my hand over the end as I run back into the house. Cain is punching the lights out of my rogue, his own face covered in blood, and it looks like his arm has been bitten. Ouch. I lift the hose, squirting them both with the freezing cold water. It finally snaps them both out of the trance they were in. They both turn towards me, dripping with water and blood.
"You are both idiots. One, did I look like I was in danger, Cain? Two, why did you have to act all cocky when you are genuinely a good guy?" I snap, holding my hands on my hips. Cain and my rogue look between each other, frowning and then pushing each other away as they get up.
"I am going to bed, and Rogue can sleep on the sofa tonight. I want him near me. Is that okay? Can I trust you both not to kill each other for one night?" I ask.
"He's an ass," Cain shrugs.
"And you're a twat. I'm sure we will get along for Gold’s sake," my rogue says, and I just shake my head at them.
"Night, guys. Maybe you two should have a drink and talk instead of fighting. You might get along," I suggest because I really think my rogue needs to be in a pack with people he connect with for a while. My heart hurts as I meet his eyes, and he smiles once at me. I know straight away that I want to help him forget his past, help him heal. I now know that under the cocky attitude he puts up, there is a very good man hidden there. A man destined to be my mate it seems.