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*****
*Corey*
I smiled watching Jayden make breakfast with Tamia, it was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning but there was no way Eli was getting up before eleven. Sometimes his sleeping habits worried me… but he was growing, right?
My smile wavered as I focused on my mate. Though Jayden was ecstatic that we were finally getting married, I felt like crap and had not slept as all. The thing is: when he wanted us to get married, I refused because I felt like he didn’t trust me, I felt like he thought he needed a way to make sure I would stick with him because he was so insecure. It was ridiculous, I could and would never leave him. Though, what was even more ridiculous was the fact that I had finally agreed only because I was afraid he would leave once he found out about what happened between Carrie and me… I just couldn’t risk losing him. The thought made my body feel weak.
“Didn’t you sleep?” Carrie asked as she walked in wearing a night gown way too short to be worn in front of my little girl – or boy.
Jayden greeted her and Tamia gave her a smile and mumbled a polite ‘good morning’ before she turned back to whatever it is she and Jayden had decided would be good Saturday breakfast. I wasn’t paying attention to what they were making and had been more caught-up in just admiring them.
Carrie looked at me expectantly and I resisted the urge to flip her off. I knew the situation was my fault, I had been so stupid, but why the hell was she in my house?
“Can you put some clothes on?” I frowned at her.
“I am wearing clothes.” I shot her a glare before smiling, she seemed surprised by the sudden change in expression, raising her brows at me.
“Guess what?” I asked excitedly.
“What?” She smiled.
“We’re getting married.” Her smile fell like it was the Flash on steroids.
I covered my ears as a scream suddenly erupted in the kitchen.
“What the fuck?!” that was Eli from upstairs.
“Eli, language. Tammy, Princess, please don’t do that again.” I said rubbing my ears. Jayden stood with a crooked smile on his face as he rubbed his ears. He looked so cute.
“Sorry!” I laughed as Tamia yelled that too while jumping onto Jayden’s back. He laughed and I grinned at how happy he was.
“Get-getting married?” Carrie cleared her throat, “Isn’t that… sudden?” She asked looking at Jayden.
“No, it isn’t. It’s actually long overdue.” As I said it, I realised it was true. I smiled as Jayden gave me a kiss on my lips.
“Who’s getting married?” Eli stumbled into the kitchen, clearly still half asleep.
“Uncle Jason.” I said, Eli looked at me before he began laughing. I chuckled at our son’s reaction and Jayden shot me a glare.
‘Don’t be rude, he’s your best friend.’ He linked to me.
“I’m not being rude.” I said before I remembered, “We have to talk… Alone.” I glanced at Carrie.
“Oh, that’s fine. You two can go out, I’ll watch the kids.” I looked at Carrie about to ask her why the hell she thought I would leave her alone with my children but Jayden spoke first.
“Thanks a lot.” He said.
‘Jay.’ I linked to him.
‘She won’t hurt them, Corey. We’ll be gone for what, two hours at most? And Eli’s stronger than she is. By far.’ He linked to me.
‘You keep forgetting that we can hide our power.’ I linked back to him, ‘And even if he is stronger than she is, Eli’s having magic trouble.’ Magic was always the hardest thing to learn, but once the user got the hang of it, it was pretty awesome so worth the trouble.
‘He won’t need magic, she barely knows any.’ He replied. I growled at him in my mind, annoyed. He had an answer for everything I said. He just gave me a smile return.
I ran my hands through my hair as Jayden gave the twins each a plate of breakfast and then handed Carrie a plate. It was sandwiches, but at least it didn’t have chocolate syrup on it.
“Stay out of the forest unless you’re with Sean or the others.” I told the twins.
“Yes, Papa.” Tamia said as Eli nodded.
Jayden then grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the house while I looked at Carrie, narrowing my eyes as she just smiled back at me. I did not want to leave them with her, did not want her in my house at all.
‘Relax, Corey. They’ll be fine. I’ll treat them like my own.’
Why did I hate the way she said that?
—–
“Are you serious?” Jayden laughed.
It had been a while since we hung out like that, by ourselves. We barely had time to go one any dates lately being so caught up taking care of the pack, the twins and working… or arguing. It made me realise how much I missed sharing random, stupid, unimportant stories about work and our friends with him. We were so young and yet so old in a way… It sucked… Though, what made our time alone almost hard to bear was the guilt I felt every single time I looked at him. I tried my hardest to ignore it, but it was always right behind every thought in my mind.
“Yes,” I chuckled as I ate some of my breakfast and forced myself to swallow without flinching. Jayden had dared me to eat pancakes drenched in syrup and topped with ice cream. For breakfast. He was clearly trying to kill me. ‘Take a walk on the wild side.’ He had said. Yeah, I think being a wolf, I have quite enough wild already. I tried not to laugh as he swallowed a leaf from the salad I was making him eat, his face twisting almost painfully.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do this –” he shoved the plate to me. I laughed grabbing a napkin and spitting what I hadn’t swallowed into it, happy he caved because I was beginning to feel nausea brought on my excessive amounts of syrup.
“I still can’t believe you look like that and eat this crap.” I said pushing my plate to him. He gave a shy smile as he ate some of the pancake.
“I worked out.” He frowned.
“I’d hardly call that ‘working out’, Babe.” I chuckled, he dropped his eyes mumbling something about how it still counted even though he only made an effort to work out for a week. “You put too much dressing on this.” I looked at the salad as I ate it.
“How else was I supposed to get it down?” He asked making me laugh. We continued eating and talked more, about any and everything, finishing our breakfast and about six drinks of juice and soda between us before he looked at me seriously which instantly made me slightly nervous at the sudden change in demeanour.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” He asked before clearing his throat, “Retracting the proposal already?”
“No, of course not.” He smiled and I added, “Sean and I just have this meeting in Sweden in two days.” Very quickly before drinking from my glass of water.
“What?”
“Huh?” I looked at him.
“Corey, seriously?” He asked. I sighed.
“It’s one meeting. With these guys that have been sending the pack some threats, apparently it’s my fault. We’ll be flying back the same day as the meeting.” Hopefully.
“Flying?” I felt myself smile as Jayden’s face dropped into terror.
“The plane won’t crash.” I chuckled.
“You don’t know that. You’re flying to have a meeting with people that hate you; the plane will probably have a bomb planted on it or something.”
“Ha. I haven’t thought of that… Remind me to have it inspected.” I said. He gave me a look that said he didn’t find my attempt at humour funny at all. I sighed. “It’ll be fine… But look, Jay, I… I don’t like Carrie –”
“I’ve noticed, you still haven’t explained what happened there. You two seemed fine on the phone, happy in fact, and yet you’ve been acting so hostile towards her since she arrived here.” He cut me off.
“Nothing happened and I was going to say near the kids. I don’t like Carrie near the kids… please keep an eye on her…” I said before I reached out and grabbed his hand, “I’ll be back as soon as I can… If you stay on the pack grounds – and I’m excluding the forest right now – you should feel safe from…” I drifted. He nodded. “Is it too much for me to ask Zeke and Jason to check up on you?” I asked.
“No, I’ll be happy with the company, you know, since I quit my job.” He said. My eyes widened.
“You did?” I smiled.
“I figured you were right, and I didn’t want to argue about that anymore… Also, I need some time off.” I chuckled leaning over the table to kiss him.
“I love you.” I said.
“As you should.” My jaw dropped at his cockiness and he laughed. Jayden was not usually the cocky one in our relationship. “I love you too.” He smiled.
“Great, can we go home now? Because I’m freaking out about Carrie being alone with our children.” I said lowering my eyebrows.
“I’m freaking out about Eli being alone with Carrie.” He replied honestly. Right. Eli really did not like her.
“Come on,” I chuckled.
*Jayden*
I was seated on the carpet building a puzzle with the Eli as Tamia tried to annoy Corey into playing with her dolls while he tried to finish his paperwork. I could see them because he was doing his work in the dining room instead of his office; that probably why Tamia wasn’t taking it very seriously when he said he was working.
“Papa. Papi. Pa. Paps.” Eli and I chuckled seeing Tamia poke Corey’s shoulder with one of her doll’s tiny hands.
“Tammy, Princess, Papa has to finish this tonight. I promise I’ll play with you all day tomorrow. Just need to do this right now, okay?” He kissed her forehead quickly before turning back to his work.
Carrie had disappeared after we arrived back home. Eli had greeted her when she left, it literally shocked both Corey and me frozen. He hadn’t been rude about it either, just greeted her as if it was a regular occurrence. I figured that maybe she was beginning to grow on him.
“But I wanna play now.” She pouted as she reached for one of his books.
“No, Tamia, don’t play with that, that’s –” Corey was cut off by a sharp rip just as the glass of water he had placed a little further away from what he was currently working on tipped over to pour it’s entire contents on the same book our daughter had just ripped. Eli and I stared at them as Tamia pulled her face guiltily placing the ripped piece of paper back onto the table.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” She mumbled.
“Sorry? I worked on that for two hours! I told you –!” He cut himself off midway through his snapping as Tamia looked down biting her lip while he tried to dry the mess with some paper towels. I frowned. Eli seemed unfazed and turned back to our puzzle. I was about to step in but Corey spoke again, “You know what that gets you, Tammy?”
“Time out?” Tamia spoke softly.
“No! A bowl of carrots while everyone else has cake!” I laughed as Tamia screamed half in agony and joy when Corey tackled her and threw her over his shoulder, “Jay, wake me up later to fix that, please?” He called from the hall.
I didn’t answer, he knew I would.
“Wanna join them?” I asked Eli, he was beginning to look a little bored.
“And play with Tammy’s stuffed –” he whispered the word ‘stuffed’ because it upset his sister, “Toys? No.” He said.
“No, I could crash their tea party as a robber and you can save the day, Superhero.” I said.
“Yeah!” He jumped up. I laughed about to follow him but stopped as a knock sounded on the door.
“I’ll be right there, Eli.” I called towards the hall before making my way over to the door.
I peeked through the hole and furrowed my brows seeing that no one was there. After studying what could be seen of the front yard for a few more seconds, I opened the door confused but looked down catching sight of a package at my feet. It had my name scribbled on the top with… blood? It smelt like dry blood. I glanced behind me to make sure Corey or the kids hadn’t seen it before grabbing the box. I ran my eyes over every inch of our front lawn and the street in front of us before I shut the door.
“Who was it?” I heard Corey ask from upstairs.
“Just Frank dropping off some mail put in the wrong box.” I replied turning to the console table to place the box down. Studying the package, I considered just throwing it away because it already gave off a foul smell that I was sure was connected to the blood on the top of the box. Part of me wanted to know what was inside, why the box had my name on it. Looking over my shoulder to make sure Corey and the kids were still upstairs, I turned to the box and cut it open.
My breath caught in my throat as my nose caught the harsh stench of a decomposing animal as soon as the seal around the box was cut. Shoving the flap open revealed just that, it looked like a hare… there was a note with maggots on it right beside the animal and another, smaller box.
I covered my mouth to keep from vomiting because of the smell and the way the thing looked as I grabbed the note and box and shook the insects off of it. I shut the box trying to minimise the smell and then ripped the letter open while turning to open the door for some air.
‘Dear Jay.’ I froze at the handwriting temporarily forgetting about the box and smell. I recognised it… ‘We figured this must be driving you insane so took the liberty of giving you some much needed relief, you know, before the real fun starts. Like old times.’ That was all the note said. It had no sender’s name. I lowered it and carefully opened the box expecting something more dangerous or vile than the animal but my eyes fell on a pack of cigarettes, and right beside it was a knife that made my blood run cold. I knew all too well that it was Mike’s old knife.
I put everything down and stepped back as my heart hammered in my chest. Where had it come from? Was someone messing with me? Purposely trying to drive me insane? There was no way this had come from them. They were dead! But that was undoubtedly my father’s handwriting… and I had been seeing them everywhere lately.
No, I was just imagining it. They couldn’t be there.
I opened my mouth to call Corey but paused. No. If I told him, he wouldn’t leave. He would become obsessed with watching over me and finding whoever sent the package so wouldn’t go to the meeting and the pack might pay for it. His first priority had to keep being the pack… At least until he got back from Sweden.
I grabbed everything and threw it back into the bigger box, curing under my breath as the box of cigarettes fell onto the floor. I grabbed it, my hands trembling as I shoved the little box into my pocket and I left to get rid of everything before Corey smelt it.
*****
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