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Chapter 5.
*****
*Corey*
“Corey, we need to get this done so we can get home. Can you turn your fucking Beta on right now?” Sean snapped at me as he walked into my hotel room.
I looked up from the TV, sitting up on my bed and rolled my eyes at him while he glared back at me.
“Sean, relax,” I chuckled, “This is the first time off we’ve had in nearly ten years.” I said.
“Yeah, that’s where you’re wrong. This is not time off, Corey. This is very important work.” He said before looking beside me, his face going sour, “What are you doing here?” He asked Carrie.
“We’re hanging out, catching up,” I answered.
“Oh, you’re catching up?” He chuckled humourlessly, “I thought you’d done that last night, you know, when you told her everything about Jayden’s past.” I lowered my brows at him despite feeling my heart sink.
“Oookay, this is getting very awkward very fast.” Carrie got up grabbing her coat, “I’ll see you later,” she kissed my cheek lightly, gave Sean a smile that he didn’t even try to return before walking out as he just stared at her with blatant distaste.
“What the hell was that?” I looked at Sean as I got up and pulled a shirt on, I hadn’t been out of the room yet so I hadn’t really had a reason to get dressed.
“You tell me.” He glared at me. “Get dressed, we have work to do.”
He left before I could say anything and I frowned at the door. What was his problem? I hadn’t seen her in twenty years, we had a lot to talk about. He should have been happy to see her too, he had known her back then as well. He was so full of crap sometimes. I sighed shaking my head and headed towards the bathroom to clean myself up.
—
“This place looks amazing,” I said running my eyes over the trees that surrounded us.
“I know, right?” Sean smiled.
We had gotten over whatever we were mad about in my room by giving each other a nod and continuing with what we were doing. Personal issues never got in the way of our working together.
“But building in this, I would hate to cut anything down…” I mumbled frowning as I ran my eyes over the trees.
“We won’t need to. There are spots of openings all over this place where we could build; we’d be completely hidden by the trees.” Antonio said. The thought of that made my wolf incredibly excited. I smiled widely.
“The pack would love this place.” I certainly did.
“I think so too. Let’s have a closer look.” Sean said pulling his shirt off.
“What, right now? What if there are other packs here?” Keisha asked.
“Steer clear of any foreign scents,” Sean said discarding his pants before he shifted.
I chuckled watching as the massive wolf that was Sean rolled on the grass a few times before he disappeared into the trees, growling at us to follow.
“Ah, looks like fun –” Zeke was the next to shift.
As everyone began shifting, I threw their clothing into the car before I discarded my own and shifted. It didn’t hurt at all as shifting only hurt the first few times it was performed. I followed my team’s scents through the trees until a new scent suddenly caught my attention, the others seemed to notice it as well because they stopped in their tracks and sniffed the air more.
‘I guess we’ll have neighbours?’ Antonio growled.
‘There can’t be much of them, we would have noticed earlier if they were a larger pack,’ I growled looking around.
‘From what I see, there’s only one house and it’s not for a pack at all.’ We all turned to Zeke as he stared through some trees.
Walking over led to the sight of a small cottage not far away from us, hidden in the forest. What is one little cottage doing all the way out there, so far away from the city?
‘Definitely a wolf.’ Sean sniffed, ‘Probably rogue that has retained its humanity. Let’s go in.’
‘In? There? Now?’ Antonio growled, following our Alpha despite not yet having received an answer as Sean headed through the trees.
‘Is there a better time?’ Sean replied walking into the little clearing that surrounded the cottage. I paused seeing that the front door was open and began sniffing the air again trying to locate the person that lived there, they did not appear to be outside though.
‘This person is either gardening right now or they’re crazy.’ Keisha growled. Yeah. Who leaves their door open like that when they’re completely alone in a forest? It was dangerous, even for a werewolf.
‘Keep your ears open, guard up.’ Sean growled at us.
We walked into the small house silently, being careful not to make a sound. There was light cluttering coming from one of the rooms so we all just followed the noise. I stopped at the kitchen opening once spotting the occupant and growled. The person jumped in surprise, dropping the plate they were washing and causing me to cringe at the sound of the plate shattering against the wooden floor.
‘Why, Corey?’ Zeke growled at me, annoyed. I understood, it was stupid of me to get their attention in such a surprising manner.
“C-Corey?” I looked up and my eyes immediately widened.
Carrie.
She seemed just as shocked to see us as we were at the sight of her. Her scent was different at present than at the hotel, which was why I was not immediately able to guess that she lived in the cottage, it smelt oaky, like the surrounding forest.
‘What the hell? You live here?’ Sean growled at her.
“No, no… I… Uhm… I…” She sighed defeated and began to play with her fingers seeming rather nervous and embarrassed about what she was about to say, “The truth.” She mumbled looking down, “I uh… went rogue from the pack my dad made us join… when I was seventeen… Took a few busses, eventually ran out of money and ended up here.”
‘Lie.’ Zeke growled.
‘Yeah, what were you doing at a hotel so close to your house?’ Jason asked.
“I-I work there…” She looked at me apologetically, I was currently too stunned to say anything, “I’m sorry, I lied to you, Corey. But… I-I didn’t want you to know about this when we haven’t seen each other in so long… It… it’s pathetic.” She said.
I backed out of her kitchen and walked through the tiny house looking for her room. I found it and shifted before wrapping a towel I found in one of the cupboards around my waist and then headed back to the kitchen.
“You’re a rogue?” I asked trying not to smirk at the way her eyes immediately ran over me as soon as she caught sight of me. She tried to hide it by glancing over towards the window and quickly reaching for a broom, though not making a move to sweep up the broken glass at her feet while her cheeks reddened slightly.
“Yup! Again.” She gave a wide, obviously fake, smile and I clenched my teeth. I felt so bad for her…
‘Don’t you dare. We will discuss this amongst ourselves first.’ Sean linked to me and I assumed he was linking to the rest of our group as well.
‘We didn’t discuss Zeke.’ I linked back.
‘I didn’t start our interaction by lying to you.’ Zeke inserted.
‘And Zeke never seemed off to me.’ Sean linked to me. I almost rolled my eyes. He took his gut feelings very seriously.
‘Fine.’ I glared at them before speaking as I looked at Carrie, “No one else lives in this forest, right?”
“No.” She shook her head.
‘Then it’s ours?’ Sean linked to me. I nodded.
“Anyone want lunch?” Carrie asked.
No one answered. I sensed a slight dislike for her from all of my friends, it was building from Sean. I didn’t understand why the hostility, she had not done anything wrong, and none of them even knew her… yet. I wasn’t letting her be a rogue. I could convince them to let her in, I was sure of that. She used to be a part of our pack and could be again.
‘Not from you.’ Jason linked to all of us. No one had to say anything for us to know everyone agreed with him.
“We just had lunch.” I lied to make it seem like we were politely declining. “I’ll uh… Bring the car over here.” I said before shifting back to my wolf form.
—
I sat smiling while watching Carrie dance. It hadn’t taken much to convince my friends to let her into the pack… Well, back into the pack. I had pointed out that when she left she was seven and didn’t have a say in it, also that their dislike for her had no justification. I mean, all Sean could come up with was ‘I just have a bad feeling about her.’
So they agreed to let her into the pack for a short trial period, we would see how the rest of the pack took to her when we went back home, I figured they would be less irrational about the situation and there would be no problem with her staying.
“Corey! Come on! Have you always been this boring?!” She called over the music as she grabbed my hands.
We were at a club, celebrating her return. It was mostly our idea, everyone else just wanted to have some drinks and I managed to convince them to join us. Everyone except Zeke and Sean whose answers to joining us were firm ‘No’s. So Jason was currently doing some dancing with a girl and I was too sober to watch it. Keisha was hanging out with a few people she had just met at the bar and Antonio was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m tired,” I told Carrie. The truth was that even though going out was partially my idea, I was not really in the mood for it. I missed home.
“Bull! Dance with me!” She attempted to pull me to my feet, pouting when she failed. It made me laugh, so I stood up and let her drag me through the groups of people that filled the room. Eventually, we reached a little opening further onto the dance floor and began to dance.
I still did not feel great about dancing and suddenly felt like calling Jayden; we had not spoken since that morning and even then, it wasn’t even talking. My phone was in my hotel room though… I decided I would call him later, nothing was going to happen in the few hours I was at the club, well, our kids would probably just be asleep by the time I got back to my room but that gave me more time to just speak to my mate.
Deciding to try to make the best of our little celebration, I focused on dancing and drinking with Carrie, occasionally spotting my other friends as they came and went. A few drinks that were too many to count later and I couldn’t even see properly anymore. Initially, I planned to have a couple of drinks but got carried away. I wasn’t even able to make out or remember most of what I was saying but Carrie seemed to find whatever it was hilarious because she kept on laughing as we danced and joked around. Or maybe she was laughing because I kept tripping?
I actually missed that, being completely carefree before I became a dad and Beta that was stacked with all the responsibilities that came with taking care of hundreds of wolves… When I was younger I had looked forward to all of it; to leading. In the past few years, I had asked myself so many times why the hell I had been so happy about becoming Beta when I was a child.
I looked down at Carrie as we danced; she was against me, my arms around her waist and her hands on my arms. She was gorgeous in the dress she wore, I was glad she did not seem as embarrassed and down as earlier at the cottage. She looked up at me suddenly looking quite serious.
“I missed you so much, Corey… You have no idea.” She said. I smiled.
“I have that effect on people,” I said.
She laughed lifting her arms to my neck and pulling me lower into a tight hug. Just the quick movement down made my head spin, but that made me laugh in my current state. After a few seconds, she began to pull away and I figured we could get another drink so began to suggest it but before I knew what was happening her lips were against my own. I froze as my mind went blank. I felt her tongue easily slip into my mouth as her hands ran into my hair, but did not respond to the kiss, still surprised about the sudden contact.
What…?
I opened my mouth to voice my surprise but not a sound escaped from it, she clearly took that as my responding and pulled me closer while tilting her head to deepen the kiss. A little dazed and still confused and dizzy, I began to try to process what was happening while my eyes closed to make it easier to think.
“What the fuck?” Jason’s voice seemed to completely sober me up and I instantly away from Carrie, stumbling a couple of steps back to create more space between us.
“Corey, I’m sor –” I shook my head backing further away from Carrie. I looked at Jason to see his face covered in complete shock and opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say, so I glanced back at Carrie and that instantly made me turn to leave as she tried to reach out to me.
I stumbled my way through the crowds and out of the club before running my hands through my hair as I felt my heart pounding. A sickening feeling surged through my stomach and I stumbled into an alley before emptying my guts on the ground. I had not felt so sick since binging ten years prior, but I barely cared about my head or nausea, instead running my hands over my face as panic filled my chest causing me to stumble back against the wall.
I could very easily have pushed her away. I should have pushed her away immediately! I didn’t push her away. Why?! I knew what was going on! I knew. And I just fucking let it happen. Was it… because I wanted to kiss her? No, no. I didn’t, I wouldn’t do that to Jayden.
My body went cold at the thought. Jayden. I cheated on him. No… Oh my God. I cheated on him. Was that cheating? No, no. It was just a kiss and I did not even respond to it. Still, what if he found out? I didn’t want to think about it.
*****
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