Ryder laughed softly as the two disappeared out of the back door and into the yard.
“I’m invisible,” Lucien grumbled to his closest friend.
Ryder sighed, getting up. “Leave ‘em be. I haven’t seen my brother so happy in ages. He’s been talking about Irini constantly since it was decided she’d be coming home.”
Lucien was confused. “I can’t even remember them having a thing together before she left.”
“You were gone at the time.”
“Hmm.”
As they stood from the table Lucien’s gaze was drawn to Caia as she cleared it. She tucked a lock of pale hair behind her ear before she picked up some plates, her long eyelashes fanning her cheeks as she looked down. He sighed softly. She seemed so fragile. She awoke every protective instinct he had.
Ryder clamped a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his musings. He was guided from the room by that hand and out onto the porch. His friend chuckled, but it was more disbelieving than amused. He leaned against the porch frame and stared out at the woods. “Were you jealous in there?”
Lucien felt an unexpected blow of annoyance at that question. “What?” He frowned, more than irritated that he’d been that obvious. “No.”
“You were certainly something.”
Lucien shrugged, not meeting his friend’s eye. “Well you were a little...”
“A little, what?”
“For a start, you said to the girl you were in love.”
Ryder guffawed, “It was a figure of speech.”
“It was flirting.”
“I wasn’t flirting with Caia. I was trying to make the girl feel at ease. She’s had this pained look on her face since she arrived.”
Ryder was right and he was wrong? Wow... that didn’t happen that often to him. As Pack Leader he was pretty self-assured, and usually 99.9% right in most situations. Lucien sighed deeply and wearily. She was throwing him off his game. How was he supposed to handle all this? He groaned, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m sorry... I’m just... It’s just… I don’t know, what-”
“Lucien, you can do this. You just have to keep your head on.”
“By that you mean...?”
His friend glanced back inside, a sarcastic tilt to his mouth. “You can start by not getting all dreamy-eyed around her.”
“Pfft! Dreamy-eyed. She’s just a kid, I’m a grown man,” he hissed, looking back inside, hoping their voices weren’t carrying into the kitchen.
“She’s not a kid. She’s almost eighteen. And despite your status as Alpha I don’t know if twenty four qualifies as a grown man.”
Lucien glared at him. “This coming from a twenty four year old.”
“Yeah but I never once stated I was a grown man.” Ryder grinned cheekily making Lucien snort with laughter. Ryder shrugged, still smiling. “My point is… Caia’s… different. And different can be fascinating.”
“The only thing I’m fascinated by is her interaction with my pack. We’re keeping an eye on her, but not that kind of eye. OK.”
Ryder laughed, obviously unconvinced. “Man, whatever you say.”
Lucien leaned casually against the doorframe of Caia’s bedroom. He could hear her moving about in her bathroom, the water running. The laptop he’d bought her was open on the desk, but he couldn’t see the screen from where he was standing. Her bed was neatly made, her room surprisingly tidy. She had placed her things throughout the space, which pleased him. When he’d checked earlier that day her suitcases were, worryingly, still standing at the bottom of the bed, unopened.
“Oh,” her startled voice ripped him from his thoughts.
Lucien looked up and smirked at her. “Just checking you have everything you need.”
She looked around the room and back at him smiling dryly. “More than.”
“Good.” He jammed his hands into his jeans, trying to think of something else to say. But then she moved from behind the bed to put a can of deodorant back by her toiletries and any thought of using actual words left him. His eyes unwillingly travelled down her body. She was wearing girl boxers and a vest. For a lykan who was shorter than most her legs certainly seemed to go on forever.
Suddenly, Caia cleared her throat, bringing his gaze back to her face. She’d scrubbed it clean, patches of her skin red from it. It made her look so young and so innocent. His heart beat harder at the thought of what was to come for her.
“Caia …” Lucien began.
“Yes?” she asked warily
Is she scared of me? He groaned inwardly. That was the last thing he wanted. “I want you to come to me if you need me. That’s my job here.”
She nodded at him, her green eyes round on his. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be OK,” he promised, more for himself than for her.
Again, she nodded mutely, looking bewildered by his seriousness.
“Well.” He heaved up from the wall. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight. Lucien.”
6 - Unwanted
Caia woke up the next morning feeling a little more optimistic about her return to the pack, and dare she say filled with that dangerous thing they called hope. Caia was calling last night’s dinner a success. There had been a few awkward moments, but in general the mood had been jovial, and the brothers had actually seemed to like her. To her surprise, and perhaps disappointment (she was unused to the feeling, so she wasn’t sure if that was what that little pang had been), Lucien wasn’t at breakfast. With him having already left for the store, and with Irini sleeping late, Caia found herself breakfasting alone with Ella. Caia didn’t mind in the least. In fact, she found the Elder’s presence soothing, despite how anxious the lykan seemed about making sure Caia was OK and that her transition into the pack was going smoothly.
“You know, you have your father’s eyes,” Ella said, her smile bittersweet as she gazed down into her coffee.
“Were you good friends with my dad?” Caia asked curiously. This was really the first time anyone had offered a comment about her parents.
Ella chuckled at her obvious enthusiasm. “Actually, I was friends with Rafe before Albus was.”
“Really?” She hadn’t known that.
“We dated.”
She hadn’t known that either. She said so to her.
“It was a looong time ago. Your father was hunting a rogue and he stayed with my pack-”
Wait. “Your pack?” Caia interrupted in confusion.
Ella leaned back in her chair amused. “I was born into a different pack, Caia.”
“Huh.” She shook her head in amazement. “I didn’t know that either. Or that my dad was a Rogue Hunter for that matter.”
It was unfair that there was all this history, their history, her history, and she knew very little of it.
Damn The Hunter.
Ella frowned at her tone. “Irini didn’t tell you much, did she?”
“It upset her too much to talk about the pack.”
“Hmm.” Ella was frowning again into her coffee, seeming lost in her thoughts, but Caia was eager to get more information about her father out of her.
“So you were in a different pack?”
“Hmm?” Ella blinked. “Oh. Yes. A younger pack. I met Rafe and we dated when he was with them. After he left I had a falling out with my family.”
“What happened?”
“Well.” She sighed heavily. “My father wanted me explore the possibility of mating with one of the males in my pack because he had the dominance of an Alpha, and they thought he might become Pack Leader. I hated the guy, so I ran away... to Rafe’s pack.”
Caia smiled, thinking of the result of that. “And you met Albus.”
Ella chuckled, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes twinkling at the memory. “It was instant. We just wanted to be with each other. I laughed at first when I told my parents I’d mated with another Pack Leader... but... we never spoke again.”
Having never been given the opportunity to know her own parents it seemed like a crime against nature that Ella’s parents had, in their own way, made her as much of an orphan as Caia was. She mumbled an empathetic ‘sorry’.
“Don’t be. They were never the family this pack has been for me.”
Caia nodded, letting that sit for a moment. And then... “So what happened with my dad?”
Ella smiled patiently, seeming to understand her curiosity. “Albus and Rafe had never been close. Albus really only trusted Magnus, and Rafe’s father hadn’t had the best reputation.”
Caia took a breath, her mind spinning. “My grandfather?”
Ella nodded. “Yeah, he was quite the trip. He tried to take Albus’ father’s leadership from him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, but your father was nothing like him. I soon got Albus to see that, and they eventually became great friends.”
“How...” Caia trailed off, wondering how her father could have been friends with them after having dated Ella himself.
Again, Ella seemed to understand. “Your father and I were just friends when I came to him after running from my parents,” she explained.
“Oh.” Caia smiled softly, looking down at her bowl.
“What?”
“It’s just nice to hear something about him.”
There was a moment of silence between them before Caia was jolted from her musings by the sound of Ella’s chair scraping back loudly from the table. The Elder smiled down at her. “Wait. I have something for you.”
She watched as Ella dashed out of the room and could hear her running quickly upstairs. The sounds of drawers being pulled open and shut and Ella’s amusing mumblings filtered down through the ceiling. Caia wondered what on Gaia’s green earth she was up to. It was a few minutes before she came sauntering gracefully back into the kitchen, something clasped tightly in her hand.