I seriously hope I'm not making a horrible mistake by inviting him in, but at this point it's too late to regret this tipsy decision I'm making."Wow, this is your house?" Lion asks in a surprised tone as I take out my keys to unlock the multiple locks, "When did you do all this?""If you mean the security, it's always been like this. My mom was the richest one in this shitty street and didn't trust the neighbors," I let him know as I finally open the door, "The fence is electrified, too. Two different guys have already been electrocuted trying to get in.""Oh, shit," Lion laughs, I guess imagining the situation. But it wasn’t that funny, "And where's your mom now, does she live here too?""She's dead, probably burning in hell as we speak. She was a huge bitch," I inform him, watching as he walks past me. From this moment on, he could officially flip the switch and turn me into the homeless person, but Lion just looks at the house and shows no sign of wanting to kill me to take over t
“I wish you had drowned,” I spit out and splash water at his stupid face for that dumb joke and I return to the seat, waiting for him to join me so we can keep talking like in the restaurant, but Lion just starts playing in the water like a fucking kid. I hate kids, so I make sure to roll my eyes at him every now and then to let him know I find him extremely irritating. But for some reason, he doesn’t seem to care about my clear annoyance and he just continues being a loser kid while I finish my beer. He goes back and forth in the tub, making the water go everywhere. I can’t even enjoy the warmth because he’s making this the most aggravating experience I’ve ever had. "Lion, seriously," I let out when he's really getting on my last nerve, "You're not a fucking mermaid, stop pretending you're swimming in this damn tub." "You lack imagination," he retorts, giving me an annoyed look as if I’m the one ruining the moment, "I’m having fun, Jolene. Do you even know what that is?" I s
Lion's escape from me ruins the mood completely, so I don’t even want to get myself off or something. I just go back outside to turn the hot tub, confused and a little worried. Lion survived the electric fence and that's cool, I guess, but what if he hadn't? God, I don't even want to think about it, it's giving me anxiety. I groan and shake my head, deciding I need to take a nap or something to deal with the craziness of today. Jonah texted me after the pictures I sent of our food in the restaurant, he really wants to know what's going on. I was planning on ignoring him a few more days because I'm still pissed off at him, but I text him back, asking him to go to the coffee shop tomorrow. I really need to tell him about Lion and ask if he thinks this guy is completely insane or just fun-insane because, at this point, I think it's the first one. For some reason, his melodramatic departure is now overshadowing how much fun I had with him because I don't think a sane person would will
{ Leopoldo }What happened yesterday in that hot tub with Jolene is absolutely the worst thing it's ever happened to me. Ever. I've never been more embarrassed before, not even when my crush rejected me in front of absolutely everyone in the school cafeteria. This is way worse. Jolene pushed her big ass against my dick and I lost my mind in a way I've never done before. My wolf side took over my whole body, making me act by pure instinct. I wanted to kiss her, to fuck her right there. I wanted to do so many things... and I ended up doing nothing but embarrassing myself. So yeah, I ran away. What else could’ve I done?I drove my car to its safe spot and then I shifted to my wolf form so I could run and run and run for hours. Me and my wolf were trying to kill the embarrassment inside of both of us, both beast and man, defeated and humiliated. Now I'm tired as fuck because I didn't even get to sleep... AND I’m still embarrassed.I step into Jolene's coffee shop with my tail between m
Thankfully, Jolene finally understands this is serious, she gets in front of the wall, ready for anything."Stay as rigid as you can, remember I won't drop you," I say, she nods. I put my hands on her hips and lift her as high as I can. She grabs the edge of the wall and tries to pull herself up, but her arms are way too weak. "Just hold on, I’ll push your feet," I order, maybe being a little harsher than I would like, but Jolene obeys so I push her feet up and she can finally get to the top. She immediately straddles the wall and moves down until she’s hugging it with her whole body as if she's scared she'll fall sideways. This wall is very smooth, so I have to walk backwards, then run to get enough momentum to reach the top. I fail the first time, but I finally make it on the second attempt, just when Archie reaches us. Jolene is still hugging the wall, breathing heavily and scared as fuck. "Birdie, just stop this already. Give up," Archie says calmly, walking up to us, not runn
"If you want me to, yes. I’ll get a job," I finally mumble. Jolene frowns, "What?""You would get a regular job just to keep hanging out with me?" she asks, her intense eyes softening a bit. I nod, not thinking twice about it, "Oh, man. It's not like I care about you having a job, I just don't want you to... be in danger, I guess."She makes a face at herself as if she's annoyed that something nice came out of her mouth, but I smile. Does this mean she cares about me? Oh, that feels good. I can feel our regular human-to-human bond growing, she's starting to care for me. I can't fuck this up, not for the life of me. Not when it could be the only bond between us, since she doesn't have a wolf of her own to feel our fated bond.In order to let our relationship grow, I need to make my brothers believe I left this city. I need to guide them somewhere else. Then I have to get a lot of money so I can survive without stealing for a while. A long while, probably. "I have a proposition for yo
Jonah takes off the apron to throw it at us, specifically at my face, but Lion stops it with his hand like a hero. "Get me a decent macchiato. I made a mess," Jonah demands, walking to his designated chair like he’s exhausted, "And I dropped my last twenty bucks in your sad, empty, lonely, dusty registerer, by the way." "Nice of you to pay for once. Not nice of you to make such a fucking mess, though," I grumble and I tap on Lion's shoulders to let him know I want to get down. He makes a stupid machine noise and squats robotically until I can just jump off him. Once we're separated, I go to make my friend a coffee, "You want something, Vermin?" "Nah, I'm good," he says but walks to my side, "Should I clean the mess he made, Boss? I'm clocking in for the day." For some reason, I'm smiling like an idiot while he tries to clean up. Of course, he turns it into even more of a mess before he gets it, but I strangely find it endearing that he keeps trying even if he’s bad at it.Then I
Lion whistles as we walk inside my closet/get-ready station. “Damn, this is very fancy-pantsy,” he says, looking around. It’s a walk-in closet with a lot of clothes, shoes and bags that belong to my mother. “I know, my mom loved herself too much… more than she ever loved me, that’s for sure,” I mumble, casually trauma-dumping as I sit him down on the seat in front of the extravagant vanity. Lion starts shamelessly looking through the stuff in here, half mine and half my mom’s, while I look for the scissors. He’s smelling the perfumes like a creep when I finally find them, “Let go of that and sit your ass down.”“Done and sat,” he says, obeying me in just two seconds. I really like it when he does everything I order. I should’ve gotten myself a young boy toy long ago. Well, not that long, that would be creepy, “Do whatever you want, you’ll be the only person looking at my hair for a while.”“Well, I’m the most important person to ever live, so I still have to try,” I say and I look a
The next morning I stay in my room not knowing how to proceed going forward. Should I continue with my plan of invading every little aspect and area of Jace’s life until he can’t think about anything but me? Or do I save my pride and do my best to disappear from his life altogether?Right now, honestly, I want to preserve my pride. So I call an employee and ask for a driver so I can just waste my time somewhere else, not in this house. I take myself on a breakfast date and then I go on a walk, enjoying the fresh scent of nature. Being in that house where Jace’s scent is all around me has been hard, so I let myself enjoy this open space that doesn't smell like Jace in the slightest.Little by little, I start to feel better and less humiliated. Fuck Jace for embarrassing me yesterday, calling me a weird stalker and a bitch. But, mark my words, I'll show him some embarrassment one day. I don't know how or when, but I swear I'll make him feel like this. I sit on an empty bench and then
What? I just look at Beatrice for around half a minute, trying to understand if she's being serious or not. She just crosses her arms and looks at me with her big blue eyes, waiting for an answer. If we are being serious, the truth is that even I don't have that answer for myself. I don't know why she generates so many feelings in me, so much rejection… But I don't want to be serious with her. Why? I simply don’t feel like it. So I’ll give her the simplified, assholish answer. "Because you're weird," I say, opening my arms in surrender. I can tell she wasn't expecting that because she takes a literal step back, "You're very weird, and you're practically harassing me right now. I don't like being forced to do anything, but you looked me in the face and took a stance against me that first day we met, when you told me I would marry you even if I didn’t want it. In my opinion, that was a declaration of war. I don't like you because you're a fucking princess who has no business bein
{ Jacinto } Beatrice Cathalos is nothing more than a spoiled little princess who is used to getting everything she wants. And I don’t know what the hell is it about her, but she pushes every single one of my buttons without having to even do anything. Just her existing is enough for my system to go haywire. I don’t know why. But I hate it. I don’t like feeling all over the place, all out of control. I like my life simple and easy, and she’s neither of those. Of course, she felt hurt when she heard I didn't want to marry her, so she's been a little bitch to me since then, giving me disdainful looks every time I appear in front of her. The only good thing about Leo stealing my place as Alpha is that he'll be the one who has to marry Princess Beatrice instead of me. For the next two days, I don't have to face Beatrice at all because I'm searching for Birdie in Ramada Valley, but then I have to return home. And as soon as I come back, Archie takes my place searching... a
Jace didn't come back to the table after that final statement from moi, but Archie did. We drafted a contract as planned and I signed it. Archie promised me he would get Jace to sign it as well, so I left with my head held high. "What happened there?" My father asked on the way back home, "I know something did." "I had a conversation with the guys on my way back from the bathroom... the Garibaldi family is a very intriguing bunch, daddy. King Archibaldo is very smart and capable and Alpha Jacinto is just as intriguing as he is strong. I'm very excited to marry into this family," I admitted, looking out the window, trying not to focus on Jace's rejection too much. But only because of that comment I made on the way back, my father never gave up on the Garibaldi Pack. Not even when everything changed. When the omega Garibaldi brother turned out to be a True Alpha at the most random age, in the most random way. That only got my dad even more excited to marry me into that family.
{ Beatrice } I can't complain about my life, at all. I've never even had the need to complain. Everything I want, I easily get. I have a very close family that loves and cares for me and I have amazing friends. I have a good life in general. A little boring, sure, but I guess everyone gets bored sometimes. The only thing I want and haven't been able to get, is a man: Jace Garibaldi. But he's not just any man. He's an Alpha, a very strong and sexy one. He became an Alpha as soon as he came of age. He fought against a thirty-year-old man and won, at just eighteen years old. I was in Garibaldi with my parents for that Alpha Challenge and they allowed me to watch it. I guess you could say I developed a crush on Jace right then and there. I was just fifteen, but I knew he had to be mine one day. He just HAD to be, I felt it in my bones. So, when the opportunity of having him came up three years later, I took it. My father talked to me as he always does, in a completely
This is awful, I never, ever want to see it again. But everyone else around us is absolutely loving it, those fucking barbarians are cheering for their favorite like this is just a sport or something. I decide to keep my eyes shut for around ten more minutes, and then there's a huge collective gasp of horror. I open my eyes then and I see Jace shifting back to human -fully naked- to grab Leo's wolf form... his lifeless wolf form. "Jolene, what is-?" that's the last thing I hear. I feel everything going dark. When I wake up, there's chaos around me, my face is wet and Magda in my face. "She's okay now, let's go," she says and grabs me, basically carrying me away. I passed out I guess, "They're taking Leo to an ambulance, he's alive." "Everything is fine, Jolene, relax. It was all for show," Archie whispers in my ear and that brings a little life back to me. Right. Of course it was all for show, that was the whole point of it. I guess I just freaked out at the worst moment
Leo has been so busy lately, we haven't even talked about our baby or our future. We haven't fucking talked that much at all. So now I just cuddle against his body, taking advantage of the moment. "Be honest, do you think I'm actually pregnant?" I ask, hoping the answer is yes. And Leo starts nodding immediately, without even questioning it, "Good, that's good. Then yeah, we have to speed this up so we can have some vacations before we become parents." "You want to know the best part about this plan, Jolie?" he asks, smiling big and lifting a hand to brush my hair back, "We're going to be living on vacations, forever. There's absolutely no reason for either of us to work ever again. I mean, you are a millionaire, right? And, just between us, so am I." "Oh, really?" I ask in a stupid voice and I roll my eyes. "Yeah, but also... we're going to get a lot of free stuff here and there," he warns, as if I don't fucking miss it a lot, "Just because it's fun." "It really is fun," I
For the next stop, I have to ask around for my mom since she's not in her room as she should at this hour. So, I have to get out of the house and run into the greenhouse my mom adores, with all her little flowers. As soon as she sees me coming in, she smiles. "Hi, mommy," I say. Instantly, her smile drops and she squints her eyes at me, "Yeah, I want something." "What is it, Birdie?" she sighs, putting her flower scissors down to give me her uninterrupted attention without me even having to ask for it like I did with my brothers. "I have a plan that can make all three Garibaldi boys very happy. All of us," I say, she crosses her arms and says nothing as I try to let the words out. It takes me while because I'm nervous, but I tell her anyway. Starting with the fake death, ending with the annual family trip, "There's so many human places you'd love, mom, I want you to see them." "If I wanted to, I would've already," she says, but she stays quiet about the other part, "I don't lik
Lion throws a few pieces of clothing at my head, so I get up to put them on, too. As soon as we're both decent, we sprint out of the room and we go downstairs to the second floor. Leo leads me to a door, almost making me eat dirt a few times, then he starts pounding on the incessantly, as if it’s not fucking midnight. This man is on a rampage. "What?!" Bea asks as she opens the door, looking annoyed. She’s wearing cute pajamas and I have to fight the desire to roll my eyes, "Oh, hi, Leo... hi, Jolene. What's up?" "We need to talk to you. It's something very important," Leo says frantically, stepping into her room like a maniac. I just follow him, "Listen to me and do it carefully, would you like to marry Jace? Yes or no. No thinking, just say it." "Yes?" she says, but then she starts thinking it through, "But I can't..." "Shush," Leo says, Bea shuts up immediately looking up at him with wide, confused eyes, "You want to, that’s what you said. So, let's say he becomes the Alpha to