12. DAY ONE AT THE HOUSE

JULIA

Lyla prepared ample food for both Zeke and I in the kitchen. Fried eggs, bacon, rice, fruits, and other stuff. I should be jumping in joy because of it but I didn’t find the appetite within me to eat. I was still bothered by the commotion earlier this morning, and I wasn’t used to this kind of treatment. It felt strange being served like this.

I absentmindedly poked around the grape on my plate until it bounced outside of it and landed in front of Zeke. I gasped and immediately picked it up from his plate and popped it in my mouth chewing it down, its juice immediately settling on my tastebuds.

Zeke paused from slicing his steak to look up at me, and down at my plate.

“Are you not hungry?” he asked, looking down on my partially empty plate that only has at least four pieces of grapefruit and a half-eaten omelet.

I shook my head, “Maybe I’m just not used to it yet.”

Zeke placed his utensils down and rested his elbows on the table and leaned on his hand as if he was examining me carefully. My eyes landed on the veins on his thick muscular forearms and immediately felt embarrassed.

What are you thinking about in this situation?!

“Do you want something else to eat? I could tell Amir to get someone to buy or cook it for you.” I blinked. He is so different from who he was just this morning. But now that I remember it, he is just like this when we were the only ones back in the forest.

Why did I suddenly get uncomfortable with him when we arrived here? It felt like he became a different person, an important figure, and a brutal one too. Suddenly I started feeling distant and awkward around him. Suddenly, I didn’t know how to act around him anymore.

Now that I realized it, I really didn’t know who he was or what he is. He was just a strange man that I found and rescued from the cave. I didn’t know anything about him at all, nor did I try to ask. It’s as if I was scared to know the truth or might doubt myself that rescuing him was the right thing to do.

Before I could open up to him, Amir entered the kitchen with an urgent look on his face.

“Alpha, the neighboring pack is trying to—” he paused when he saw my face and cleared his throat.

My eyes landed on Zeke who sighed and cracked his neck from side to side. “When can I eat in peace?”

“Why?” I asked, “is there something wrong? Is it urgent?”

Zeke pushed back his chair and stood up from the table. “Just some things I need to settle.”

“You’re leaving?”

Zeke paused from walking out and turned to me. His expression softened and a pang of guilt flashed. He sighed and signaled Amir. After he left, Zeke walked towards me.

“Lyla will be with you here. You can tell her your requests. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

There was an empty feeling in my chest when he left but there was nothing I could do but sit there and watch him leave. It felt strange and foreign being here. It feels like I don’t belong and there is really no one else here that I know except for Zeke.

“Miss?” Lyla was standing at the doorway. Her expression, polite and kind. But it kept bothering me how scared she was back there, or how she was treated by the others before we arrived.

I smiled at her and gestured at the chair next to me. “Join me?”

“Thank you, Miss. But I already ate breakfast with my father before the day began.”

“Your father?” I asked her, then it dawned on me. They have the same features and were close with each other. I didn’t realize it awhile back since I wasn’t able to look at her properly but now I see the resemblance.

“Your Amir’s daughter,” I said, and she nodded with a shy smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it.” My head is in different places. “Oh, and please call me Julia. Being called Miss is a bit uncomfortable.”

“How—how could I? That would be extremely disrespectful,” she shook her head. “I couldn’t possibly call you that.”

I raised my brow. “Why can’t you? I’m just Julia. I’m not your boss or something.”

“But you will be soon,” she muttered under her breath. I brushed that aside and stood up. She immediately stopped me. “You’re leaving? But you haven’t eaten yet.”

“I’m not in the mood,” I awkwardly smiled at her.

“Does the food not taste good? I could tell them to cook you something else if you want—”

“The food’s fine,” I tell her. “I’m just—I don’t have the appetite.”

She wanted to say something else, but I walked past her and out to the hallway. There weren’t many people in the lobby anymore and the mess has been cleaned up except for the dent on the wall. I stopped and stared at it for a while and remembered what happened earlier, but I shook it off and decided to go for a walk instead.

The outdoor area was spacious. The whole manor was surrounded by a forest and wildflowers grew almost everywhere. The sky was clear, and it looked like a good day to hunt or gather herbs but then I realized that I didn’t need to do it here. We had shelter over our heads and were even being served food.

“I really needed fresh air,” I let out a sigh. It felt suffocating staying in that house for a long time, or maybe I was the weird one because I wasn’t used to it.

“Lyla! I finally found you!” Another girl came running towards us. She looked younger than us and had short blond hair and hazel brown eyes. Her eyes sparked with curiosity when she saw me and beamed.

“She’s the new—”

“Hush, Carol!” Lyla immediately widened her eyes at the newcomer. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

School?

“Oh, class was suspended because of the mess that’s going on at the pack house. The new Alpha is choosing his new betas and Cronos’s men aren’t liking it. They’re trying to start something against him but you see, that’s why I came here. The girls are saying that the new Alpha’s hot? Did you see him—”

“Carol!” Lyla raised her voice and apologetically looked at me. “If you don’t have class then you need to go to the diner and help! Aunt’s the only one working there, I would have but I’m—I’m busy.”

“Oh, you don’t have to watch over me,” I cut her off. She looked at me mortified and guilty.

“I’m sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s Julia,” I corrected her. “And like I said, it’s fine. I’m just hanging out here taking a walk before I take a nap. You can help with the diner if you need to.”

“But I possibly couldn’t leave you.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I stayed in the forest alone for a few weeks, I can surely survive here.”

“See?” Carol tugged Lyla’s shirt, “the human says it’s okay. You can come with me to town and let’s take a sneak peak at the new Alpha!”

Lyla widened her eyes at Carol again. “Don’t talk about her like that! Do you want to get punished? Fine. Let’s go to aunt’s but I’ll just stay for a few hours and come back.”

Carol squealed like a kid. I couldn’t help but smile at how quirky she is. Lyla apologetically looked at me.

“I’m really sorry, Miss—I mean Julia, aunt is old and is having back pain so I really need to check up on how she’s doing. I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished. There are men patrolling the area, so you are safe.”

I had no idea about what they were talking about, but I just agreed. After they left, I felt more comfortable. I walked around the house barefoot, feeling the grass poke at my sole. I missed this. It’s only been a few days, but I felt homesick about the stick house we made back in the forest.

I don’t know how long I’ve been walking mindlessly but I reached the far back of the area and almost at the boundary of the forest. It wasn’t far from the house, but I noticed a discontinued brick wall along the tree line surrounding the house. It was covered in moss and algae and overgrown vines.

The wall stretched for at least a couple of meters until the back end of the house. This must have surrounded the area many years ago and was maybe broken down by time until this was the only part left. Having nothing to do, I thought I’d take a closer look at it. It was a few meters tall and a meter wide. It was a thick wall; I wonder how many years or even decades it took to break this down.

I noticed there were scratch marks on the wall, where algae and moss refused to grow. Setting aside and removing the vines, the lines stretched more and more into a bigger picture until it became a large pattern of what looked like a fusion of the moon and the sun. An artwork was etched onto the broken wall and was hidden for decades.

“You found the hidden picture,” I almost jumped when I heard the voice of a man behind me. My heart pounded from the shock, but the man remained unfazed and smiled at me instead.

“Have you heard the story of the wolves?”

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END