Astrid My heart was racing, but I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or the pull. Either way, I didn’t like it. I hurried out of the building and directly to the parking lot. Victoria was waiting for me just like she promised. I got into the car and slammed the door behind me. “I need to talk to my dad,” I said breathlessly. “Are you alright?” she asked with concern. “Did something happen?” I saw the worry in her eyes through the rearview mirror, and forced myself to look away.“No, just get me to the packhouse, please,” I replied. I wanted more than anything now to go home. It was a huge mistake to come back here. I couldn’t deal with this. Just seeing Tristan again made me feel like I was losing control. If I stayed in Bridgewater, I ran the risk of losing everything that I worked so hard to achieve for myself. I wouldn’t do that. “Sure,” Victoria answered, knowing better than to press. She pulled away from the curb and headed towards the packhouse. It was going
Astrid I heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. I lifted my head from my dad’s shoulder and saw Solomon standing in the doorway that dad had just entered through. His dark eyes met mine coldly. There was no emotion that I could read from his expression. His dark hair was slicked back and, other than some fine lines at the corners of his eyes, he looked exactly the same as he did the day I left. “Tony, I’ll be in the study when you’re ready to get back to work,” he stated. His voice was carefully neutral. He inclined his head towards me just slightly, then turned and walked away. Dad didn’t acknowledge him at all. He sat me down on my feet and smiled at me. “We have so much to talk about,” he began. “I’m so glad that you came. I can’t tell you what it means to me to have your help. Besides, I want to hear all about your life and how you’ve been doing.” “Is there somewhere we can sit down to talk?” I asked. I wiped the last of the tears from my eyes and took a deep
Astrid The rest of dinner passed with periods of awkward silence and small talk. It was pleasant, for the most part. Although, it was obvious that we were both afraid of saying anything wrong. After dinner, dad told me that my bags had been brought up to my old bedroom. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to know that I would be staying in my old room, even though it made sense for me to do so. I followed behind him as he led me up the stairs. Everything still somehow felt so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time—like I was in some kind of dream. We walked past the door to my parent’s room. It was slightly ajar and I smelt my mother’s scent drift into my nostrils. My eyes welled, but I bit back the emotion and continued forward. Thank the goddess dad didn’t notice.He opened the door to my bedroom and let me walk in first. It looked just like how I left it. I must’ve had an expression on my face as I heard his voice say, “Is it like you remember?”I nodded as my hand grazed the bedpo
AstridThe sound of my phone ringing pulled me from a deep sleep. It took me several seconds to realize where I was. The short, white dresser across from me was covered with stuffed animals that were staring back at me blankly. The sight scared me at first, but once I remembered where I was, my heart rate slowed slightly.I sat up and snatched my cell phone from the nightstand. The screen was displaying “Charles” in big black letters. Part of me wanted to throw it across the room, but despite my better judgment, I answered it. “Astrid?” he asked hopefully. “What do you want?” I snarled. “Thank god you finally answered. I’ve been worried sick about you! I haven’t been able to get a hold of you for days!” I rolled my eyes. He knew exactly why I hadn’t been answering his calls. Now, suddenly, he was pretending to care about me? What a joke. He must really think I was stupid. “What do you want?” I asked again. “I don’t have time for this, so unless this is some kind of an
AstridFocusing on class was more difficult than I wanted to admit. I ended up staring at the textbook most of the time so that I wasn’t looking at Lilian or Tristan. I could still feel her eyes on me every so often, and every time I looked at Tristan, I sensed her tense. The last thing I needed was trouble with a pack member. Either that, or I found myself daydreaming—and that was not something that I could allow myself to do. When Tristan started to talk, the entire room fell silent. The only sounds were pens scratching against paper and the hum of the overhead projector. His introduction to this class was very similar to yesterday’s. We went over the syllabus, he took questions, then he gave us a breakdown of what to expect from the course. Soon enough, I found I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, no matter how hard I tried.He rolled his sleeves up when he turned to write on the board and I found myself admiring his forearms. I remembered what it felt like when he wrap
TristanWalking to class with Astrid seemed like a good idea, but after taking in her scent in such close proximity, my wolf was all riled up and I was finding it difficult to put 100% of my focus on teaching. It didn’t help that every time I let my gaze drift to her, she was looking back at me. My wolf was practically preening at the attention. He took it as a sign of her interest. ‘She’s just an attentive student,’ I reminded myself. She wasn’t looking at me for any other reason. I didn’t even know if she could feel the pull in the same way we could.But despite that thought, I kept finding my eyes drifting to her. She wasn’t doing anything distracting. She seemed to be taking notes or paying attention to me whenever I looked at her. I was reading into it, which was ridiculous. I knew that nothing was going to happen between us, so the thrill I got just from knowing she was looking at me was something that I needed to repress. I couldn’t allow these feelings to grow and I c
Astrid My first week in Bridgewater was coming to an end and I couldn’t be more grateful. I kept expecting it to get easier being around Tristan, but so far, it hadn’t. I had trouble keeping my eyes off of him and I found it difficult to focus on what he was actually saying. So far, it hadn’t impacted my performance in class, but if things continued this way, it would. Outside of class, I had spent my time pouring over all of the project documents in mom’s office. I filled an entire notebook with notes to help myself keep it all straight. Dad had informed me that he was hosting a formal dinner in order to introduce me to the pack members that mom had been working with on all of these projects. I was nervous about it, but he insisted that it was just a formality. He didn’t understand that him telling me not to be concerned only made me more concerned. The dinner was tonight, and I’d been pacing around the packhouse all day. I felt like the slightest thing could push me int
Astrid When dinner was announced, we all took our seats at the table. It felt incredibly strange for me to have the staff serving us. When I was a kid, I never thought twice about it. Now, I understood how rare it was to have this kind of service. It made me feel out of place. I made sure to thank each member of the staff and they seemed amused by it. I didn’t mind that. It was better than being rude. I could tell that Tristan was also amused by my behavior. He was looking at me with a poorly concealed smile. I shrugged at him and he looked away quickly. I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed I caught him looking, or if he was trying to hold back a laugh. Once we were all served, the conversations started. I was glad that people weren’t discussing business. This dinner was about getting to know those that I would be working with, so it made sense. “How is your daughter?” Bruce asked Deb. “I heard that she’s found her mate, you must be thrilled!” Deb beamed with pride.
AstridThe festival had continued the next morning just as Solomon promised, but it was obvious by the increased guard that something was going on. The visiting Alphas and Lunas had arrived that morning at the packhouse demanding answers, and Solomon was the one to give them. He explained that the threat had been neutralized and that he gave his personal guarantee that there wouldn’t be any other issues. He offered to arrange a guarded escort for anyone who wanted to leave early. After a private conversation with Slade, it was decided that everyone was staying. I didn’t ask Solomon about what else was said, I was just glad that he was able to handle it. That night, while the party raged in town, I met with Solomon and dad alone. I wanted Tristan to be with me, but I understood why he couldn’t be there. Having Solomon there was going to have to be enough. I sat alone in the chair across from dad’s desk. Solomon was standing near me with his arms folded tightly across his ches
AstridVictoria was handcuffed to a wooden chair in dad’s office. There were guards outside of the window and the door and a patrol was rotating outside of the building in case any more of her creepy friends showed up. The house had been cleared room by room, so we knew no one was hiding inside and waiting for a signal to attack. We were all standing in the office in tense silence. I had no idea what was going to happen next. I was confused and scared. That attack was aimed at me. I had no idea why she would go to such lengths to try to hurt me. I had cleaned the blood off of myself, but I could still smell it and it made me nauseous. Tristan had his arm firmly around me, but he didn’t say a word. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for him to face Victoria right now after everything that she did to him. Dad stood awkwardly In the middle of the room. He hadn't made eye contact with anyone since we entered and I wasn't sure what to make of that. The only person who seemed le
AstridThere were dozens of people gathering in the garden. It was hard to see what was going on ahead of us, but I knew from the sickly sweet smell of perfume that Victoria was here. I hadn’t realized how strange it was that she wore perfume until Tristan had pointed it out. He said that he smelled it during his kidnapping and it was the thing that tipped him off to his kidnapper's identity. “It took a while to figure out where I’d smelled it before, but almost no one in the pack wears perfume. The artificial smell is too abrasive,” he explained. It hadn’t struck me as strange because perfume is so common in the human world. I was used to it. But Tristan was right—wolves often didn’t wear perfumes or colognes. The smell was too overpowering.I cursed internally. If I had realized it was strange earlier, I might have figured out that something was going on with Victoria before it got this far. She must be using the scent to cover up something, probably the toxic herbs she w
AstridIt was a cool autumn day and the garden was still in bloom. The scent of foliage was carried across the city on a gentle breeze. The streets were buzzing with excitement as the Lunar Festival officially got underway. Tristan had spent the better part of the morning preparing the garden for our presentation. Dean Parker had arrived early in order to help him. I was busy inside greeting the Alphas and Lunas that were going to be watching the presentation, and hopefully agreeing to take part in the program. “Welcome to Bridgewater,” I said for the sixth time in a quarter-hour. “Thank you so much for joining us for the festival this year.” “Thank you for having us,” a tall, robust woman with dark hair said. She was the Luna of Moonriver, Gwendolin. I had met her once before when I was a little girl and I remembered being struck by how strong and beautiful she was. I felt the same way seeing her now. Almost a little starstruck. “It’s our pleasure,” I assured her. “And
Tristan The amount of time that had passed without answers about Victoria's whereabouts was concerning at this point. The Alpha was operating under the assumption that she had fled into another territory. This put him in a difficult position because as much as we needed to find her, he had no desire to alert the other packs of what was happening. Reporting her as missing would look almost as bad as reporting her as being on the run—there was no way to address the problem without causing a scandal. So, with the Lunar Festival fast approaching, the packhouse was focused on preparations rather than the missing fugitive that had killed the Luna and kidnapped me. It was maddening to everyone in the packhouse except for Alpha Anthony. He was the only one who seemed confident that Victoria wouldn’t show her face. I was grateful for the Alpha's decision to allow me to stay in the packhouse because I didn't think that I could handle being away from Astrid right now. I was having a h
AstridAfter Tristan's rescue, it became clear that he was not going to be able to finish the semester. Dean Parker agreed to approve medical leave for him and Dr. Sanchez agreed that he would take over his classes for the remainder of the school year. The Dean was disturbed to learn that Tristan had been kidnapped from campus, and as a result of that and the incident in the bathroom with Lilian, the school was investing in a series of new security cameras. They were also considering updates to campus security and increasing the number of emergency call boxes on campus.Dean Parker was a lot more willing to implement changes than dad was. Unfortunately, the only change he’d agreed to make was to allow Tristan to temporarily stay in the packhouse.Solomon was taking things a lot more seriously. I was grateful that he was willing to take matters into his own hands when necessary. I couldn’t believe how incredibly stubborn dad was about this. Lilian had confessed that Victoria was
AstridDad brought down the full force of the pack on Bethany's house. Within 10 minutes of our phone call, the guard had filled the house. Dad was personally interrogating Bethany in a side room. I couldn't hear anything but the occasional sob from her. I'd seen him angry before. I knew how he could be and even I had never faced him in the state he was in now. I wasn't entirely certain that Bethany was going to walk out of that room. The healer arrived shortly after dad. She came directly to Tristan and knelt in front of him. I moved aside to allow her to work. Her long, thin fingers moved deftly as she checked his eyes, looked into his mouth, and checked his vitals. The look of concentration on her face was as emotionless as a statue. About 20 minutes after the guard arrived, there was a commotion from upstairs. I heard a woman shrieking and men shouting. The side room opened and dad stepped out. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. Just at that moment, a guard came
AstridTristan was in this house. His scent was strong, and I knew deep down, that he was still here somewhere. I should have gone for help, I should have waited for dad or Solomon, but I just couldn't. I'd been looking for him for days. There was no telling what state he was in. Bethany would be suspicious about my coming here. They would move him as soon as I left, I was sure of it. I couldn't take the risk. ‘Take me to him,’ I told my wolf. ‘Quickly.’ My body moved at her discretion. We went down a side hallway to a locked door. I twisted the knob as hard as I could, but the lock wouldn't give way. I growled in frustration, but this wasn’t going to stop me.I slammed my shoulder into the door, not caring if Bethany heard. The sound was dull and muffled. I did it again and again. I put my full body weight and strength into the wood of the door. It cracked and then flew off of the hinges. A dank, damp smell met me as I looked down a set of wooden stairs into a dark basemen
Astrid I was even more tired than I realized, and I slept until the next morning. When I did get up, I quickly dressed, and then I groggily made my way down to the kitchen. My stomach was growling. I hadn't eaten anything in over a day. I wasn't sure what I was going to find, considering Solomon's promise yesterday about having everything replaced. What I hadn't expected was to see that he had taken my comments about pre-packaged food very seriously. Everything in the freezer, the refrigerator, and the pantry was in an individually sealed packet. But that didn't guarantee that Victoria couldn't tamper with anything. It sure made it a lot more difficult for her, though. I gratefully took a freezer pack of smoothie mix and made myself breakfast.Once I ate, I found it a lot easier to think clearly. I should have waited for Solomon, but I couldn't. That didn't mean I had to be careless about how I went about this. I knew that there was something about Victoria that I didn't know.