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.