Cali
“It feels like it’s been ages since we had a catch up. How are you after this morning?” I asked as Freya poured out glasses of wine for each of us while we waited for Amber to join us, no matter how often I suggested it the Blonde refused to move into the pack house full time, instead opting to use her designated room sporadically when she was here working late and residing with her parents the rest of the time.
She had been a little off the last couple of weeks, avoiding any of the social evenings and group meals, and only showing up for work, and with everything that had been going on it felt like I barely saw her even during the working day.
Considering her background in teaching Tristan and I had decided it was a good use of her skills to have Amber be the packs Liaison with all things education and training and she was working with Lucas to set up a new physical training program off the bac
CaliI barely saw Tristan for two days after the northerners were captured. He got up before the sun each morning and returned to bed after I was asleep. We crossed paths in the pack house a few times but never with more time to spare than to say hello.It did give me time to spend with the girls, who were fast becoming family. We spoke briefly about Freya assuming the role of my delta, a position that was afforded to her by her mate bond to Damian, initially she had seemed quite excited by the idea as we discussed plans for the fast-approaching winter holidays and ways to increase the moral in the pack now that things seemed to be returning to normal.The excitement however had seemed to disappear less than twelve hours later, as had the sparkle in her eye that was pure Freya, the feisty go getter seemed cowed and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.Amber too seemed to be on some sort of emotional rollercoaster of a personal nature. One m
Cali“I’m really glad that there was nothing for us to see. The mental images of their stories alone are bad enough. Some of them cried, a couple begged us to kill them, said they deserved nothing less for the crimes they had committed. I can’t even imagine.” Jackson uttered as he threw a grateful look towards Tristan, the Alpha of Blackrock was nothing if not kind and fair. A fact that I would forever be grateful for.“What’s happened to them?” Amber queried and I wondered the same for a moment, I knew of Tristan’s reputation, while he was known to be fair he was also known to be merciless when it came to the safety of his pack and I honestly didn’t know which way he would go on this so I had tried not to think about it over the last couple of days, at least I hadn’t smelt blood or death on him when we had crossed paths so I had taken that to be a good sign.
CaliI would be lying if I said his words didn’t hurt. For weeks I had been coping, or at least I thought I had been. Maybe I really was screwing up and he was just too nice to say anything.I thought back over the time I had been here, from that first day in the ballroom when he looked at me like I was an inconvenience when he realised how little I knew, to his exasperation when I didn’t have a dress. Through the weeks of being Luna and helping to run the pack, and all the times I had to check things with him, interrupting whatever he was doing at the time.The moments when I had practically begged for his time, even though I knew he was exhausted. The fumbling in the bedroom and my embarrassment over just about anything sexual.Getting abducted.I really had caused the pack more problems than I had solved, but I steeled my spine, as much as it hurt, Tristan was hurting worse, I knew he woul
CaliTristan seemed to be avoiding me as much as I was avoiding him over the next couple of days. Something that I was equally thankful and distraught over.I needed the mental space that came along with the physical distance, I needed time to come to terms with the failure of my mating and what I was prepared to do now. There had been whole minutes over the last couple of days when I wished that we were all human, with their silly marriage traditions where they could marry and divorce as often as they liked. There was no way to undo a bond, no divorce for shifters. No, a mating was for life, until death do us part in the most literal sense of the statement.So, our options were limited. We could continue to try and make things work, although I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to cope with that. I had been under the impression that everything was fine, that we were fine and yet seemingly the whole time Tristan had felt that
TristanWatching her walk away from the car after saying everything was fine and something snapped inside me. For five days I had been living in a different kind of hell. One of my own making.I fucked up, royally.It seemed that even an Alpha had a mental breaking point and I had found mine. The battle with the northerners had been terrifying, not because I was scared of war, unfortunately it was a hazard of the job and one I had become accustomed to over the years, but because the entire ride back to Blackrock I had known that Cali was there facing them alone. The woman was stubborn and hard-headed and determined to prove something she had no need to.I knew her strength, I saw it every day that she climbed out of bed knowing that the day ahead was likely to be more difficult than the last. She was fierce and loyal, brave, and beautiful. There weren’t many women on this earth that would run towards dang
CaliThe doctor took more samples of blood before leaving to rerun the tests. The educated part of my brain knew that it was pointless, that the tests had been right in the first place and that the results would be exactly the same this time round, but the emotional part of me just wasn’t willing to accept that.Shifter pregnancies were a little more difficult on the mums than normal human pregnancies, I mean we’re not aliens or anything, things still progress at the same rate and full term is 40 weeks, but growing a shifter is a little harder than growing human. They zap more energy. So, being pregnant would certainly explain a lot.The last couple of days had been hell, I was constantly tired, and the lack of appetite and sickness was just about killing me, although I had put it all down to the emotional upheaval of everything else that had happened, pregnancy would also be a viable cause. It would also help to explain w
TristanWell fuck! I mean I knew I had screwed up, but I had thought giving her time and space would help, never did I imagine that she was thinking the absolute worst through the week. I also found myself a little hurt that she even considered it a possibility that I would have her killed in order to get out of our bond, but I couldn’t exactly blame her.Not when I had been so consumed with everything going on outside of the pack house that I had barely given her any attention.I backed away from the bed and dropped into the visitor’s chair as I really thought about our relationship. For the first time I looked at it from a distance and ignored anything else in my life.Maybe she was right to be feeling the way she did and thinking the worst. I had barely made time for her at all in the months we had been together, I had expected, apparently wrongly so, that she would come to me if she needed anything, but I had ne
FreyaTristan was hovering.We had been home for less than an hour and he hadn’t left my side once. He had ignored his ringing phone, and kept asking questions that I really wasn’t used to, did I need anything, was I tired, hungry, in pain? I get that he was trying, but it was a little bit annoying, I just needed time to think, to try and wrap my head around all of this.“Tristan, honestly, I’m fine. Romans called you four times, call him back. I expect its important.”“He can wait.”“I appreciate that you are trying here, but don’t let the pack suffer at my expense, please.” I stated from my seat on the sofa in the small sitting room in the east block. “I’m just going to relax and read for a while.” I stated, indicating the book on the side table that I was halfway through.“If you’re sure?” He asked s