8

Thomas stayed in the same place, with his overalls on, his sweater, his white shoes and his little eyes looking at my face.

“Is that man really my father?” he asked in a cautious voice.

“The one in the black suit that we saw when we arrived.” I calmly confirmed, I thought Thomas would be more excited about it.

I watched as he took a long look at everything around him, including the ceiling above us.

“And all this is from him?”

I also looked around us, everything there was luxurious, although the walls seemed to be made of solid rock, cobbled walls, it did not look like something modern, but rather colonial; I assumed that the cost of each thing in that place would have a monetary value that someone like me would hardly be able to pay.

“I guess”. I answered him calmly.

I watched him sigh.

“Mommy got hungry”.

“Okay, okay. First we have to clean ourselves up a bit and then we’ll go for dinner”.

At that moment someone knocked on the door that I had left closed; of course I kept thinking for a moment if I should go see who it was.

“I’m the maid, Mrs. Torres.”

“Why is he calling you Mrs. Torres?” Thomas asked. “You are not Mrs. Torres, mommy.”

I turned to look at my son and smiled simply, I had to understand Thomas’s lack of understanding.

“Now I am Mrs. Torres, honey. I am your father’s wife now.”

“Since when?”

Well, Thomas was asking too many questions and even though I had a filter for each answer, I knew he had to tell him all the pertinent things, but at his own time.

“I’ll explain it to you later, you’ll understand everything.” I then walked towards the door and opened it, it was a brown door, made of solid wood, something that made me reiterate the colonial style of the place.

The maid, a young blonde with blue eyes with a shy attitude, so much so that she didn’t look up to meet my eyes.

“Ma’am, the clothes you should wear are in the closet in this room. Instead, all the boy’s clothes are in his room,” she paused. “Do you want me to bring something for the boy to wear after his shower? I could help you with that, if you want, I’ll take care of him.”

“No, thanks” I went ahead, not wanting to sound too abrupt, but being final in my decision. “I will, but I will need you to bring something I can dress Thomas in, since I don’t see my bags anywhere.”

“Your baggage is currently undergoing inspection. After the personnel authorized by Mr. Torres check everything in those suitcases and make sure that everything is under control, then your suitcases will be brought to this place, ma’am. Excuse me”.

She was neither hateful nor very kind. She was rather submissive. And everything here was still like being teleported into some luxurious colonial-era territory, even the outfit of the woman who had just left.

I supposed that Dorian would be rummaging through my stuff, but he wasn’t going to find anything with which to accuse me of being a traitor anyway, I was there under blackmail, like a kidnapped woman, along with my son, and with nothing to defend myself with. In any case, I couldn’t defend myself against someone like Dorian, much less escape from a place like this, because at this point I didn’t know where exactly in Scotland we were.

The maid brought the clothes for my son and of course, it took us a long time to get dressed. I noticed that in the closet of what was supposed to be my room, there were elegant dresses, formal pants and coats. If the one who had chosen all those articles of clothing had been Dorian, then I could not deny that he had a very good sense of fashion.

I have to admit that it gave me a little chills to see how the clothes that the maid had brought for Thomas fit his size perfectly, as if the person who selected the clothes had already known my son’s exact size. Of course, Dorian had been investigating me since long before all this blackmail, it was obvious, it was obvious, otherwise I wouldn’t know, no one at my workplace even knew that I had a son.

“Is that man who claims to be my father someone good or bad?” Thomas asked.

It was a very interesting question, really, because there were several ways to explain the truth to him, but right at that moment I doubted which was the most correct way.

“I’m not too sure, it’s just a matter of getting to know him better.”

“And you don’t know him better?” he seemed to hesitate as I buttoned up his white shirt and adjusted his little tie. “You are his wife, you should know him quite a bit.”

At Thomas’s young age, he was curious enough to be a normal child, but very intelligent when it came to articulating his questions, he said things with an order in his words that sometimes left me without an instant answer.

“We never get to know a person completely, honey. Memorize that” I smoothed his pants a little with my hands and gently combed his straight hair with my hands. “And remember, Thomas, don’t believe everything someone you barely know tells you, whatever it is, you always have to be careful and wise to guess when the intentions are not entirely good.”

“And how will I know if someone is good or bad?”

I looked into his eyes, I was still crouched in front of him.

“My son, right now we are at the house of a man I don’t know very well. We don’t know if he’s good or bad, and I don’t want to say that surely he’s bad, maybe he’s someone sweet with you, you’re his son. I just want you to trust me first than anyone else, I need you not to keep secrets from me, that you tell me everything that can happen to you in this place. I am your mother, I am your friend too and I am your protector, no matter what happens”.

“This is starting to scare me a little” his voice was calm, slow, sonorous and childish all the time. “Why are we here?”

“It is normal that you fear a little. But we are here because in part, it is necessary for a better education for you, I have also had to move to this place to protect you”.

“Does the world hate me for being like this?”

I felt a lot of regret hearing that question, so I looked down and thought. It didn’t matter to me if my son didn’t seem pleasant to the world, what mattered to me is that he was well and healthy, that he didn’t suffer.

Then I placed a hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes with empathy and sweetness.

“You are not to blame for this, honey. You are not to blame for being born this way. You are a werewolf child and one day you will become a man with instincts that must be controlled from an early age. That is why we are here, you will be safe here and you will learn many things. I trust your father will handle this properly.”

I kissed his forehead and stood up, taking him by the hand to get out of there and walk to wherever the dining room was, with all this I hadn’t been hungry, but, to tell the truth, I was already feeling the need to eat something.

Dorian Torres.

I looked at my wristwatch, I didn’t understand why women take so long to get real— until I looked at her, and then I did understand that it was worth every minute she made me wait there, sitting at the table, with dinner served and that’s it. Almost to get cold.

She didn’t even apologize for making me wait, but she didn’t seem very haughty either, rather she seemed attentive to everything around us, as if she was memorizing every corner of the space we were in.

“Take a seat, you will have time later to tour the entire mansion. It’s your home from now on.”

She looked at me, her green eyes rested on me and her expression continued, it was obvious that she didn’t want to be there and that she surely hated me. But that didn’t matter to me, she was already my wife and she had to submit to my wishes, Rossi had to be my submissive, because I was never going to stop being an alpha male.

She did as I asked, while one of the servants arranged a chair for my son to take a seat next to her mother, there, at the other end of the long table before which we were.

I thought about how well her dress looked on her, watching the curve of her half-bare breasts in that tight-fitting red dress.

She didn’t say anything to me, just kept her eyes to the side, on little Thomas, who was staring at the bloody red hunk of meat on a tray in front of him.