by Belle Kayce
Lance looks away, fixating his gaze on my duffel bag Bo threw at me when I asked him if he had one to spare.
Lance sighs, “I know but he’s busier than I am, he’s-” Lance shrugs- “the king of vampires. So, he is busy all the time.”
“Your dad really wants to see me?” I ask, nervous.
“Of course,” Lance meets my gaze, “you’re the most important person in my life. I want you two to meet.” Feeling a lot more nervous of meeting the freaking Vampire King, I fold another t-shirt. “Are you sure you’re packing for a week?” Lance looks at my packed clothing, teasing me.
I have always been a heavy packer. I just don’t know if it’s going to be too little. But I’m going home. Except this was my home.
“I’m taking another bag too so I could-” I shrug, “get things from my room at my house too. My clothes. Personal stuff like pictures.” Thinking about it, I think I may have forgotten what my room looks like. And if Lance and I were going to share a room, did I even need to bring any of my furniture? What did I bring back?
“I think you’ll always have a home back with your parents,” Lance gives me a warm smile. “It’s not like you’re never going to visit your parents again.”
“You’re right,” I agree, and someone opens the door widely, Julia, looking at us apologetically.
“Ava I need your help on getting packed. SOS!”
Lance dismisses himself, going off to do his Alpha duties, but not before stealing a quick kiss from me, leaving my toes curled.
Her relationship with her parents is strained, so she doesn’t care to see them that much but I know she’ll at least say goodbye before coming back to Noctis Luna.
We get to Julia’s room, and I see her mess of clothes on her bed. If I was bad at packing, she was worse.
“Does Grayson know you’re going?” I ask her because Grayson is still here. In my pack. Waiting for his mate.
“I don’t care what Grayson does in his time.”
“Julia. He’s an Alpha that’s following you around like a puppy. He’s not going to let you out of his sight.”
“I’ll get Lance to talk to him.”
“How about you talk to him.”
Julia looks at me incredulously. “I am not going to move again to Grayson’s pack. I am not going to live with him. I don’t even know him.”
“I get it,” I nod at her. “I really do. Remember how Lance had all those rumors about him, but he changed my mind with them. Do you know what my biggest regret with Lance is?”
“What?” Julia asks.
“Not giving him a fair chance in the beginning,” I answer to her. Realizing my biggest mistake and there’s nothing I could do now, but move forward with it. “If I told Lance about all my problems and honest with him from the get go, I didn’t have to worry as much as I did living in fear. He wanted to help me. Grayson has done nothing to you for you to hate him so much already.”
Julia says nothing. Stubborn.
“He is trying though. You’re not obligated to live with him right now, and it seems like he’s going to wait. He’s been away from his pack just to be with you.”
“Eventually he’ll get tired,” Julia turns away, and aha. I found out why she’s so on the fence about it. Her brother, Mason, had been gone- leaving Julia with her horrible parents without keeping in touch with her.
“You sure about that?” I ask. Grayson wouldn’t get tired, I knew. “I feel like you two mates are perfect for each other. So stubborn.”
Julia narrows her eyes at me.
“Relationship is about compromise and sometimes sacrifice,” I add.
“When did you get so wise?” Julia grumbles.
I link my arms with hers, grinning as we make our way to the training ground. Finding the person of interest was easy. Going outside to where the training grounds are and locating where a couple of wolves are.
We first see Bo and Meg who are stretching. Bo gives me a little look when I’m outside not training with him. He is my forever training partner in crime. Before Bo even opens up his mouth, I tell them about my plans of visiting my parents with Julia.
“You’re leaving us?” Bo asks. “Take me with you.” Meg gives him a deadpan look.
“What? We need someone to make sure our Luna doesn’t accidentally trip over a pebble.”
“I am not a klutz, and Zeke will be there.”
“You didn’t even ask me to come with you,” Bo put a hand over his heart feigning hurt.
“Because Sargon is coming too.”
“Oh.”
“Bo....” I take a step forward, trying to explain myself, but Bo shakes his head.
“No, I get it. I really do. He’s your brother.” Bo tries to give me a small smile.
“Love you,” I tell him honestly.
Bo snorts, “For some reason, I do too.”
“Where are you going?” Grayson walks over to us, wearing black sweatpants and a simple t-shirt covering those tattoos he had, but his eyes are only on Julia.
“Don’t you have a pack to run?” Julia asks, crossing her arms at her mate. The tension is clear between them. Tension they need to solve stat.
“My Beta is running it perfectly fine,” Grayson flashes his teeth. Oh yes, his female, groundbreaking Beta.
Julia rolls her eyes, “Do you always free load off of other packs? I’m pretty sure they don’t like you.”
“How do you tell someone to get out of their house in the nicest way possible? Pretty sure Lance has been trying to come up with something for a while now,” Bo chimes in.
From what I could tell, Grayson didn’t want to leave his mate behind. He knows she’s not going to come with him back to his pack, so he’s trying to get close, but Julia isn’t like any other. I am not going to tell Grayson that I don’t think Lance minds the company over. Wolves liked to flock around Lance. He made everyone feel comfortable, and in return everyone loved staying. It was something I really loved about Lance.
Surprising us all, Julia relents. “Grayson. I’ll give you a chance.”
“What?” Grayson asks like it’s a joke. Like he can’t really have any semblance of hope.
“I said, I’ll give you a chance.” Julia’s voice is hard and clear cut.
Grayson stares at his mate in disbelief. “You’re accepting me?”
“Yes, on one condition.” Grayson’s eyes narrow to slits, and he stiffens. “You go back to your pack. I’ll give you my phone number. We can...text. Talk. Whatever you want. But you have to understand that this is my home and you can’t just rip it away from me because you’re my mate. Where is the fairness of you not giving up anything and me giving up everything?” Julia gives Grayson a hard stare. “If you’ll have me, I also would like to visit your pack weekly or monthly.” She pauses. “If you’ll have me.”
The two mates only intensely stare at each other. Julia laid it all out to him. It’s up to Grayson on what he wants. This is the compromise she’s willing to make. This is the compromise that Alphas should give their mates instead of stealing them away from their homes and not allowing them to leave the pack.
After a few more silent seconds, Grayson raises his chin slightly and a smirk spreads across his lips. “Wanna shake it on it?” He extends out his hand. Julia takes it. Their hands linger after the shake. “I’ll call you every day though. Probably every minute of the day. I do get bored.”
“Yeah we know,” Bo says to him.
”The only Alpha I’d trust my mate with is Lance. And you’re surrounded by your pack. But make no mistake, you have a home up in my pack too. That’s where I hope you’ll find your permanent home.”
“I’d like to visit it soon,” Julia says to him truthfully, an olive branch. Grayson looks at her anew.
His voice is the softest I’ve ever heard it, “I’d like that very much.”
***
I watch as Grayson and Julia exchange numbers like a creep. Having a whole entire conversation together and saying good-bye
. The last lingering look Grayson gave Julia. His reluctance to go back. I thought it was cute how he wouldn’t leave Julia to go back to his pack without her.
My favorite spot in the whole pack territory is the pool at the end of the days, and Lance always catches me there, usually wading in the pool. He’ll always sit next to me, wrapping his arm around me. The lights inside the pool making it somewhat visible for me to notice my surroundings. Bo is now trying to convince me to ask Lance for a hot tub which I am very so much down to get.
“Hypothetically speaking,” I start with Lance placing my head on his shoulder, “if I wanted to vacation alone for a month how would you feel?”
“How would I feel?” Lance scrunches up his nose, thinking. “Being away from you is torture, but I can live with it if I know you’re happy. Why the question?”
“If I’m truly free here,” I say making Lance’s face suddenly darken.
“I hope you never felt like this was a prison-”
“It’s not!” I cut him off, knowing how he himself felt when he was younger, still playing with his hair. He closes his eyes again, looking serene. “You never told me what your limits are with me, and thinking on it now, I realize that it’s your own quiet way of never forcing me to do anything, giving me a limitless freedom. Thank you. For doing that.” I smile, “There is a reason why it’s you and not other Alphas I’m mates with.”
Lance lets out a hum, “Why not?”
“Imagine if you did confine me. What do you think would have happened?”
Now it’s Lance who’s smiling. How could his smile be so sweet and sexy at the same time?
He answers me easily, “You would have raised some serious hell. You wouldn’t have stopped running away until you went to another country. You’d.....you’d hate me. No matter what I’d tell you about my feelings, you wouldn’t care. You’d hate me for eternity. No Alpha could withstand your antics.”
“I know one who kinda did.”
“Haven’t you figured it out by now, Ava? I will do anything you ask of me.” I couldn’t help but grin at him, wrapping my arms around him and kissing him deeply. He broke it off and murmurs, “remember we have a date after your visit.”
“About time, I say.”
“About time we found you two,” a new, deeper voice pipes up.
“Zeke.” Both Lance and I say at the same time, getting up.
Zeke’s easy smile is ever so present as he comes to me first and lifts me up hugging me. “How’s my favorite sister doing?”
“Oh you know, making sure Lance doesn’t burn his pack to the ground,” I say, hugging him back.
“I am glad someone is holding my son accountable,” a deeper more strong voice says, and in the shadows a tall, pale, and lean looking vampire with noticeably hollow cheeks and a mop of blonde hair, matching Zeke’s appears next to Zeke. This guy is the Vampire King. I can see where Lance gets his powerful and intimidating presence from. Lance’s dad exudes this intimidating aura around him, and I feel it. If I didn’t know who he was, I would be absolutely petrified.
Looking like some kind of underground mafia boss, Damien is wearing an all black suit, and I can see where Zeke gets all his looks from.
I’ve never seen Lance look this happy before. He always has his guard up, but seeing him with his family was special. “Dad, this is my mate, Ava, and Ava this is my father, Damien Stryder,” Lance introduces us.
I thought I was going to shake Damien’s hands, but Damien pulls me into a hug surprising me. “We’re family.” He pulls back and looks at me. “I am so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so many things about you from my two sons.”
“G-good things, I hope,” I manage to say as he embraces Lance into a loving embrace, and hearing Lance chuckle out to his father squeezes my heart.
“You made an impression,” Damien tells me. “Even got Zeke to leave his duties to come with you to your pack.”
“Please,” Zeke crosses his arms, “those duties can wait. I need to spend some quality time with my sister.”
“Will you be okay?” Damien asks Lance, looking over at him.
“I will be,” Lance looks straight at me, his electric blue eyes softening.
Zeke comes in between us, putting his arm around Lance and I. “Yeah because I’m going to be there.”
“That’s what we’re worried about,” Damien says. Hearing Damien joke, and how comfortable they are with each other makes me want to suddenly cry. This is Lance’s true family. Not the horrid thing he called a father growing up.
“We’ll visit you too,” I suddenly tell my, er, father-in-law?
“I would love if you did,” Damien answers. “Maybe then my son will take time off to visit his father.”
“Dad,” Lance almost groans out like he’s still a pup. “I do visit you.”
“Not enough,” Damien says. “When you have children, then you’ll understand.” Damien gives us both a look. “When will I expect to have grandchildren?”
Zeke also looks interested.
“Dad.”
Damien chuckles. “One can only hope it’ll be very soon.”
“Time is wasting! Let’s go on this adventure!” Zeke says, checking the time.
“It’s literally only four hours away to probably the most boring place on Earth.”
Zeke’s enthusiasm doesn’t curb. “Whoo! Let’s get going!”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Are we there yet?”
“No, Zeke, we are not there for the millionth time,” Julia answers.
The car is silent for at least five seconds.
“Are we there now?”
“Zeke!” both Julia and I exclaim. Who knew putting a vampire in a car would make him so anxious.
“I know it’s my fault that we couldn’t use other means to travel,” I tell him, “but traveling by car isn’t that bad.”
“Actually, you’re right. This peasant human way isn’t so bad. They do have this thing called the radio.” Zeke reaches from the back and turns on the radio, turning it into a station that has Charlie Puth’s latest hit.
We all are belting it out. I have to admit Zeke’s voice is pretty good.
“Okay Puth,” I laugh at Zeke as Julia makes a turn.
“I think your pack is near,” Zeke points to the territory. We’re meeting Sargon in front so he could grant us passage. My brother is already at my old pack doing some Beta duties for Paxon. Good old Alpha Charles gave Paxon’s pack the power to help out with my old pack since now they don’t have an Alpha to run it. Chaos usually ensues once a pack has no Alpha.
I text my brother that we’re near the territory so no pack wolf tries to attack us. Especially since we have a vampire in our midst.
At first, a large brown werewolf is seen, and it looks like it’s indicating for us to go a certain direction, so we follow him.
“I think that’s Sargon,” I tell them. Julia parks the car when we can’t reach further into the territory, and Sargon’s half-naked form appears.
We exchange pleasantries, and take out our duffel bags- mine being two. I introduce Sargon to Zeke, who didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t my only brother.
Sargon leads us the way into the territory, all of us in a silent step. “How are you doing?” I ask Sargon, not knowing if I can hug him or just shake hands. He simply gives me a small pat on my shoulders.
“Well enough,” Sargon says. I think this is all my brother is going to give me.
“Paxon?”
“He’s...” Sargon trails off. “Coping in his own way still. He-” Sargon hesitates. “He may step down.” I almost balk. It only means one thing. Sargon would become next in line to become Alpha since Paxon has no heirs. It kills me because I know one thing that could ease up Sargon’s pain a little: his mate. Bo could make anyone happy by just looking at his goofy face and shady smiles.
***
Julia is the first one to get dropped off to her home, and my walk is heavy with Zeke trying to c
rack jokes, noticing my mood. Sargon even tries to cheer me up a little. Seeing my brown front door, I want to cry just thinking about how much I missed my parents. I take a deep breath, glancing up at Zeke who nods at me encouragingly, and takes my hand squeezing it.
I make Sargon knock for me.
The door flings open, and Mom takes one look at me before she breaks down crying, and I immediately hug her. “You will always be my daughter, Ava. I love you so much.” Sniffling myself, I agree with her. She lets go and looks at Zeke quizzically. “I know who he is-” she points at Sargon- “But...Who is the vampire?”
“Lance’s brother, Zeke.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Zeke bows a little.
“Who knew Ava would get a mate,” Lisa’s voice comes in the back, a little bit teasing and an undercurrent of accusing. When I look up to see my older sister’s dark circles and hollow cheeks, she looks like a wreck. I smile at her, wondering if she’s angry at me. Wondering where we stood. It just hit me then that I have not seen my parents in a little over a year.
“I missed you,” I tell her truthfully, and gives me a limp smile. It isn’t a happy one.
“It’s all because of you. It’s all your fault,” Lisa tells me. “If you just minded your own business none of this would have happened to our family.”
“Lisa.” My mom’s voice is hard. As though they’ve had this conversation so many times before. Guilt stabs me in the stomach.
“The secrets would have had to come out eventually,” I tell her evenly.
There is a low warning sound from Zeke as he steps forward, his body shielding me as if I needed to be protected in some way. “Be careful how you talk to my sister. She’s the Luna of her pack whereas for you, I don’t see anything special. It’s because of your out of whack Alpha, not Ava.” Lisa blinks at Zeke, subtly checking him out and purses her lips.
“Whatever.”
The hurt I felt from Lisa lifts when I see my father walking towards. His smile is a teary one, and soon enough I’m teary too, hugging him close as he kisses my hair. “I have missed you so much, my daughter.” I give him an equally stronger hug.
