Page 19 of The Night Calling
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We arrived backat pack lands around five in the morning. Thankfully, Conri didn’t come into the house with me. He stayed out and walked away, the moon knew where. I could only hope he went to the lake on the north side of the pack lands and drowned himself.
Everything was dark and quiet as I made my way through the house, Phell following me several steps back. He stopped at the top of the stairs and let me go the rest of the way by myself. I hated the demon, now more than ever because he had dragged me back to Conri, but at least he wasn't in my face all the time.
With a sigh, I glanced at Minsi’s bedroom door. I could hear her deep breathing from behind the closed door but what I really wanted was to check on her, take a peek, make sure she was all right. But since I could also hear Rue’s breathing and heartbeat coming from one of the guest bedrooms, I knew she was probably fine. Rue always took good care of her.
My eyes shifted to another door.
Shane’s.
Reason warred with my heart. No, I shouldn’t go in his room. But I wanted to.
Since seeing him at the nightclub, my emotions were raw and I felt like my mind spun without a direction, and my heart hadn’t slowed down yet, not completely.
Despite knowing better, I went to his door, opened it, and walked inside.
His scent, still heavy in here, hit me like an ocean wave—that minty and musky scent that had always called to me.
Fate could be so funny.
My family was the pack’s omega, the lowest of the low. We had been ridiculed, laughed at, turned away, and more. Shane hadn’t been much different.
My mother had tried sheltering me as much as she could from the pack, but once I was five, the alpha ordered me to attend school.
“Every wolf needs to learn our ways,” he had said. At least, that was what my mother told me. “I won’t have dumb wolves in my pack.”
But I did remember my first day at school. The pack wasn’t large, always averaging about five hundred wolves, so the school wasn’t big either.
I walked in the school and I was bullied by my new classmates. During lunchtime, the bullies were relentless. I had been pushed into a corner, and even then, they didn’t leave me alone. Some threw lettuce and pieces of fruit at me. At five years old, and having been told to endure it since I was born, I lowered my head and stayed there with tears in my eyes.
Shane, who was two grades above mine, came to my table. I had never seen him up close before, but I knew who he was.
The alpha’s oldest son.
The alpha’s heir.
He had been so handsome as a child, but behind that hid cruelty. He grabbed my arm, shoved my tray into my arms, and told me to go eat by myself in the classroom.
“Right, because she’s too low to eat in the same room as us,” someone behind him said. I didn’t remember who, but those words had stuck.
Knowing I couldn’t retort to the alpha’s son, I walked away.
That had been the first of many nasty encounters. But each time Shane was close to me, every time he talked to me, I felt a tug inside my chest, something that lured me to him, despite his nastiness.
I hated that feeling and I did my best to ignore it.
As I grew up, I stopped being quiet when bullies harassed me. I had gotten into a lot of trouble because of it, but I wouldn’t cower. I was the lowest-ranked wolf in the pack, but that didn’t mean they could treat me like trash.
I was a damn wolf like the rest of them.
Years later, we found out why I had felt attracted to him the moment we met. We were mates.
And no one besides us knew.
Shaking those memories away, I flicked the switch and the lights came on. His room was as I imagined: large, with a queen bed; two nightstands; a chair and desk with a broken laptop and a few books; a dresser with picture frames; and other decorations, all in dark wood tones and dark blue accents—the bedding, the chair’s cushion, the drawn curtains. Two doors to the right led to the walk-in closet and the bathroom.
His things had remained untouched.