Chapter 5

Milo's POV:

The night was dark and the path was slippery as Adriel and I hurried through the forest, tears pricking my eyes as he squeezed my hand comfortingly. I wasn't sure when he'd grabbed it but I wasn't complaining. He had always been the best one to calm me down.

I wanted to say something but the words got stuck in my throat each time I tried. The air around us was thick with serenity, almost suffocatingly so. It felt as though the Moon Goddess would strike me dead any second. I hoped that wouldn't happen. What an anticlimactic ending to an insignificant life.

Our feet splashed through the puddles as we drew closer to the clearing that my home was in. I wasn't sure when but at some point during our walk we had started heading to my house rather than Daniel and Adriel's. I was grateful for his thoughtfulness; as much as I felt at home at the Scott's house, it just wasn't the same as being home. And I needed to feed Bubbles, anyway.

When I had left my house with Adriel earlier that day to eat dinner at his house, I never could have imagined the night would turn out like this.

What had I thought? I wondered bitterly. That I could escape wound-free from that hall? Naive hopes.

"Here we are," Adriel sighed as my house finally came into view, and I found myself wiping my eyes even though I wasn't sure when they'd filled up with tears. I looked up at him as we walked inside.

"Thanks, Adriel."

"It's fine. Are you okay with telling me what shook you so badly?"

Bubbles came running up to me so I picked her up, stroking her ginger-colored head as I thought about how to respond, the action soothing both of us. "He just- looked at me, and I freaked out. I- I don't know."

"You think you two might be mates?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. Well, we can figure out whatever happened later." He looked around, leaning against the kitchen counter as I sat on a chair. "Is it okay if I stay here tonight?"

The way he said it was less asking me and more confirming with me, but I nodded regardless. He bent down and began rummaging for the extra blanket and pillow in the cabinet.

"Do you want anything to eat?" I asked, mainly to distract myself.

"What do you have?"

"Some bread and peanut butter. I've got regular butter too. Uh... Carrots and other vegetables from the garden. Tomatoes. Oh, and here's some canned sauce and spaghetti noodles. Is that okay?"

"Sure."

I retrieved the pot, setting Bubbles on the ground, and filled it with water. The familiar sound of the boiling water caused my still-racing pulse to slow. Then I added the noodles. Daniel's homemade pasta was better, but I didn't have enough time, energy, or appetite to follow in his footsteps.

"I'm gonna go put these upstairs, okay?" Adriel asked, holding up a blanket and pillow. I nodded. "Great, be back in a minute."

I returned my attention to the simmering noodles as I prodded them with my wooden spoon. The head radiating off of the stove made me relax in its warmth, almost like taking a hot shower or sinking into a warm hug. All three were things I enjoyed, all three were things I usually didn't have.

A knock at the door shocked me from my thoughts. Gulping, I turned around to look only to realize that I didn't have a window that allowed me to look outside from this angle. Is it someone from the pack? To yell at me for leaving early?

I can handle that, right?

Swallowing thickly, I took another glance at the stove to reaffirm that it wasn't about to boil over- it wasn't. So, brandishing my wooden spoon like a weapon and with my heart pounding in my chest, I made my way over to the door and unlocked it slowly, wondering if I was about to die at the hands of rogues, like the members of my family. What an awful end to meet.

I opened the door a crack before slamming it closed again.

Oh, Goddess.

"Adriel?" I called out, my voice shaking a bit towards the end as I tried to remain standing.

Two agonizing seconds later, he was by my side, his gray eyes narrowing as he stared at the door. Bubbles ran up to me, clucking frantically as I scooped her up, sighing. "I'll get it," he said, taking his pocket knife out of his front pocket. "Just in case."

"Okay," I said in a small voice as I stepped back to the kitchen doorway, hating the way my voice trembled in the air yet powerless to stop it. Bubbles' heart beating against my own was all that kept me semi-calm as I waited with bated breath.

"Yes?" Adriel asked as he opened the door again.

"Is Milo here?" To his credit, Liam's voice was calm.

"I don't see how that's your concern."

His voice rose. "Look, Adriel, I just found my mate and he's in this house so Goddess help me if you don't tell me-"

"Okay, okay," another voice cut in. "We're really sorry, Adriel. But we should talk to Milo... or at least, he should." Sage sounded apologetic.

"Milo will come if he wants to come."

"Adriel, let me into this house." Liam again.

Swallowing, I appeared by Adriel's shoulder, still clutching Bubbles to my chest and my eyes wide as I tried to calm my racing heartbeat. First I saw Sage, his ginger hair framing his face, and though his eyes looked tired, he was wearing a smile. Liam was standing there, too, his sandy hair more toustled than usual and his green eyes obviously frustrated. His eyes fixated on mine, pupils dilating. Adriel put his arm across the door frame, blocking me from Liam's reach.

"What the hell..." Liam murmured, looking deep in thought as he stood there, outside my house in the wet grass. "Can we talk?"

Adriel looked perfectly calm despite his deep breaths signifying that he was quite frustrated indeed, turning to me. "Is that okay?"

Trying to not appear as frightened as I felt, I shook my head back and forth. "Not tonight," I whispered, my voice breaking through the thick silence like a needle through glass, all too aware that I was trapping myself in to have this conversation, and probably more, in the future. Bubbles clucked, cocking her head at Liam.

"Not tonight," Adriel reiterated, turning back to the future beta and alpha. "You can leave now."

"Okay. Thanks," Liam said.

"We'll get going now," Sage added.

Adriel then shut and locked the door in their faces.

"Now then," he smiled, "how's the pasta coming along?"

I followed him back to the kitchen, figuring his question was rhetorical. "Oh, Goddess," I groaned under my breath as I saw the mess that had befallen the kitchen. The water in the pot had boiled over. "I'll do it again," I sighed, scooping the entire batch into the garbage.

"Okay. Here, I'll feed Bubbles."

I appreciated that he wasn't trying to bring up the topic of Liam and Sage visiting us and the reason for the visit, but I still didn't approve of how many cherry tomatoes he put in the bottom of Bubbles' chicken feed to incentivize her to eat it. Usually I put two or three, just enough that she would actually want to get to the bottom of her chicken feed to eat them, but this idiot thought it was a good idea to give her five or six. Seriously.

"Good girl," he praised her, rubbing her head with his thumb, as she began to eat, however begrudgingly.

"Food's done."

"Thankfully there's no school tomorrow," Adriel said as I put a plate of pasta in front of him at the table as well as handing him the jar of sauce before sitting in my own spot, tucking my legs up so I was sitting cross-legged. My own portion was significantly smaller than his, the bare noodles reaching a count of fifteen at maximum. "Probably a good idea, considering how late everyone's been up and the buzz of information that's sure to spread like wildfire."

"Yeah," I mumbled, looking down to stab two noodles with my fork, rather aggressively.

"You've still got those sleep meds, right?"

"Yeah." I didn't mention that the last time I'd used them was also the last time he'd slept over.

"Great."

A couple minutes of chewing later, I stood up, my plate half-empty from where it'd begun, and walked it over to the sink, feeling my stomach turn. Adriel sighed, his expression one of disappointment, and took another bite before following suit, putting his bowl and fork in the sink and meeting me near the staircase in the back corner of the room. I smiled up at him and he smiled back.

"Let's go to bed," he offered, and I nodded, picking Bubbles up and ascending the staircase as Adriel flicked the downstairs light off and followed me up. He had spread the blankets out on the floor, the softest one on the bottom to act as a mattress and the thinner one on top, the same he always did whenever he stayed over. Adriel never got cold like I did, he never got up in the middle of the night to get another blanket. Which, quite honestly, could be terrifying in a house where the slightest shifting of weight from one foot to another could be enough to send the structure into a series of creaks and with nightmares enough to send one into tears. Tonight Adriel was with me, though. Like a guardian angel. I'd never had very much trouble sleeping when he was there.

"Nice setup," I commented, gesturing to the array of blankets strewn across the floor.

He grinned. "Thank you. I worked very hard on it. Do you have my extra clothes somewhere?"

Well, it's not like I threw them away, I thought, pointing at a drawer in the dresser. "In there."

"Great, thanks," he replied, crouching to rummage through it, emerging with a gray sweatshirt with some logo on the front that had probably been his dad's and a pair of gray sweatpants.

I watched as he changed quickly, unaffected by my presence. Then he turned around to give me a safe space to change with no prying eyes, which I was grateful for. I reached into the woven basket by the edge of my bed, the long T-shirt I'd been wearing to bed for the past few nights slipping over my thin form easily before I climbed into my bed, sitting cross-legged as I watched Adriel take a seat on his makeshift mattress, curling his legs underneath the blankets.

"Sleep meds, Milo," he reminded me, so I begrudgingly stood and took the bottle off of my dresser. It was still almost full. Once I had finished satisfying his desires of me being able to sleep, I sat back down on my bed. "Is there anything you want to talk about, or...?"

"No." I shook my head. "I'm good." Which was mostly a lie, but how was I supposed to get my feelings out there if I couldn't even think about all the problems I suddenly had without my throat tightening?

"Okay. Feel free to wake me up because of nightmares or anything, okay?"

"Mmm hmm."

With that, Adriel switched off the flickering lightbulb on the ceiling using the chain attached, reaching only a bit to tug on the chain with no need for the stool I kept under the bed and plunging the room into darkness. I swallowed, rubbing Bubbles' head.

Before long, his breathing grew regulated and I clutched Bubbles closer to me, tight enough that she squawked so I loosened my hold. I had always hated the sleep medicine since it felt like it filled my brain with lead. If there was a murderer in the house, I wanted to be able to hear it, not sleep through my own death because of some stupid medication. The type of paranoia kept my eyes open even when the medicine urged me to sleep- a war being fought in my body all night long.

That was why I never took it when I was home alone.

But tonight Adriel was here so I was safe. I was safe and I could sleep, despite how much my body rejected the notion.

I turned over, onto my stomach, and forced my breathing to become regulated until I fell asleep.