Chapter 63: Keeping Busy

Dominic

I like it better while we’re actually running as wolves, finding a cave, exploring, marking, shifting. It keeps me busy, and being busy helps distract me. When I’m only driving, it’s too easy to let my mind wander back to Amelia.

I miss her so goddamn much. That scene this morning in the shower is burned onto my brain, every second, every sound, every delicious touch, every glimpse of her luscious body, every scent. Her fragrance, sugar cookies and wildflowers, was enhanced by the hot water running over her skin, and by the soapsuds that I rubbed over her entire body. Mmmm. My hands don’t feel the steering wheel, they feel her abdomen, her breasts, her….

“We’ll be pulling off at the next turn,” Nolan tells me.

Oh, right. The second cave. We’ve only been in the car about an hour, all winding back roads, some of them unpaved dirt, scarcely more than trails. I’m just following his directions.

We leave the cars behind a copse of trees off the road, pack our clothes, and shift. Same routine. How many more times? I guess, one down, nine to go?

Amelia

Corinne sits mostly silently, wide-eyed as we bust out our to-do lists and start talking about how many things we can already cross off. I’m glad that I am able to keep busy, and try to focus on anything other than how much I miss Dom.

“Okay,” Darlene says, sitting on the couch next to me and leaning over our main list, laid out on the coffee table before us. “I think we can pretty much cross off everything food related. The cook has the menus, the kitchen staff will take care of the grocery shopping, and you have ordered the specialty items from the vendors.” I nod, and she crosses off several items from the list.

“We’ll just have to make sure to have everyone ready on the 31st to start arranging the buffet tables, first thing in the morning,” I add. “We can have the plates and forks and things already set up the day before.”

“What about the decorations?” she asks.

“I’m putting together a list of names, splitting everyone up into different crews. Is it all right if I add everyone from Dark Woods that isn’t cave hunting?”

“Of course,” she says, turning the page to another list.

“Um,” Corinne says, curled up on an armchair nearby, her feet tucked underneath her, her hands inside the sleeves of her oversized sweatshirt. We look up at her. “I’d, uh, like to help? If I can? I’ll do anything you like. I can clean, or help cook, or arrange things, whatever.” She looks very earnest.

Darlene smiles. “That’s very kind, Corinne, we can certainly use every pair of hands available. Thank you!”

I’m glad that Corinne wants to participate, it will keep her busy as well. Much better than just trapped downstairs inside a locked room, waiting for news.

We get back to work, finalizing the lists before I start making the vendor calls.

Corinne

I’ve never watched anything like this. My life in the pack was all manual labor, from the time I was old enough to hold a scrub brush. My life as a rogue was all running, hiding, scraping up whatever food or shelter I could find. Or serving whatever man had gotten hold of me. I have no experience with this sort of planning, this cooperation, this friendliness.

Amelia and the Luna have written long lists of things to do. They have thought of a thousand tasks to perform for this upcoming event. All things that have nothing to do with basic survival. It is so strange to realize that there are whole groups of people who are so secure in their lives that they can devote this much effort to extras. Luxuries. Needless fun.

What a concept.

Amelia goes over to the little kitchen table here in the Luna’s suite, with a bunch of notes, and pulls out her cell phone to start making phone calls. I overhear how she does it, introducing herself, asking for the status of the orders she has placed for the event.

While she is doing that, Darlene spends a few minutes with paperwork of her own, then she sets it aside and looks at me. I look at her with anticipation, thinking perhaps it is time for her to assign a task to me. But instead she just asks, “Can you tell me more about your background, Corinne?”

Ah, she wants more information. I nod. I will comply with any request, anything to try to ensure my continued safety. “What would you like to know?” I ask her.

“Well, let’s start with your family. Are your parents still with your pack?”

It seems that the whole story that I told our friends over the campfire the other night didn’t make it any further. I shake my head and look down. “I don’t have any family,” I say. “I was a baby when my parents died in a battle.”

She starts asking me more questions, but it doesn’t feel like an interrogation. It feels like a friend trying to get to know more about me. Just to be kind. How unexpected.

Before we get very far, there is a knock on the door, and Darlene calls out, “Come in.”

A couple of people from the kitchen come in carrying trays with food. “We brought you some lunch, Luna,” the first one says, and Amelia starts clearing papers off the table to make room.

Another voice from the door says, “And we brought a Luna, Luna.” I look back over to see the other Luna, Janine of River Moon, standing there with a grin on her face. I stand up, nervously.

“Janine!” Darlene says. “Come in!”

“Mind if I crash your party?” Janine asks.

“Of course not,” Darlene says, “I was thinking about asking if you wanted to join us, but I wasn’t sure if you would be too busy settling in to your new home.”

“I’m as settled as I’m going to get, I didn’t bring much with me. Kanen is busy working in his office, and he wanted me to sit in there with him, but there wasn’t really anything for me to do. I think he’d be happy to have me just gazing adoringly at him while he works, which is fine, but after a while I wanted to find something to stay busy.”

Darlene smiles understandingly at her. “You’ve come to the perfect place. We’re planning your mating ceremony. I didn’t want to trouble you with it, but I would love to have your input.”

“That’s what I heard! Are you really going to all this trouble for us?”

“Of course,” Darlene says. “Amelia is doing almost all the work, she is the one making everything happen.”

I see that Amelia has gotten the trays of food all unloaded onto the table, and the kitchen staff are heading back out the door.

Janine smiles at Amelia. “Thank you, Amelia.”

I see that Amelia nods her head and smiles, but I definitely get the impression that she is nervous too. I guess it is because Janine is her new Luna, and Amelia doesn’t know her yet.

“Let’s have lunch and catch up,” Darlene says, and the two Lunas sit at the table together on the two chairs.

Amelia brings a couple of sandwiches on plates over to the couch. She hands me a plate then sits down. “Did we tell you how Luna Janine met our Alpha?” she asks quietly, while the Lunas are lost in their own conversation with each other.

I shake my head, nibbling the sandwich that she gave me.

“They both came with Dark Woods to our Solstice Ball, and Alpha Kanen found her there, at the Ball. Found his mate.” She gets a distant look in her eyes. “So Darlene and Janine knew each other already, they belonged to the same pack.”

“But Janine is your Luna now?” I ask.

“Yes, since she is mated to my Alpha. And the ceremony we’re planning is to celebrate that.”

This really does all seem very unreal to me. The things that these people concern themselves with. I’ve never known couples who were mates, although I’ve heard of it. I suppose that back in my original pack there were some such couples, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with a slave like me, so I never interacted with them. Everything about this situation is so far over my head.

I just nod, though.

When the Lunas are done eating, they come back over to where we are sitting, and Amelia quickly rises and clears away all the plates.

Janine asks me, “How are you doing, Corinne?”

“Fine, thank you,” I say, looking down.

“I’m wondering,” she says, “if you’ve given any more thought to the phone password?”

“Um, yes, but I still don’t know it for sure.”

“Do you have any ideas at all?”

“Uh, yeah, a couple, but I don’t know if they’ll work.”

She pulls the phone out of her pocket, the phone I have seen Seth use. “I’m willing to give them a try,” she says, “we can try about seven times before we get locked out and it turns into a brick.”

A phone can turn into a brick? What?

I think she sees my baffled expression. “It just means that the phone would be locked, and wouldn’t be any more useful as a phone than a brick would be.”

Oh. Okay.

“So, what password should we try?” She looks at me eagerly.

“Um, maybe try one nine eight seven,” I say. “Xavier uses that sometimes.”

“Do you have any idea what it means?” Janine asks.

“I think it might be the year he became a rogue,” I tell her. I’m sure that’s what it is. He complains about it all the time, talks about how 1987 was the year that he was betrayed by his pack, and how someday he will take his revenge against them. It’s way before I was born.

Janine and Darlene look at each other, shrug, and Janine says, “Well, it’s worth a try.”

She turns the device on, waits for the front screen to load, then carefully enters the numbers.

Nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I made them waste one of their tries.

“It’s all right,” Darlene says. “Did you say you had another idea?”

“Maybe,” I say. I almost hope that I’m wrong about this, and I kind of hate to mention it. I’m definitely not going to tell them the significance. “Um, maybe try one zero two six.”

“What does that mean?” Janine asks.

I shrug and look down, and murmur, “I don’t know. But I think he might use that.”

“Ten twenty-six?”

I nod.

Janine looks at Darlene, then back down at the phone, and she very carefully enters the numbers.

The lock screen fades and the phone unlocks. Janine very quickly runs through some apps, saying, “I’m getting rid of any location tracking.”

Amelia looks at me with a smile, and says, “It worked!” Then her smile fades when she sees my expression.

“What is it?” she whispers.

I shrug and shake my head. She obviously can see that I don’t want to talk about it.

Janine says, “I have to take this to Kanen,” and immediately leaves the room.

“Well done!” Darlene tells me with a smile, then gets a concerned look on her face. “Are you all right, Corinne?”

“I don’t think I’m feeling very well,” I say softly.

Amelia asks, “Would you like to go lie down?”

I nod my head, not looking up. I’m sure they are looking at each other, wondering what is wrong. I hope they don’t think I didn’t want them to access the phone. “I’m glad that the password worked,” I say, as I am following Amelia out of the room. I glance back to Luna Darlene. “I really am.”

“All right,” she says, “you’ve helped a lot. You go have a rest now.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Amelia doesn’t question me as we go to the basement stairs, except to ask if I need anything.

“No,” I say, “thank you.”

“Okay, why don’t you take a nap,” she suggests, opening the bedroom door for me. “I’ll come back and get you at dinner time.”

I nod. “Thank you,” I say again.

When she goes, I curl up on the bed.

Ten twenty-six.

That’s what Seth used for the password on his phone.

Ten twenty-six. My birthday. And the date that we were together, just the one time, sneaking a few minutes with each other while Xavier was away and nobody else was looking.

It was a couple of weeks after that when I started feeling different, and my wolf started refusing to appear. I don’t know for sure that Seth is the baby’s father, but he could be.

Xavier would kill him if he knew. That’s a big part of the reason I ran away. I didn’t want him to find out.

I close my eyes, my mind spinning. Ten twenty-six. What does it mean, exactly, why would he use that number?

I’m afraid that I know, and I can’t allow myself to think about it. Or to hope.