Esma's POV
"Can you pass me some salt, please?" I asked, eating my food, not looking in his direction. We ate our food in complete silence. Neither he nor I made eye contact. He was completely avoiding me, and after our little accident, I was doing the same. He passed me the salt, and I quickly grabbed the container from his hand.
I was making sure not to make any physical contact with him. A long but comfortable silence stretched between us. Somehow the silence seemed to connect us, in the way the words never could. Or maybe it was my brain that was playing with me.
He opened a file from his bag he brought from the car earlier and started reading it. He looked somewhat disturbed after his return from the borders. I wanted to ask him, only if I had some courage. After what seemed to be an awfully long time, I tried to break some ice.
"When will Diana return?" I asked in a low voice.
He looked at me from his files but soon averted his gaze. "Sooner rather than later." I hummed and stood with my empty plate. Just when I was going to put the plates in the sink, he stopped me by grabbing my hand. As soon his hand touched mine, I felt sparks zapping through me like I'd touched an exposed wire. I involuntarily gasped, just like every other time.
"You cooked; I will do the dishes." He stood and took the plates from my hands and walked towards the sink.
I looked at him amusingly. The most feared, tyrant Alpha Reed Xander was washing the dishes. He looked in my direction only to catch me already staring at him. "A penny for your thoughts?" he asked, still washing the dishes, but this time his voice was somewhat warmer and more welcoming.
"Nothing, just looking at how domestic you look," I blurted out aloud and mentally face palmed myself for such a big mouth. He stopped for a second before continuing. "At least I am not sexually frustrated," he said and rubbed his hands with the washcloth. I looked at him with wide eyes. Did he just crack a joke at me and a very good one at that?
He sat on his seat and reopened his files as if he did not outwit me. I sat on the couch and started the T.V. but couldn't watch anything. After continuously changing the channels, I switched it off and sighed, feeling bored. It was only one day, and I was already missing Diana. I thought about how Reed managed to survive for such a long time in this big castle. Alone.
"Reed?" he hummed, still indulged in the files.
"Today is the full moon." He again hummed in response but did not look in my direction.
"I want to go out." This time I was able to catch his attention. He looked directly into my eyes to see if I was serious. "My wolf is pacing inside me; I have to let her out," I said in a convincing tone. He looked deep in thought before he stood from his seat and grabbed the keys.
"Let's go then. We should hurry. We have to return before midnight," he said, looking at his watch. I was surprised and confused, surprised that he agreed without a fight and confused, why midnight? But I remained silent. Asking him questions only led him to get angry, which was last on my list.
After we had covered a short distance in the forest, he took my bag and walked in the opposite direction. "You can have this forest for yourself. I have already ordered everyone to clear the area," he said and turned around to give me privacy.
I muttered a thank you before I pulled my clothes off and changed into my wolf. Reed soon turned after the sound of my bones snapping stopped. He looked at me adorably before his old stone expression soon came. With a final glance in his direction, I sprinted deep into the forest.
I ran, getting more and more comfortable to run on all fours. It was a very long time since I changed into my wolf. I felt the gentle breeze on my fur and soon started to run deeper into the forest. I stopped near a lake and let my wolf take all the control. She wanted to hunt.
After a long twenty minutes of hunting one deer and two rabbits, I returned to the previous place where I left Reed. He looked annoyed but tried not to show it. I gave him a wolfish grin before taking the bag from his hand and going behind a tree to change.
"Hurry up; we have only twenty minutes to reach our pack boundary," Reed said impatiently. I quickly put on my clothes and stood before him.
"What?" he looked more annoyed if possible and started walking in the direction where we came from.
"Too many questions. You never get tired of asking so many questions?" he asked, still walking.
"You didn't answer any." Suddenly he stopped walking, and I collided with him. He looked over his shoulders in slow motion and narrowed his eyes, and muttered something under his breath. After two minutes of dreadful staring, he continued walking again.
I bit my cheeks not to laugh aloud. He looked so adorable when he got angry. We stopped near the gates. He called someone and signaled me to open the door. He quickly came behind me. "Yes, we have reached home. Do it, Diana." With that, he disconnected the call and sighed.
"Diana is coming?" I squeaked.
"No," he said, his voice clipped. My eyebrows furrowed. After looking at me, he sighed exaggeratedly and rubbed his eyes.
"Diana is not coming now, but she is changing our pack's location." Still, when he saw I didn’t get it, he motioned me to sit on the couch.
"Diana is a witch, and my pack being the strongest, they have always been the target of witches and werewolves, so with a little help of hers, my pack always changed its position with the moon," he completed, but I felt like he was not telling the whole truth. Like he was hiding something.
My eyes got huge, and by now, I was surprised was the understatement of the century. He looked pleased with my response and sat opposite me, leaning on the chair like a model.
"So, you are saying while we are talking, Diana is probably getting us to somewhere else with her magic?"
"Yes." He remained monosyllabic.
"The whole pack?"
"Yes," he said. This time his voice was on edge. He was a minute away from snapping at me.
"Okay, last question, what if you had left me there in the forest?" I asked, fearing I knew the answer already.
He stepped forward to look at me in the eyes. "The whole pack would probably be at some other part of the continent, leaving you all alone in that forest."
I gulped audibly. He was smiling as if enjoying some kind of internal joke. "Oh, does the first female alpha in the history of werewolves fear to go into the forest alone?" He mocked me and chuckled a deep laugh. Though he was laughing at me, I couldn’t make myself stop him. He looked more handsome and younger when he's laughing. His voice was warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel...or something.
I shook my head; I shouldn't be developing feelings for him when I didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle that composed this complicated tyrant alpha.