Chapter 106 106. Blood
Tabitha’s POV
Each of them leans in to kiss me quickly, and then I step out of the car feeling a bit dazed. Jace waves his hand at me through the window before the car drives away, and off they go to the naval station.
I hope they’ll be okay.
I walk inside and immediately sense that something is off. The estate is oddly quiet. Too quiet. I mean, it’s not exactly a party in the mansion when the brothers are not around, but I notice that there are not even a single househelps in sight. No clinking dishes from the kitchen. Not even Tom’s steady footsteps in the hall.
Where are the people?
I move through the hallways, trying to find someone, anyone, but every corner is empty. Huh, that’s really weird. It’s almost as if the whole mansion is suddenly deserted or something. It’s unusual to get inside the mansion and not stumble upon a single employee. Usually, even if the brothers or Alpha Emery are not around, I’d see some of them trimming the garden or watering the plants, or gossiping while sweeping around. Tom, the head butler, also wanders around to make sure that everyone under the Aldair paycheck has something to do.
But now, the hallways are empty and every generous expanse of the estate is devoid of any trace of the house helps or literally just anyone. Did all the house helps have a vacation leave or something while I was away with the brothers for the past four days?
I head to the kitchen to get some water. As expected, the place is empty too. The sound of the refrigerator opening and the swish of water getting poured in a glass suddenly sounds too noisy in such a quiet space.
Huh. Maybe they were called to the naval station too? No, that makes even less sense. Not everyone working under Alpha Emery is a werewolf. A lot of them are humans—people like me who know about werewolves but stay far away from anything that counts as werewolf business. They wouldn’t be summoned to attend something that doesn’t concern ordinary humans.
So then where are they?
I take another turn to the hallway that leads to several rooms and one room in particular—Alpha Emery’s study. I pause when I notice that the door is cracked open.
That alone makes me frown. He never leaves it this way. No one enters that room without him present. Ever. And right now, he is supposed to be at the naval station with his sons.
So if there are no househelps in the house and Alpha Emery and his sons are in the station, then who is inside?
I know I should walk away. I know this is none of my business. But curiosity pulls harder than caution, and my feet carry me toward the door before I can convince myself to stop. I push it open. Inside, bent over the private drawers of Alpha Emery’s desk, is my mother.
“Mom?” I gasp.
She jumps in shock, eyes wide as she whirls around.
What is she doing here?
My mom scrambles to stand so fast that her hip bumps into the vase beside the drawer. It tilts and wobbles, almost toppling over before she steadies it with a shaky hand. Her eyes are wide when she finally looks at me, like she did not expect to see anyone in this room, much less me.
“Darling. You’re here,” she says as she forces a smile. “I thought you were on a camping trip with the boys.” Her lips quiver, like a mask glitching.
“Change of plans. The boys have to go somewhere…”
I glance at the mini drawer beside the antique vase. The door hangs loosely, revealing several stacks of folders and documents inside. Now, I’m no expert in Alpha Emery’s tastes in organizing his files, but I’m pretty sure he won’t appreciate anyone rummaging through his private things.
“Mom, what are you doing in Alpha Emery’s study?” I ask as I take another step inside.
She straightens fully this time. Her spine stiffens, and she angles her body in a way that hides her right arm behind her back. What’s that thing behind her back? Is she hiding something?
“You should go back to your room,” she says as she keeps her smile in place. “You must be tired from your little excursion.”
She is dodging the question and I don’t like it. She might as well just slap a sign on her forehead that says: ‘I am guilty’. But why? I don’t understand why she’d be here of all places. And what’s that thing she’s hiding?!
“You’re not answering me. What are you doing in here? And what is that behind you?”
I reach toward her, but she moves back quick, almost too quick, like a reflex she did not plan.
“Tabi…” she says in a warning tone. Suddenly, I feel like a little kid getting scolded. But I remain firm and sternly looks at her.
“Mom… please don’t tell me you got that from the drawer. You know we’re not supposed to touch your husband’s things!”
I mean, sure, they’re married. But Alpha Emery is an Alpha. He keeps a considerable boundary even to his own sons, what more to a wife he just married a few weeks ago? I’m getting nervous just thinking how he’d react when he finds out that my mom tinkered with his stuff.
“I will handle it,” she replies simply as if this whole thing is not a big deal.
I shake my head, my pulse climbing. “What could possibly be so important that you have to sneak in here to take it?”
My mom’s smile falls apart. It slips off her face like someone pulled a string. All that remains is something blank, unreadable, almost cold. I’ve never seen her with that kind of expression before. The sight alone sends a chill down my spine.
“This is something that does not concern you,” she says in an icy tone.
For a moment, it feels like I was thrown off balance. Did she just say that it doesn’t concern me? Huh, strange. She never talks to me like this. I grit my teeth at the sting of it.
I mean, sure she has a tendency to be so engrossed every time she’d have the chance to go shopping that sometimes she’d lose track of time or even lose track of me whenever we wandered around the mall back in the mainland. But aside from that, she’s pretty much attentive in everything else, especially when it comes to me.
She drags me into every detail of her life. I would even go as far as to say that my mom is a bit clingy. She is nosy but in the best way, mainly because ever since my dad died, we only had each other. So naturally, we are very close. My mom is never dismissive of me. Not like this. Not with me.
What could she possibly be hiding that she is willing to shut me out so completely?
I reach for her again, wanting to see whatever she is clutching, but she steps back and clicks her tongue.
“Go to your room, Tabitha,” she says as she narrows her eyes. “Pretend you didn’t see anything.”
“What?” I whisper as I stare at her. “Mom, what is happening right now?”
Something is not right. She is acting strange and I want to know why.
“If anyone sees you in here, or worse, sees you going through Alpha Emery’s drawers, the staff will talk and someone will whisper it to your husband before you can stop it!” I hiss under my breath. I glance around, afraid that someone might overhear us.
“Well,” she says as she raises a brow. “Did you stumble upon anyone when you came here?”
Now that she says that, I remember how the mansion is uncharacteristically quiet… deserted.
“N-no?” I stammer.
“Exactly,” she says as she looks at me. “We will not be in trouble because there are no witnesses. Unless you decide to stop being quiet.”
A nervous laugh slips out of me because this conversation is slipping out of what I can understand. “Where are the staff then?”
“They’re gone,” she says.
My skin goes cold. Gone? Why? Where? Why is she speaking like this?
She turns her back on me and pockets the thing she was holding. Then she casually rearranges Alpha Emery’s books and trinkets on the desk like this is any other afternoon and she did not just act like a stranger with a secret.
When she finishes, she walks past me. The air shifts with the movement, and she smells like perfume and something metallic beneath it.
She opens the door and steps out, but before she leaves, she taps my shoulder.
“You might want to leave too, darling,” she says without looking back. “You don’t want to be at the scene of the crime.”
My eyes drop to her hand.
There is a dark red stain smeared across her palm. I take a shaky breath.
“Mom,” I whisper as the words get stuck in my throat. “Why do you have blood on your hand?”