1 Chapter 1: Engagement Entanglement.
Adel’s POV.
“Sir.” The quiet whisper was what woke me.
“You know how much I enjoy it when you call me sir—”
My cousin Freddy’s low-timbered voice bounced off the empty halls outside of my bedroom corridor. Pure curiosity pulled me in the direction of the hushed voices. Rounding the halls, I stumbled upon shadowy figures pressed against the wall in an intimate embrace. My toes snagged in the loosely woven rug under my feet as they quickly took root underneath my legs.
It was not unusual for one of us to stumble upon Fredrick, who was not only my cousin, but the only thing that resembled a friend in this small pack, in a myriad of scandalous positions with staff, pack members, or humans he would find in various places in the city.
“That’s right…” Freddy grunted as he thrust into the woman he had pressed against the wall. “You’re going to take it like a good girl—”
Shame crawled up my neck, heating my face as I stood rooted in my place at the corner of the hallway. My hands grew clammy as I watched my cousin continue his rough ministrations on the woman who moaned in either pain or pleasure. Or both.
With a grunt Freddy slapped the woman on the bottom before stepping away from her, thanking the goddess he turned his back to me before tucking himself back into his pants. The woman, however, stood still against the wall panting from the experience she had just shared in a very public place with my cousin, the light of the pre-dawn morning exposing just how much of her was on display.
“Enjoy the show, cousin?” Freddy called over his shoulder, a smirk playing on his face.
“H-how long did you know I was there?” I asked as the woman's eyes found me, widened in shock, as she realized that it wasn’t just her and my cousin in the halls of my private wing.
Freddy laughed as he walked by me. Giving no attention to the maid he had just had sex with against the cherry wood wall…
“Calista,” I said politely to my maid who was now trembling out of fear and not pleasure. “You may go.”
“Ma—” Her voice shook.
“It’s okay. Have Maggie bring us coffee this morning.” I smiled at the young woman waiting for her to walk in the opposite direction of where my cousin had just left us.
‘Three deep breaths,’ Anara whispered in my mind. ‘Remember pup… three deep breaths.’
When I was a pup, my mother taught me to embrace my wolf, Anara. She sat me down on a fallen tree by the lake outside of our estate. She said, ‘Adel, we are no different from the fish in the lake, or the birds in the trees, or the humans who live in the city. The only thing that sets us apart is that we never have to live our lives alone. Not truly.’
‘Because we have a mate,’ my five-year-old self, obsessed with her star-fated mate, interrupted my mother. If she knew then what I knew now she would have sat quietly on the fallen tree stump, absorbing every single word of her mother.
‘No, my dove,’ my mother patiently laughed, as she smoothed my hair back from my face. ‘Because the goddess has given us a compass inside of us. A guiding friend who is wiser, older, a soul who has seen more, and lived more lives than we could ever imagine… These are our wolves—”
‘Anara,’ I whispered in pure wonderment.
‘Yes… Anara is there to guide you when mamma and pappa cannot be. Trust her—'
‘But what happens when I can’t hear her like Freddy can’t hear his wolf?’
‘Stand still, and take three deep breaths, Adel… Just stand still.’
‘You’ll be there Mamma, right?’
‘Always,’ my mother promised.
My heart ached as the memory of my last conversation with my mother faded away. Anara nestled against my mind. I sighed, wiping away the stray tear that fell from the corner of my eye before marching back into my room where I found my cousin laying in the center of my bed.
“Aw… Come on, Delly… don’t look at me like that.”
“Don’t call me Delly… you know I hate that name.”
“To be fair the cow was named after you… not the other way around.”
“I don’t care, I don’t like it. Just like the fact, that I don’t like you doing—that with Calista, in my rooms, Freddy.”
“Which part of it bothers you, Adel?” Freddy sat up, leaning against his elbow, and propping his face against the palm of his hand. “The fact that I f*cked her in your room or the fact that I f*cked her?”
“Pappa won’t like you using that language.” The blush of his crassness doubles as the smile of pride settles on his face.
“You’re about to be a married woman, Adel… To an alpha no less. Better get used to the word f*ck. I wonder…” Freddy’s eyes widened, sitting cross-legged, a flash of him as a child crossed my mind. My heart ached for a different reason. Freddy was so far from the boy he used to be. Long gone was the carefree smile he so easily sported. The role he played was due to so much pressure that had been placed on him, and so many expectations that he didn’t deserve. But that’s what happens when your father is a cruel man.
“Do you think your future mate likes it rough? I bet he does.”
“Stop, Freddy.” I steeled my voice doing my best to sound like the Luna I was about to become. “You’re being mean for no reason—what happened?”
The nefarious grin resting on Freddy’s scared tan face slipped as the boy who used to hide from his father in my rooms surfaced once more. He tried to hide the tremble in his hands by tucking them under his thighs. Acting as if I didn’t see them, that I didn’t know who he really was, and like everyone else in this Pack believed him to be this man he tried to pretend to be.
“Nothing.” Freddy shrugged.
“Freddy.” Lowering my voice, keeping it quiet like we were sharing secrets when we were kids, I crawled onto the bed, sitting across from him. “Have you even gone to bed since yesterday?”
“No rest for the wicked—”
“Stop that.” I grabbed his arm, his body tensing under me. “You, Fredrick Hamish Monet, are not wicked.”
“Tell that to my father,” Freddy scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Is that what this is all about?”
“Don’t Freddy me like that, Adel… With your big eyes, and your kindness. Don’t sit here and expect me to repent from my sins. I took your maid into your rooms… F*cked her against the walls of your private rooms because I knew she was something special to you… I did it because I wanted to screw with you, Adel. I wanted you to meet your future mate today with the image of your human maid wrapped around my d*ck.”
“Why do you hate Maddox so much, Freddy?” My mind buzzed at my cousins’ words.
“Because men like him always get what they want while men like me get left with sh*t, and just for once I wanted to know what it felt like to take what I wanted.”
“Calista? She’s what you want?”
“Sh*t, Adel. You’re so…” Freddy burst with frustration, jumping up from my bed.
“Wait, Freddy… I’m just trying to understand!”
“You’ll never understand, Adel, and soon you’ll be one of them…”
