Chapter 5

“Dylan…”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, slamming the door shut after him.

“I, just, I, the pack—you want to claim me,” I blurted out.

Dylan cocked an eyebrow, and crossed his arms over his chest, no doubt trying to intimidate me. It was working. I was caught. My face was warm, and I could hear my heart pounding loudly in my chest.

“I hardly know anything about Midnight Moon,” I said.

“You’re sneaking around in my father’s office,” Dylan stated, calmly, but frowning.

“You want me to live here?” I asked, nervously.

“I want you with me.”

“I’m looking around,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Looking around in here?”

“I wanted to look around. I’m curious, so?” I said, trying to sound casual. It felt forced and it looked like he didn’t believe me.

“I’m going to ask again, Leila. I want the truth this time.”

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“I can hear your heartbeat. You looked like a deer caught in the headlights when I walked in. You really expect me to believe you were looking around?”

“You’re calling me a liar?” I asked, turning the spotlight back to him. Still, my face felt even warmer. The blush, had no doubt, deepened.

“I don’t know. How about you tell me,” Dylan said, narrowing his eyes at me.

“I was curious, Dylan,” I spoke through gritted teeth. My voice sounded shaky and nervous. I could hear it, he could see it, and it was making things worse.

“Why do you have those in your hands?” he asked, nodding down at all the things I had taken out about Midnight Moon.

I didn’t have a good excuse for that. I had been sneaking around. We both knew that. It would have gone down easier for me if I hadn’t been holding really important information about Midnight Moon in my hands.

“I like to know stuff,” I shrugged.

“You couldn’t ask me?”

“Would you tell me?”

“I’m not sure. Right now, I’m not sure about a lot of things. I want an explanation. All you are doing is making me feel more suspicious about what was going on.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“You are trying to distract me, Leila. And damn you, you’re good at it,” he growled.

I glared at him. His words bothered me. I didn’t like how he had phrased that accusation, and I especially didn’t like the way he was looking at me. I deserved it, and I was lying. It still hurt.

“You’re getting angry over nothing, Dylan. I’m here, okay. I was looking around, that was it!” I said, defensively.

“I need an explanation, now. You don’t give me one, and I’m talking about a damn good explanation that satisfies me, you’ll see how angry I can get,” he said, his voice low but threatening.

It was the second time that day we were interrupted by Dylan’s parents. We both heard them walking into the house, speaking loudly about something that had happened while they’d been out.

Dylan moved towards me in a flash.

At first, I thought he was going to try to hurt me. His face had grown even more serious. But he did something that completely threw me off. Dylan took everything from my hands and started putting it away. He was fast, and he also knew where everything went. I was standing beside Alpha Benjamin’s desk, watching him move so fast, hiding what I had been holding in my hands, where it belonged.

“Dylan?” I asked, quietly.

“Shhh….” Dylan said, shaking his head at me.

Alpha Benjamin walked into the room just as Dylan was straightening up, and wrapping his arm around me. Dylan’s frown was wiped away and he was looking down at me calmly, acting like if we hadn’t been arguing just seconds before his parents arrived.

Alpha Benjamin chuckled. “What are you two doing here?”

“I was showing Leila around,” Dylan smoothly said.

He was lying to his dad, for me.

I kept waiting for him to say the truth, or to tell his father that I’d been looking through his things. He didn’t. He lied all throughout the conversation, and then he told Alpha Benjamin we were going out for a run. Alpha Benjamin was happy that we were getting along. He was happy that I wanted to look around their home. He commented on how soon it was going to be my home too. I only nodded and went along with Dylan, not feeling sure with what was going on.

“Dylan,” I started to say, and again he shook his head at me.

Dylan wrapped his arm around my waist and we began walking out of his home hurriedly. His arm was tightly around my waist. When we reached his car, he opened the door for me, helped me in, and then got in himself.

“Rainen won’t let me be out too late,” I told Dylan after a few minutes. He had been quiet, serious, looking thoughtful. I would’ve thought he was really mad at me, if he hadn’t been holding on to my hand tightly while he drove.

“Jake was out with us the other day very late. Rainen didn’t say shit,” Dylan said.

“Jake is different, you know that,” I told him.

“I guess I should be happy for that. At least they keep tabs on you.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about his response, but I decided not to argue. We already had enough to argue about.

“What were you doing in my father’s office, Leila? I want an honest answer,” he ordered.

He was driving into town. I wasn’t sure why we were going there. It seemed like Dylan couldn’t wait to be out of Midnight Moon territory.

“I told you, I was looking around.”

“Bullshit,” he growled. “You were holding important info about Midnight Moon in your hands. You were curious about things that dealt with my family.”

“I want to know more about you,” I said, but even as the words left my lips, I could feel how fake they sounded. I wanted to know more about him, but we both knew that wasn’t what I was doing.

“My dad thinks that Jackson is cooking something up. You happen to know anything about that?” Dylan asked.

I flinched at his words. Dylan caught on to it. His eyes were on me. As soon as we made it into town, he parked the car on the side of the road and turned to look at me.

“If my dad finds you were sneaking around, we would have a problem. We keep this between us.”

“You’re not going to tell him?”

“I have questions, you answer me. I have a problem with something, you answer to me. No one else in the pack has a right to question you,” he replied.

“So you won’t tell him?”

“My parents like you. We’re keeping it like that. I don’t want them thinking something’s going on with you. What happened earlier—it’s staying between us. It’s not my dad’s business, it’s not my mom’s business, and it’s not the pack’s business. It’s ours, we deal with it,” he stated.

His answer was a relief. He wanted to protect me. He didn’t spell it out, but it was exactly what he was doing.”

“Dylan…” I said, my voice shaking again. 

Dylan was unbuckling my seatbelt and bringing me over him before I could react. He pushed his seat back and sat me over his lap.

“I’ll handle my dad if he has any questions. I am the Alpha, and he has no say in what I decide. You don’t get scared because of him, okay?”

He was looking at me intently. The way he sounded, protecting me, it made me feel guilty because I had been sneaking around. Dylan’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to say something.

“I need to know that you understand what I’m saying, Leila.”

I nodded at him, and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing myself against his chest. Dylan tightened his arms around me, and pushed me even closer to him. It was a tight space. His car wasn’t made for comfort—it had been made to look flashy. Still, we made do and I liked that I had to be pressed up close to him.

“I need to hear you say it, baby,” he told me.

“I’m okay, Dylan.”

He nodded against my neck.

After we both calmed down, Dylan told me to get back on my seat. He started up the car again and drove us to a diner in town. It was already late, and the place wasn’t even half full. Dylan had his arm wrapped tightly around my waist. Although I was walking ahead of Dylan, he was the one guiding us when we walked to one of the booths near the back. It would’ve been all the same, since there were only a few booths taken.

We ordered our food, we kept quiet, and Dylan started up the conversation until our food had arrived. For a moment, I had allowed myself to think he was going to let it go. He wasn’t, and now that he had reassured me that I was good, he wanted to know what I was doing.

“Things are shaky with Jackson,” Dylan started. “I’m not going to get into it with you because these are things you don’t need to know, but we’re having problems.”

“Why can’t I know?” I asked, frowning.

“You know why. My pack runs much like yours. You stay out of it, I handle the problems.”

“I don’t have a say, you mean?”

“You have a say on other things,” Dylan said, softly, reaching out for my hand. “You know how it is.”

“I don’t need to fight with you about this, Dylan. I’m not even in your pack.”

Dylan growled so loudly at my words, I noticed a few people from other booths turned towards us.

“Dylan,” I said, glaring at him. “There are humans around,” I whispered, lowly, so only he would hear me.

“You don’t say things like that anymore, Leila. I won’t care that there are humans around. You’re mine. Midnight Moon is my pack, and now it is yours. Clear?”

“Not clear,” I snapped. “I have a pack.”

“Thank you for bringing us back to the problem at hand. Why were you in my father’s office?”

I stayed quiet. I didn’t say anything, but my eyes were on him. His were on me too, and he wasn’t backing down.

“I can make it really easy or really hard for Jackson,” Dylan said, his voice sounding like a threat.

“Why would you bring him up? This has nothing to do with Alpha Jackson,” I told Dylan, not liking his words or the tone he had used. He looked pissed.

“I am happy that I found you. I love you. You’re mine, and that’s the end of that,” he stated in a low growl.

I was definitely not happy with most of what he had said, mainly because of how he had said it. But he really didn’t seem to care.

“I can, however, think that something is off when Jackson calls my father to tell him his future Alpha and Beta are visiting. I expected this visit to go down differently. I found you, things changed. I’m dealing with it. It does not mean I am stupid. It does not mean I don’t know something is going on with Jackson.”

“Alpha Jackson is-”

“I know what he is, and he is not a good man. You’re the daughter of his Beta. Obviously, I know that means you are close to him. You can’t sit there, play stupid, and I know you’d be pretending because you are not stupid. You know how things are. You lie to me, fine. You want to keep things to yourself, okay. But if you take that route, Leila…” Dylan said, shaking his head. His voice had gone so low, it sounded even more dangerous. Dylan was definitely not playing around.

I was getting nervous again. Dylan’s eyes had darkened, and he was looking at me intently, waiting for me to decide what I was going to say.

“If I take that route, what?” I asked in a whisper.

“You really want to know?” Dylan asked, seriously, cocking an eyebrow.

I swallowed lowly. Okay, he could definitely pull off scary and intimidating.

“You’re threatening me?” I asked.

Dylan smirked at me, but he did not look happy with my question. “Not you, not ever.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Dylan,” I whispered, looking down at my plate of food, which was on the table and had been left untouched.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I didn’t look at him. I was freaking out. I was thinking about spilling my guts and telling him everything, at least everything I knew, and it wasn’t really much.

“Look at me, Leila,” he growled.

I looked up at him. He still looked angry, his face hard, and his eyes were dark. I could see the hint of his canines. It was such a bad idea for him to get worked up in place that wasn’t exactly filled with humans, but they were around.

“You don’t explain yourself—I’m going to assume you were there because of Jackson. I am going exchange words with him, and I’m not going to be nice about it. Things might get ugly.”

“Dylan…” I said, reaching out for his hand.

“Now do you feel like explaining?”

I wanted him. I wanted him so much. He was my mate, so it wasn’t like it didn’t make sense. I wanted to be with him. I didn’t want to give him up. I didn’t want Alpha Jackson or my father to hurt him. I didn’t want for them to take me away from him. But I worried.

“If something happened, would you be able to defend yourself… us, I mean?”

Dylan frowned. “I would.”

“Would you protect me?”

Dylan growled, angrily. “You are my mate. No one touches you.”

“Promise?” I asked, weakly.

“No one, Leila. I love you, and I am going to protect you. You’re scared because of them. You have any idea how that makes me feel? Some assholes are scaring my mate, making her feel like this,” he growled, shaking his head. “What is happening?”

I told him.

I explained everything as best as I could. I told him that Alpha Jackson had sent us to spy on him. I told him Jake wasn’t down with it, even though that wasn’t entirely true.

I told him that I had been looking through his things, hoping to find anything useful. I was his mate so it would be easier to find things without getting caught or getting in trouble. That had obviously not been the case, but neither of us made a comment about it.

I made sure he knew that Silvi and Rainen had treated me well. I didn’t know what their role was in the entire thing, but I didn’t want Dylan to hurt them. I especially did not want him to touch Jake.

I didn’t want for Dylan to take any of it out on Jake, Silvi, or Rainen.

I told him that I didn’t know what was going on between Midnight Moon and Alpha Roderick, but he had gone to talk with Alpha Jackson and they were planning something.

I told him that I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to abandon my pack or my family. I told him I was scared.

While I spilled my guts, and I did it without catching my breath until the end, Dylan looked at me with calculating eyes that got angrier with every word I spoke.

By the time I was done, Dylan looked like he was about to shift and attack the first person who crossed him. It was not reassuring at all because I was sitting across from him, and I had been the one to make him so angry.

I got up from my seat and slid into his side of the booth, grabbing his arm and placing it around me. Dylan held on to me. I took that as a good sign. I nestled my head against his neck, and kissed him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, Dylan. I’m sorry,” I said, placing my arms on his neck and pulling myself closer to him.

Dylan dug his fingers into my waist, making me jump. “They sent you to do their dirty work,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

“Dylan…” I whispered his name, pleadingly.

“Don’t defend them, Leila. I’m angry as it is,” he growled.

“You’re mad at me?” I asked, but he had to be.

I had lied. I had hid things from him. I had deceived him. I was still holding on to the hope that he would forgive me.

“We will discuss that later. We’re leaving,” he ordered, getting up and pulling me up with him.

Dylan was furious. I could see it. I could feel the angry waves rolling off him. He was barely holding it together.

We were on our way out when Dylan stiffened at my side and made me stop. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath. He had looked angry before, but now all I saw was annoyance in his expression.

I looked ahead, at where his eyes had landed. Two girls were walking into the diner, staring up at Dylan, and blocking the door.

“Dylan,” one of them said.

Dylan’s eyes were returning to their normal grayish blue. His arm around my waist tightened, and he pressed me closer to his side.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, but I imagined that whatever was wrong had to do with the blonde heading towards us, with her friend following a few steps behind.

“Paige,” I heard the girl's friend mutter.

“Paige?” I asked, looking up at Dylan, frowning.

Dylan sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said to me, and tried to side-step the two girls who were standing a few feet away from us.

“Who is that?” the girl, Paige, asked.

Her eyes were on me, accusingly, looking pissed. Dylan, I was surprised to see, was looking just as mad. I didn’t know if I should’ve said something.

“None of your business,” he replied.

“None of my business?” Paige asked, sounding outraged and hurt at the same time.

Dylan told me he’d never had a girlfriend. Now I was looking a pretty blonde who was making a scene, it was ticking Dylan off, and she was acting like an ex would. It was clear there had been something there, which meant Dylan had lied to me.

“Move,” Dylan ordered her.

Paige’s friend stood to the side. She looked worried, and she was trying to get Paige to back down. It was obvious she was concerned for Paige. Paige was about my height, and I was almost a foot shorter than Dylan, which meant that even though she tried to appear tough and intimidating, she didn’t. It wasn’t helped by the hurt look on her face, or how much she kept glaring at me.

“No, I want an explanation,” she said, loud enough that we were starting to attract more attention from the place. “Every girl, you always do the same thing. You told me you didn’t want a girlfriend, and now you have her?”

“You and I, we slept together. That was it. After the way I took you and where I did—you should know you had no staying power. I was calm about it when you started doing your shit, not anymore. That explanation enough?” he said.

Paige moved slightly out of the way. We walked away from her, Dylan seething by my side. I thought he was going to apologize to me or something similar to that, after what had happened with that girl. Apparently, he was not in the mood.

Before we left the diner, I turned back to look at Paige once. She was crying, her friend holding her against her chest, and they were sliding into a booth. I could hear Paige’s friend trying to comfort her, telling her Dylan was a jerk, and that everything was going to be okay.

Paige’s crying was quiet, but I still heard it.

“She…” I started, not knowing what else to say.

I couldn’t even feel jealous. I didn’t feel jealous at all. I felt sad for her. I felt bad. I kept waiting for Dylan to say something, to explain, even if he wasn’t going to apologize.

Dylan began dragging me across the street, towards the woods that rested in front of the diner. We were leaving his car behind. I thought he was doing it to shift into his Wolf. He looked like he really needed it.

“Paige and I never had anything,” Dylan finally said.

He brought us to a halt after we entered the woods. We were in Midnight Moon territory, of course, but there weren’t Wolves around. It was late, the sky was dark, and it was fresh out. I didn’t complain, although I was definitely feeling the cold.

“It didn’t look like it in there,” I commented, shaking my head at him.

“I don’t want you to get mad. I’m explaining, and that will be the last time we’ll talk about this,” he stated, trying to make his point clear.

“Right,” I muttered.

“Paige won’t be the only girl at school you’ll find like that. Some of them got too hung up.”

“Some… girls you had sex with?”

“It wasn’t like I was sleeping with girl after girl, Leila. It wasn’t like that at all.”

“You didn’t make it sound like that earlier when I asked you to explain yourself. You’re not making it sound like that right now telling me some of them got too hung up on you.”

“Humans were talking. You weren’t asking, you were accusing me,” he stated.

“So you’re going to tell me they were lying, and Paige was too?”

“You don’t know Paige, so don’t try to use her if we’re going to argue about this. By the way, I’m explaining myself. Never do, now I am. After we’re done with this, you’re going to answer all of my questions.”

I backed off, only because his tone made me nervous.

“The pack keeps a distance from the humans. It’s easier. We want to have freedom while we’re at school or hanging out in town. We stay away, humans know to stay away. Once in a while, a Wolf from the pack will stray and make friends with a human. It’s fine. Midnight Moon has no rules against that, but it doesn’t happen often, if ever.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, although I was taking in his words.

In Staten, Alpha Jackson did not want for any Wolf to hang out with humans. Things, it seemed, really were different in both packs.

“We don’t fuck around with the pack, Leila, especially with the She-Wolves. They are family. So, when anyone wants to…”

He stopped talking, although I got his message loud and clear. If they wanted to hook up with someone, they didn’t do it with anyone from the pack. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

“I slept with a few girls—I did and I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m trying to come clean. If you don’t want to hear more, I won’t explain, but I will still want an explanation from you.”

“I want to know,” I told him. I did. I was too curious. I also didn’t think he’d tell me if I turned him down and then wanted an explanation down the road.

“I slept with a few girls and the list isn’t long, but it happened. The girls went crazy each time it happened. One of our crew talking with one of them, when we shut them out all the time, they were excited.”

“That sounds very cocky,” I commented.

“I thought you’d noticed the vibe today, but maybe you didn’t spend long enough in school to see for yourself. Jace hooks up with them, and other guys from the pack do too. No one makes any promises, and none of us keep a girl. We just don’t. We all know our mates are out there, so there’s no point in making a commitment we’re not going to keep.”

“You couldn’t keep it in your pants knowing that your mate was out there?” I questioned.

Dylan smiled at me. “I should have. If I had known I would find you when I was eighteen, I would have. Too late to change what I did now. But I can tell you right now, I never made any promises, to any of them. I’m blunt, in case you haven’t noticed. They knew what I wanted, and they know how we roll. They all got hung up like Paige.”

“She was crying. That wasn’t cool,” I said, softly.

“Don’t feel bad for her,” Dylan said, approaching me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s easy for you to say. You just dumped her like yesterday’s trash, right there in front of her friend.”

Dylan cocked an eyebrow. “There was nothing to dump. Paige and I were never together. I don’t know the name of half of these girls. You want to know how I know hers, other than because I had her following me around school.”

I kept glaring at him. I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for him to speak, although I didn’t think he was going to say anything that made me feel less bad for Paige.

“She’s been around,” Dylan said, casually.

“When we were at the diner—you said that you took her…”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “I fucked her in the guy’s locker room at school. I finished, showered, and took off. Paige apparently thought it was the start of our relationship. I had made it clear in the beginning that it wasn’t. She cried to Jace, thinking that would change my mind. She ended up hooking up with him too.”

I couldn’t help it when I made a disgusted face, which Dylan caught. “I told you. I know others don’t mind, but I do. What’s mine is mine. Paige was not mine, and I could not care less that she slept with Jace. I wasn’t going to go there back again before I found out, but I was definitely not going to go back there again after my best friend slept with her. Not into that,” he finished.

It was all so twisted, and even though Dylan was trying to clear the air, it still pissed me off that he was so casual about it. He didn’t even feel sorry.

“What am I supposed to think about that? You’re a jerk.”

“I was, but they didn’t deserve any better. Not once did I have sex with any of them without making it clear first that it was a one-time thing.”

I wasn’t sure if that made it better, but Dylan thought so. I didn’t know if to agree with him or not. I didn’t know what to think. Dylan closed the distance between us and took me in his arms.

“Your turn,” he said. “I told you earlier that we were going to finish the conversation later. How many guys?”

Dylan was looking down at me with intense eyes. There was hardly any space between us. I could feel how tense he was. He didn’t have to say it—I could tell he was bracing for the worse.

He had shared. As much as I didn’t like what he had said, I appreciated that he had explained. I was also happy that after I told him about Alpha Jackson, Dylan was still there with me.

I shook my head at him, and Dylan growled down at me, digging his fingers into my waist.

“Cam down,” I told him, feeling annoyed. “There was no one. I only said that because you were so casual and sexist about it.”

Dylan’s entire expression changed. He went from looking tense, to grinning down at me, looking surprised. “No one?” he asked, wanting confirmation.

“Are you kidding me? I could not leave the house without being guarded by a ton of people. No one could even look at me. Not that I was looking for anyone, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have been possible with how watched I was,” I told him.

“I hate your father and Jackson, but I guess I can thank them for this,” Dylan said.

I slapped his chest and pulled away from his arms as soon as those words were out of his mouth. Dylan pulled me back with more force. It wasn’t painful, but he did restrict me in his arms.

“You’re mad. I don’t want you to be, but I’m still going to feel the same way.”

I was glaring at him angrily. “I can’t believe you’re agreeing with them on anything, especially with how much my dad over-protected me!”

Dylan tightened his arms around my waist, and his eyes got that intense look. He was going to say something, and I could already feel I wasn’t going to like it.

“They kept you hidden, untouched. I was angry I wasn’t your first. I settled into the idea. You were mine and I had not waited for you either. Now you tell me that there was no one before me. I’m happy. It’s unfair, I know. Hell, you are standing here, arguing with me because you feel bad about Paige. I’m lucky, Leila, that you feel like that. Your first words about Paige weren’t catty or any other shit like I’ve seen girls around school do.”

“Whatever she did, she was still heartbroken. That sucks,” I told him. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t upset about Dylan sleeping around. It only meant that I could see how cold he was towards those girls—it hurt them too. I was lucky that Dylan was my mate. I wanted him, and he wanted me. I had no desire of being one of those girls.

Dylan didn’t agree, but he nodded. “I’m happy you are how you are. I’m happy, as shitty as it is that you haven’t been with anyone. But your father, keeping you away from guys, that wasn’t him protecting you. If he would have been thinking about protecting you, he would have never sent you here with me, knowing you could get yourself killed if things went sour. You don’t put the people you love in danger, Leila.”

The tears came to my eyes, and I began crying in Dylan’s arms. I had not planned on telling Dylan about Alpha Jackson. When he caught me, he chose to lie to his father so that he wouldn’t think less of me. When I confessed what I had been doing, Dylan got mad, but he still listened and he hadn’t pushed me away. When Paige showed up, he told me what had happened when I asked him to. Now, instead of comforting him and apologizing for what I had done, Dylan was making me feel better because I was realizing how horrible my pack and my father were.

“I love you, Leila,” Dylan whispered against my hair, one of his hands sliding up my back, and cupping the back of my neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, Dylan,” I said, my voice shaky.

Dylan nestled his head in my neck, and began nuzzling his nose against my skin, kissing me gently. “Tonight,” he said, lowly. “I told you tonight.”

“What?”

“It’ll only hurt for a little while,” he said, before sinking his canines on my skin, and claiming me.

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