Caine

“It’s me,” Liam said.

“Liam,” I whispered his name

The tears came to me involuntarily. I hadn’t realized I was crying until I heard Liam cooing me to calm me down.

“Hey Charlie, it’s alright. Everything’s fine. I’m sorry,” Liam kept saying.

Two months.

I hadn’t talked to him in two months. It wasn’t his fault, but I was still mad at him. I needed him during that time. Most of all, I needed to know that he was safe.

“How are you calling? Weren’t you locked up in Midnight Moon? What happened? Did you escape?” I threw question after question his way.

“Shh… Right now, let me enjoy this,” Liam said.

I could hear the smile in his voice. He wasn’t making any sarcastic remarks and I was scared that meant something bad. He was being serious Liam and that only ever happened when he had bad news.

“I missed you so much,” I told him, as a sob escaped my lips.

I chuckled right after, feeling stupid for crying. I was talking to Liam and that was all that mattered now.

“I’m free,” Liam told me.

“What? How are you free?”

“I made friends with the Luna of Midnight Moon and I fought in the battle.”

“Where are you right now?” I asked, feeling excited that they’d let him go.

“They set me free but I have to stay here.”

“I can’t see you then?” I asked, feeling my voice fall.

“It’s what I needed to talk about. We can’t see each other for now. I’m free but I still don’t trust them. Later on when I make sure things are safe here, I’ll have Adam bring you over,” Liam told me.

“Oh,” I mumbled.

If only he knew that it wouldn’t be so easy now. Every time I was about to bring Caine up, I stopped myself.

Liam hated Alphas.

In general, he hated packs. I wasn’t sure how he would handle learning that I was the mate of an Alpha- a dangerous one too.

“Don’t worry Charlie. We’ll only be here for a little while. I’ve been set free for a few days now and pack life is killing me. I don’t know how these dogs do it,” Liam said, bringing back the tone I was used to hearing from him.

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” I teased him.

“Yeah, you try hanging out with a pack for a day and say that. Packs are so archaic. You can’t break a rule because you have the Alpha breathing down your neck,” he said.

“You’re such a drama queen,” I told him, and couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

At least talking to him again had picked up my mood.

“What did you just call me?”

“You heard me Rogue. Is your hearing also going bad?”

Before he got a chance to say anything, I heard someone call his name on the other side of the line.

“I gotta go. I will call you later tonight. Pick up.”

“I will- thanks for calling,” I quietly told him.

I hardly recognized my voice. I had been so worried about him. It had been the longest I’d gone without talking to Liam since I met him over a year ago.

“I owed you, still do. I missed you Charlie. I’ll call you, okay?”

“Okay,” I told him.

I didn’t have to be in front of him to know that he was grinning.

“Don’t misbehave,” he warned me.

I chuckled at his words, and shook my head, although he couldn’t see me.

“I won’t.”

“If you do, don’t get caught.”

“You’re the worse, you know that?”

“I know, but I’m serious. Be careful,” he said, his voice going slightly serious.

“I will. You, be careful too.”

“Sure will. Laters Charlie,” he said.

“Bye Liam,” I said, laughing when I said his name.

I hung up right after. I had been close to telling him about Caine. In the end, I couldn’t do it.

I would deal with it once I had to. Right now, I needed to buy myself some time.

I wasn’t sure if there was anyone in the house. I hadn’t heard any movement around. Then again, Caine’s house was so big he could’ve been in a room downstairs and I wouldn’t have been able to hear him.

I took the liberty of showering and getting ready. Caine had said this was more or less my room for now.

It was just after two in the afternoon when I was walking downstairs.

“Charlotte.” I heard my name being called. Caine was headed my way.

‘God he looks gorgeous,’ I thought to myself.

I had to shake my head at that thought. It came to my mind on its own. There was just no denying that he was attractive and that my body reacted to him.

“Hey,” I said, giving him a small wave.

“Did you sleep well?” He asked.

I was on the second step of the stairs and he came to stand in front of me. Even with the height advantage from the two steps, he was still a few inches taller than me.

“I fell in love with your bed,” I admitted, thinking back to just how good I had slept.

Not only was the bed extra big, but it was very comfortable.

“It’s yours,” Caine told me.

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

Like if I was going to fall for that one.

“Do you want to go out for lunch?” He asked, ignoring my remark.

I was already getting used to the low and steady tone in his voice. I had to admit I got a thrill every time he spoke- that was, unless he was threatening me.

“I don’t mind,” I shrugged.

He nodded, and put his hand out for me to take. I gave it one look before meeting his gaze.

“We’re not together,” I stated.

The way he kept his stare on me was making me squirm. His penetrating gaze made me look away from him first. Even though it wasn’t possible, I felt like he could hear what was running through my mind.

“I didn’t say we were,” Caine finally spoke.

Instead of waiting for me to take his hand, he placed it on my lower back and gave me a small push forward.

“The car’s waiting. We should get going,” he said.

His strides were longer than mine, but I could tell he was making an effort to walk slower for me. Even if he didn’t want to, he had to if he wanted me to keep up.

All the way to his car, Caine kept his hand on the small of my back. He didn’t try to hold me, but I felt like he was showing his claim on me with how close we were walking.

It wasn’t like it mattered. The bite on my neck, which was very much visible on my skin, was proof enough to any Wolf that Caine had staked his claim.

“So is this what Alphas do?” I asked once we arrived at a restaurant in the middle of town.

I had passed by the same restaurant the day Lesley and her guys were chasing me.

“Most of us come here. One of the pack members owns it,” Caine said, as he walked with me to one of the tables.

I didn’t noticed when it was that he’d taken a hold of my hand.

It explained why my hand was tingling and felt full of electricity.

We hardly talked before or after the waitress took our orders. I didn’t know what to say. The only things that kept coming out of my mouth were accusations towards Caine and his pack. He didn’t seem to appreciate it very much.

By the time our food arrived, Caine already had a deep frown.

“I’m not holding you hostage,” Caine told me for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“Of course you’re not.” I couldn’t stop the sarcasm that was dripping from my voice when I said that.

Instead of going along with the argument, Caine just remained quiet.

“You don’t exactly make things easy,” I told him after a while.

Caine cocked an eyebrow, but it seemed like he was waiting for me to continue speaking.

“You’re so intense,” I said.

“I’m intense,” Caine repeated, although it didn’t seem like he agreed. “How is that relevant?” he asked.

“It’s not. I just felt like getting it out there.”

“You’re young, I know that,” he told me.

I couldn’t help but frown at him. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, especially not from him.

“Now it’s my turn to ask, how is that relevant?”

“I understand your behavior. Not entirely, but I’m trying to,” Caine said.

His words were enough to put a damper in my mood. I didn’t want to be with Caine. At least, I didn’t think I wanted to be with him. I just didn’t want him to treat me like a little girl or say he was trying to ‘understand’ me because of my age.

“Did you send someone to fix my doors?” I asked him on the drive back to his house.

Lunch had not gone great.

“Not yet,” he said.

“What?”

“I haven’t sent anyone yet,” Caine repeated.

“Why not?”

“Everyone’s busy.”

The way the corners of his lips tugged up in a small smile made me feel like he was lying.

“How could everyone be busy? Your pack is huge,” I reminded him.

“It is, but they all have duties.”

“And you couldn’t spare one person to go and fix my door? What am I going to do now? People can get into my apartment.”

I was more worried because the apartment belonged to Liam. I didn’t want someone to camp in there or take his things. He would think I wasn’t responsible enough to take care of the place while he was away. I had heard plenty of that from Liam when he first took me in.

It was why he claimed I wasn’t ready to date anyone.

“I’ve had some of my men make sure no one takes anything. The apartment is safe,” Caine assured me.

“So you had some guys scope it out but they couldn’t stick around for half an hour to fix the doors?”

I crossed my arms on my chest and shook my head at him.

“They only passed through there. They didn’t have time to stop and fix the doors.”

“What about you? You could fix them too. Instead of going to lunch, we could’ve gone to my apartment,” I told him.

I was wondering why I hadn’t thought of that before.

“I took a break from work to come and have lunch with you. Right now I have to go back” Caine said.

I didn’t believe him. He had a smug look on his face which only served to make me more suspicious.

“One more day with me won’t hurt you,” Caine told me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. We made it to his house just then, so he didn’t get a chance to see my scowl.

For some reason, I felt like he had plotted this all along. He wouldn’t fix my door so that I’d be forced to stay with him.

“One day,” I told him when he came to open my door.

He nodded his head, although it seemed like he did it more for my benefit. The grin he gave me made him look so much younger.

I stood frozen in place for a moment, not being able to look away from him.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, his grin quickly turning into a worried frown.

“No, just one day,” I repeated, before walking away.

Once I had given him my back, I allowed myself to sigh. Caine was doing something to me. Whatever he was doing, I couldn’t control it.

“So what do you do all day in this giant house?” I asked Caine.

He had been locked up in his study for an hour. I tried to ignore him. I stayed upstairs in his room until I got tired of going through all of his things.

It was probably a bad idea that I’d been snooping around. I found some stuff I was sure he wouldn’t have liked for me to go through.

Caine looked up from his laptop and cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I thought you wanted to be left alone,” he commented in a questioning tone.

I shrugged, and plopped myself on the chair in front of his desk.

“I got bored,” I told him.

“So what are you up to?” I asked, picking up a fancy pen that was resting on top of his desk.

I began twirling it in my fingers. While I did that, I noticed the pen had Caine’s name engraved in silver cursive letters.

“I’m not sure you will find it interesting,” Caine told me, closing his laptop.

“Were you looking at porn?” I asked.

I honestly doubted it was what he’d been doing. One look at him after I’d asked him that question and I knew he was definitely not looking at porn.

The look on his face was making it hard to hold in my laughter.

His neck and his ears had turned a deep shade of red and his cheeks were a rosy color.

If it weren’t for the intense look he was giving me, or how dark his eyes shifted- I would have told him just how cute he looked.

Of course the deadly look in his eyes completely halted any of my teases. That didn’t stop me from laughing though.

“I was just kidding,” I told him.

He obviously didn’t find it funny. Caine had looked embarrassed before. After I admitted I was joking, he frowned at me.

“I don’t watch pornography,” he told me seriously.

When he said the word ‘pornography’, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing again. What little self-control I had before was gone out the window.

“Are you finished?” Caine asked.

While I laughed, he’d gone from furious, to uncomfortable, to amused.

“I’m sorry but that just sounds so weird coming from you. ‘I don’t watch pornography’.” I imitated him, trying to make my voice sound deeper.

“I do not sound like that,” he told me.

He stayed quiet while I continued to chuckle. My laugh was dying down. I had to admit, I needed that.

I sighed and felt myself slump more against the chair.

“You didn’t tell me what you were doing,” I told him once I calmed down.

“I was working on a new design for a project that I’m planning,” he explained.

I couldn’t be too sure, but I felt like he had told me so that I wouldn’t think he’d been watching porn.

“What’s the project for?”

“It’s a design for improvements I’m going to make on one of our buildings. One of the Alphas, you’ll meet him soon enough, is working with me on this,” he said.

“What Alpha?”

I didn’t expect him to be answering all my questions. It wasn’t like he had to trust me. So when he remained quiet, I understood that maybe I’d asked more than he was willing to share.

“What?” I asked, feeling self-conscious because he wasn’t saying anything but he was staring at me.

“I’m glad you’re interested in this,” Caine said, giving me a small smile.

“Why?”

“You’re the Luna of the pack. It’s good that you want to know more about them.”

I widened my eyes at his reply. It hadn’t been at all what I expected him to say.

“I’m just here because my doors haven’t been fixed,” I mumbled at him.

Caine’s frown was obvious, but he was trying to hide it.

“Right, your broken doors,” he said.

I didn’t make any comments when he opened his laptop to continue working.

“So you’ll be holed up in your office all day?” I flatly asked him.

It had been ten minutes since he’d opened up his laptop. I was already fidgeting in my chair, wanting to get out of the house to do something.

“What do you propose?” Caine asked.

“I propose you go and fix my door. But I’d settle for going out and exploring or something. I seriously don’t want to spend all my day watching you frown at your laptop,” I told him, pretending to shiver at the thought.

Caine chuckled- a deep husky chuckle. Even that sounded so manly and threatening.

“We can go for a walk. You can get to know our territory better,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him. I didn’t think he’d ever get it through his head that I didn’t want to be his Luna.

“Who took care of you?” Caine asked me while we followed a trail through the woods.

“When?”

I picked up a few pebbles from the ground and was throwing them randomly. It didn’t have a purpose but it gave my hands something to do.

“You said that the Rogue was your friend. I don’t even want to think how you ended up with him,” Caine said.

“Adam’s my friend. Don’t talk bad about him.”

I scowled at Caine and he did the same to me.

“You know enough about Werewolves. You should know that Rogues are dangerous,” Caine told me.

“I know Alphas are the worse.” The words had just slipped out of my mouth.

After they left my lips, I couldn’t take them back. My words brought Caine to a halt and he grabbed my arm to make me stop as well.

“Why did you say that?”

“It’s true,” I muttered, but my tone had lost the confidence it had before.

“No it isn’t. Did those Rogues fill your head with lies about packs? They can’t be trusted.”

The more he attacked Rogues, the worse he was making it.

A Rogue had saved me. I owed everything I had to Liam. He had taken me in and taken care of me even though he didn’t need to do that.

“You’re wrong,” was all I said to Caine, before continuing on my way.

Caine had been quiet for the rest of the walk. Soon though, we began passing people. I was sure they were shifters from his pack because they were nodding, bowing, or waving at him respectfully.

“Why did you move near my territory?” Caine asked all of a sudden.

We’d been walking for a while and the sun was going down. I hadn’t noticed that the warmth of the day was being replaced by the freshness of the night, until Caine’s voice made a light shiver run through my body.

“There wasn’t a reason behind the decision.”

Caine looked down at me, like he was trying to see whether I was lying or not. I held his gaze enough to prove to him that I wasn’t lying- even though my answer hadn’t been the entire truth.

“I’m glad you moved here,” Caine quietly said.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t contain the goofy smile that took over my lips.

“Caine,” a deep voice called from behind us.

Both Caine and I turned around to see who had called out for him.

Victor, one of the guys who had escorted Adam out of Locus territory, was heading our way.

“Charlotte, this is Victor, my Beta,” Caine officially introduced us.

“Hey,” I waved and offered Victor a smile.

“Luna,” he bowed at me.

I laughed, more out of amusement that he had acknowledged me as that.

“You can call me Charlotte,” I told him.

“Nice to meet you Luna,” Victor said, giving me a wide grin.

I rolled my eyes but still smiled at him.

“What did you need?” Caine asked Victor.

It didn’t go unnoticed by both Victor and me that Caine wrapped his arm around my waist. His fingers slightly dug into my waist as he pressed me closer to his side.

I shook my head, but focused my attention on Victor instead.

“Are you staying with Charlotte all day?” Victor asked Caine.

“I was planning on it, why?” Caine asked slowly.

“I have three groups planned for rounds later tonight. I was thinking on cancelling one of those out,” Victor said.

“If you don’t need them, go ahead,” Caine told him. “Is that all?”

Victor nodded at Caine and then turned to me.

“Luna,” Victor said, nodding at me respectfully.

“Wait,” I said before he had a chance to walk away.

“Did you need something?” Victor asked, looking surprised that I’d stopped him.

When I turned up to look at Caine, I noticed that he had raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s going to fix the doors in my apartment?” I asked Victor.

He looked surprised by my question and then turned to look at Caine.

The stared at each other for a few moments, before Victor directed his gaze back to me.

“I’m already taking care of that,” he replied.

I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing that he was lying. I was betting that Caine had told him to say that.

“Okay, you can go,” I said, dismissing him.

He flashed me a smile, before turning to walk away.

“I’m not sure why you’re so opposed to assuming your position as Luna,” Caine told me once Victor was gone.

“I’m not a Wolf and I’m not interested.”

“You say that yet your actions say something else.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked Caine in a defiant tone.

I crossed my arms on my chest in attempt to help me look tougher, not that I could compare with Caine’s intimidating figure.

“You’re very good at handing orders,” Caine replied.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything else because he began walking away.

After we got back to his house, I was starving. I was just about to point it out, when Caine beat me to it.

“We could go out for dinner,” he suggested.

“I can make something. I’m not in the mood to dress up,” I told him.

I wasn’t sure what he had in mind but I wasn’t looking forward to any ideas that would make us get any closer than we already were.

“Whatever you choose is fine by me. But you should consider dining out. I can introduce you to some more pack members.”

“Pack members that won’t try to kill me?” I asked, just for the heck of taunting him.

His growl echoed through the house and he was in front of me in an instant.

“No one is going to try to hurt you. Understood?” He asked, gripping my shoulders in his hands.

His eyes had turned dark and I could feel his claws grazing over my skin.

I nodded at him in reply. I had decided maybe taunting him wasn’t the best way to go.

“You’re my mate. They will respect you, be sure of that.”

I couldn’t speak, not even to make a joke.

When I finally got my voice back, it was Caine who surprised me. He closed his eyes for a moment, and his whole body went stiff.

“Are you okay?” I asked, placing my hand on his chest.

I wasn’t sure if touching him was a good idea, but it snapped him out of whatever daze he was in.

“I need to go,” Caine said.

His eyes hadn’t shifted back to their natural color. If possible, they had turned into a darker coal color.

“What happened?”

I followed after him as he made his way to the door.

“Rogues trespassed. They’re getting executed. Since they are a significant number, Victor is asking for me.”

I stared at him in shock, not believing that he so easily spoke about killing others.

“You can’t do that,” I said, grabbing his arm to make him stop walking.

He raised an eyebrow at me, looking more amused than angry.

“We can talk when I return. Right now, I need to take care of this,” Caine said.

He didn’t shrug me off or try to pull away. Caine seemed to be patiently waiting for me to let him go.

“I want to come,” I told him.

I really didn’t want to go, but I also didn’t want for him to kill any Rogues.

Whenever he mentioned Rogues, I just thought about Liam. Liam had just been set free. If he had gotten a second chance, then it was hypocritical of me not to give a second chance to the ones who had trespassed today.

Ultimately, it was Caine’s decision. But if there was anything I could do to sway it, I was definitely going to try.

“Are you sure you want to be here for this?” Caine asked me for the third time.

“I’m sure,” I repeated my same answer for the past few minutes.

“Alright, it’s your choice,” Caine told me, taking my hand in his much larger one.

Having him holding my hand not only created that electricity between us, I felt like he would protect me from anything. Caine was walking a step ahead of me, almost hiding me behind his back. It was hard to deny how safe I felt with him holding me.

“You,” Caine growled.

I had been distracted trying to keep up with Caine’s fast pace. I hadn’t noticed we’d arrived to the location.

When I looked up, I wasn’t sure whether to feel annoyed, angry, or scared.

A small group of Rogues was gathered in the center. That wasn’t the problem.

Adam was with them and he wasn’t alone. Chris, Peter, Robert, Shane, and even Estella were there with him. I didn’t recognize some of the other faces, but I was assuming they were friends with Adam and the guys.

I knew they were there for me. I also knew there was no way in hell Caine was going to let me go with them. I would be lucky enough to convince him to let the group go without killing them.

“Caine,” I started to say.

Caine directed his gaze to me. His hold on me loosened as he took a step toward the group standing in the center.

“I don’t give second chances,” he steadily said, before walking towards Adam.