Wild at Heart

I let Nick take my hand and pull me farther into the bedroom. We sat on the bed and pulled the blankets over our legs. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me down to the pillow. I couldn’t help but feel safer than I have felt in a long time. It didn’t take long for sleep to take over my body.

When I woke Nick still had an arm around me, but I was facing the opposite direction staring at the wall by the window. I slowly slid out from under his arm and out of the bed. Nick let out a little moan and ruffled the sheets, but he remained asleep. I slowly crept out of the bedroom and made my way to the kitchen. I was starving, but I didn’t want to wake Nick up by cooking. I fought with myself for a few minutes, but of course I got nowhere. Stubborn bitch. I ended up leaving the house and heading back to my own. I showered and got dressed in fresh clothes before opening my fridge and finding it as empty as Jackson’s soul. I threw on a pair of shoes and walked myself down to the diner by my bar. I sat at a booth by myself and ordered from the polite waitress. I was staring off into space when suddenly, Lucas came into my line of view as he slid into the other side of the booth.

“Hi.” I greeted him, but I was confused. “What are you doing here?”

“I was waiting for my takeout at the counter when I saw you.” The waitress came by with my drink and asked Lucas if he was ordering. “No, thank you, I won’t be long.” He smiled at her just as politely and she turned and left us alone. “I was actually going to call you later, Emma.” Lucas turned back to me and I raised my eyebrow at him.

“Oh yeah?” I sipped my hot tea and wrapped my fingers around the cup tightly. The air was chilly in the little building and the warmth of the cup felt good.

“I wanted to talk to you about the job you posted.”

“You want to manage my bar?” I asked.

“I do.” He smiled at me. “I’ve managed restaurants before. I cooked at Rizzo’s for two years before they let me supervise some shifts. I’ve been managing their ordering and their payroll for three years now.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Stop by the bar around seven and we can talk about everything.” Lucas agreed and the waitress brought his take-out along with my breakfast. He said his goodbyes and left me to my meal.

Lucas was a good candidate for managing my bar. He has the experience and he was very likeable. He’s been my friend for a long time, so I know how reliable he is. My only concern with hiring him is Nick. Lucas and I never dated; we’ve always just been friends, but we lost our virginity to each other one night after a few too many. We ended up in the backseat of his car to sleep it off, but we got a little too close. It was awkward the next day and the next few weeks after that. It was obvious we didn’t have feelings for each other, but after a long conversation talking our feelings out, we were able to remain friends and pretend it didn’t happen. Of course, big-mouth Natalie had to tell everyone she possibly could, but it only took a few weeks to blow over. Lucas and I weren’t exactly high status in the pack back then, so it wasn’t something everyone wanted to gossip about.

I finished my breakfast and paid the waitress, tipping her generously for her overly polite attitude. I went back to my house to change into my gym clothes for my training with Alan. I couldn’t get Reginald out of my head. I knew he would be there with his other Omegas to help train, but I wanted my usual training with Alan. No interruptions.

At the training center, Alan was already waiting for me, but there were a few new stragglers from the East pack that showed up early as well. I went straight up to Alan, but he was looking over the Omegas with a worried look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, breaking his stare on the wolves.

“Do you trust them?” He asked in a hushed voice.

“No.” I responded honestly.

“Then why are they here?”

“They’re our allies. If we go to war, we want wolves that are capable of winning a fight, right?” I punched his shoulder lightly and he chuckled.

“What are you doing here?” Alan suddenly asked me.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We always train on Tuesdays.”

“Yeah, I know. But Nick said no training today.”

“Nick said no training for who today?”

“For us.” He looked confused that I didn’t know already. “He didn’t want us in the way of the Omegas when they’re training.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Setting up the center like I always do.” I forgot that Alan was the one who took care of the training center. Cleaned it up every night and set it up in the morning for whatever anyone wanted to do for the day. Alan and I both turned to the door as Nick walked in. He did not look happy to see as he made long strides over to us.

“Good morning, Alpha.” Alan lowered his head as Nick.

“Emma,” Nick locked his eyes on me. “May I see you in the office?” By the tone of his voice I could tell he wasn’t requesting. I followed him silently to the other side of the training center and he gave me a little shove in the door as he slammed it. “What the hell, Emma?” He didn’t yell, but he was obviously upset.

“You didn’t tell me I was banned from training.” I defended myself.

“I would have if you didn’t sneak out on me last night.”

“This morning.” I corrected.

“Emma—” He wasn’t amused.

“What’s going on, Nick?” I asked. “Why don’t you want me training with Alan?” Nick let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t entirely trust the East pack.” He admitted as he collapsed into his chair behind his desk. “I put together a list of our weaker fighters and those are the ones who will be training with their Omegas today. I don’t want them to know our strengths yet.”

“Who do you consider the weaker fighters?” I asked, knowing full well my new friend would be on that list. Nick pulled the list from his desk drawer and handed it to me. I scanned the names and sure enough, there was Alan. I handed it back to him.

“Take Alan off the list.” I requested.

“No.”

“Nick!”

“Emma.” We stared at each other, but this was a fight I was not going to win.

“Why?”

“You’ve been training with Alan, and it’s great. He’s really improved, but he’s still one of our weaker fighters.” I had to admit that he was right. We haven’t been working together for a long time, but it was enough for improvement. We had many strong fighters, so finding a list of weak ones to train with the East pack had to be a difficult task. “Emma,” Nick paused until I turned to him. “I need you to stay with me today.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. No funny business. We need to look like a united pair.” What would be so hard about that? “You can’t interrupt anyone’s training; you will sit with me and Reginald and watch. We need to observe their fighters. When everyone is gone for the night, we’ll be categorizing them with Daniel. Understood?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“I’m serious, Emma.”

“I heard you, Nick.” I snapped. I wasn’t a child; I could handle a simple task such as sitting and observing. A knock at the door interrupted us, but Nick told them to enter anyway. Daniel peaked his head in.

“Are we ready?” He asked. Nick stood up and walked over to Daniel, handing him the list of names.

“Get them lined up and Reginald’s Omegas can pick who they want to train with.” Daniel nodded and closed to the door as he left.

“Let’s get this over with.”