Chapter 11 Transform Havoc Into Order

—Eveline —

The return home was uneventful, though it wasn’t for lack of temptations.

I’ve been trying so hard not to scream at the top of all the hills that I had found my mate. I was on a constant high. I needed a release, so I rushed home to find the girls.

The triplets were by the pool, behind the house.

“Where’s Nadine and Amy?” I asked them.

“Nadine’s on the phone with Holly,” said Jass.

“I think Amy is helping Mom with something,” said Lisa.

“Why?” asked Gwen.

“I’ve something to tell you,” I said.

“Did something happen?” asked Jass, eager for good gossip. “Tell, tell, tell.”

I bit my lip. “Wait a sec.” I texted the others.

Jass groaned in impatience, but I waited for them to join me before I said anything.

Everyone was antsy, probably because I was to begin with.

“I found my mate,” I finally said the second Amy, the last of my sisters, walked onto the patio.

“I knew it,” Nadine said, and sat next to me.

“What?” said Jass at the same time, clapping her hands against her mouth in shock.

Amy froze her eyes wide, before fast-walking to join in on the conversation.

“Who’s he?” asked Lisa.

“His name is Darren.”

“What does he do?” she continued. And it went on like that for a while. “Where does he come from?”, “What does he look like?”, “Is he nice?”

I answered everything, but at the same time I didn’t know that much about him. I also told them about my plans to visit him in a week or so. We talked for hours.

I love my sisters. The six of us are really close. We were also born a lot closer together. I mean there’s a huge fifteen-year gap between me and Kaden, but only two years between Nadine and I, the triplets—Lisa, Gwen, and Jasmine—were born the next year, and Amy two years later. We’d play together, and hang out together in school.

To begin with, we were Devons. Everyone knew we were the daughters of the Hellhound, and then later the sisters of the Hellhound—this nickname started with my grandpa actually, but followed through the generations—there as been a few notorious wolves in my family.

Being kids of Alphas can affect your life, but kids of infamous Alphas, it’s on a whole different level.

There were always people approaching us because of that. There were also always others who ran away, for pretty much the same reasons.

We were popular in school, but at the same time, we didn’t get that many deep and long-lasting friendships. But we had each other. No one could understand better. In school, we were clan Devon.

I don’t know much how things were for Kaden though. He doesn’t talk about it much. By the time I got to school he’d finished high school, had been Alpha for a while and was in college. I don’t even know if he had the time for that kind of social life.

Us, however, we were free, wealthy, and in retrospect, pretty much treated like a bunch of princesses.

Today, we chilled by the pool, drank colourful drinks with little umbrellas and fruity decorations, and laughed, speculated, joked, and swam under the summer sun.

We got back in for dinner around six.

The packhouse was a communal space. It had all the amenities you could want plus a lot of luxuries. Including a big pool. Non-members of the Blakemore pack were forbidden from using the packhouse, but it was open to anyone else. Behind it, on the same land, were a number of buildings including my parents’ house. It had ten bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, and was by all consideration a very upscale thing.

Naturally, Mom insisted for Kaden to come and have dinner with us every Friday that he was not away, or abroad—as he had his own house on the property.

I sent Darren a quick text before entering the dining room. Jass saw it and smirked at me.

The girls and I were chatting quietly when Mom came in.

“Do you have a picture?” Jass asked me about Darren.

“No.”

“About whom?” asked Mom.

“Eum.” I saw Dad and Kaden walk into the room talking about something Dad used to do for the pack. I didn’t stop pondering about telling my parents and immediately got anxious. “My mate,” I said not too loudly.

“What is that?” my mother asked nonchalantly.

“Her mate,” repeated Jass loudly.

Mom froze, her eyes wide, Dad stopped talking and joined us at the table.

“Sweetie, you found your mate?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said instantaneously self-conscious.

“And?” she prompted.

“He seems nice,” I admitted.

Dad realizing he was not getting much out of me fast enough, switched his attention to Kaden. “You met that mate?” Everyone turned to him.

“Yeah,” he said grabbing his first bite.

“What’s his pedigree?”

“Dad,” “Sebastian,” both Mom and I admonished.

“It’s a legitimate question,” he answered.

“Forth son of Stonewillow’s Alpha. No title, no job, at college. Dropped out of a business degree, but is currently working on finishing his accounting degree. 26, brown hair, brown eyes, no visible scars, a relatively wealthy family, but he’s not very high on the heirloom hierarchy. His father seems to be strongly conservative and trying to get something out of this—”

“What?” I interrupted him.

Dad scoffed.

“I talked to him on the plane,” he said. “If he gives you a hard time, I need to know. Father or son. I can’t do anything if I don’t know.”

“Do what?”

He shrugged.

“How conservative are we talking?” Dad asked.

“I don’t think he’s okay with the possibility of his son moving away to be with his mate, rather than the other way around.”

“He’s gonna come here?” asked Mom.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll go and see him for a couple of weeks, and then we’ll decide.”

“Will you move there otherwise?” asked Nadine.

“No. I thought about it, and talked to him about it, but I like it here. I’m not ready to leave. I like my job too. What would I do there?” I said. “And he’s okay with this. He said he even thought of leaving before we met. It’s just that we don’t want to rush things too fast. And I know you gave him a contact for him to finish his internship here,” I said turning to my brother. “Thanks by the way. It’s really nice of you.”

He nodded at me. “Glad you want to keep working.”

“Of course. Why would I not?”

He just shrugged.

Darren was pretty much the subject of conversation for the rest of the dinner.

Once it was over, I went straight upstairs to my room, locked it, and pulled my phone out.

He was probably sleeping at this point, so I just sent him one message and went straight to bed.

Jet-lag knocked me unconscious in seconds.

The next days were mostly spent at the office.

Like most Mondays, it was busy right from the start.

As Brandon, my brother’s assistant, or personal secretary—however you want to call his position—was on bed rest. He usually follows Kaden all over the place, but he generally refrain from battlegrounds. However, the story was that the safe house had been attacked, and he got stabbed a few times. Thus, mandatory bed rest.

Only this guy is probably an even worst workaholic than my brother, and I know that he asked Marie to bring him his laptop and some documents. So he may be in bed, but I’m still unclear on the rest part.

I know all this, because the office is an incubator for gossip. And quite frankly, I like it. I’m in my right element. Granted, I’m not as hungry for gossip as my sister Jasmine. She, though, is a little excessive. I’m a healthy gossiper. She’s a manic one.

Brandon was the subject of a third of the gossip going around in my department. The other third being the whole campaign my brother won, and the fall of the Coven of Ruthenia. The third being me and my mysterious mate.

I came to my desk feeling like a celebrity.

I didn’t even tell anyone but my sisters and siblings. But given Jass’s personality, I’m sure the whole of Blakemore knows by now.

Next to Kaden’s office is Brandon’s office, and next to it is the room with our desks.

Marie is more or less Brandon’s assistant. She’s the oldest of us and was Dad’s secretary before. She’s matronly with her salt and pepper hair and her glasses, and she’s a no-nonsense kind of person. She also relays the office with Brandon when he’s away on business. She’s the one that make everything tick. She transforms havoc into order.

Julie has a similar job as mine most of the time. We set conference tables, makes sure everything that needs copying is copied, everyone has their coffee when needed, and generally does anything either Marie, Brandon, or Kaden, or any other ranked members needs us to do. The only difference is that I’m generally the liaison. I’m the one who interacts with visitors and guesses, or I travel to connect with Alphas, have contracts signed, those kind of things. Julie is a mousy brown hair wee little thing. If she could find out how, I’m sure she’d walk between the paint and the wall. She doesn’t attract attention to herself, and does her thing at her own pace. She’s good, but not the social butterfly that I am. Not even a social caterpillar.

Mark is more the secretary than any of us. He keeps calendars, and schedules, take the calls, emails, and forward everything to the right persons.

There are plenty of packs who don’t even have a regular secretary, or have their Betas or Gammas do that type of work. But Blakemore is huge. We even have two Gammas, and even two Deltas. I’ve heard of only two packs with positions of Deltas.

There was a time when werewolves had pretty small packs. And we were pretty much seen as the representative of the low or middle-class citizens of the supernatural communities. But some packs lasted for a few generations. And we tend to get attached to land, acquiring any when we can. Some packs got real intense on the land acquiring business. And then the Industrial Revolution happened. Packs grew bigger, some as big as small towns. Some invested in industries to get their members work.

With things like compound interest, land values inflation, and multi-generational inheritance—either through family members, or pack members—time alone became the driving force behind a lot of accumulated wealth.

Some of the better off packs either are very old, or have struck gold at some point, either literally or figuratively.

Blakemore has a bunch of businesses. Some old, some newer. Technically, they all belong to Kaden, he’s the main investor, or chairman, or something alike for all of them, but he has managers, and CEOs and such for them all—there’s just too much for a single person to do.

There are a lot of people to coordinate with, on the political agenda, or businesses, or just the pack members, making sure they’re all okay. Packs are like societies within a society. Some have even some independence regarding the human local politics. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

I passed Mads and Stellan, chilling at their desks doing what security does best, which is not much when things are quiet. Come to think about it, Mads could have told them. He knows for sure about my mate.

I saw a few in the other offices get their heads together as I passed by. Others waving their hands more enthusiastically than usual.

“Hey there!” said Mark.

“Hey!” I answered jovially. I liked Mark. He had skin the colour of the most delicious Belgian chocolate, and the most infectious smile I’ve ever seen. He’s constantly joking around. There is something absolutely charming about a good-looking man with a sense of humour. If he’d been interested, I would’ve dated him in a heartbeat. But even though he liked his job and everything, there is no way in hell he’d date the Hellhound’s sister. I realized this as I jokingly offered to get him a date with one of my sisters. He wasn’t rude when he turned it down, it was actually pretty smooth and a little funny, but it stung when he said no to all of us, regardless.

What stung the most was probably the fact that there are a lot of men thinking exactly the same thing.

Darren didn’t seem to mind, but again, we haven’t talked that much yet.

And then what Kaden said yesterday echoed in my head. His father might have an agenda. What if he does too. It would sting far worst to realize the only thing I attract are guys with an agenda.

“I just heard the news,” Mark said.

“Does everyone knows already?” I asked him.

“Possibly, princess.” He’s been calling me that since we met a few years ago.

“Is the date fixed for France?”

“Confirmed, you leave early Thursday, and return late Friday.”

“That’s gonna be a quickie.”

“Well, it’s right before the weekend, so if you want to spend it there, you tell me now, so I can book your plane accordingly.”

I thought about it some. “No. I’ll return early.”

“Really,” he said surprised. “Anything to do with your boo?”

“Maybe, after France, I’m gonna take a few weeks off and go to see him.”

“You gonna move there?” he asked more seriously. Julie passed us and went to her desk, listening intently.

“No. We’re gonna see how things goes between us, but I’ll come back. I keep my pack and my job.”

“Cool. Girl power and all,” he commented. “But it might be hard on a relationship. I don’t want to pour rain on your parade, but long-distance sucks. My coz tried it, and it went south real quick.”

“No long distance. If we work out, he moves in.”

Julie smile discreetly at that.

We didn’t have the time to discuss it much further as Marie came in, and distributed a bunch of documents to take care of. Then went through what I needed for France and surprised me by telling me she’s coming along.

The rest of the day flew by.

Whenever I had a few minutes free, I would text Darren.

We’d been talking like that since I left. Often minutes, or even hours in between texts, stuck each with work, or time zones.

I wanted to face-time at least, but our schedules didn’t fit easily.

I got Mark to book my flight to Stonewillow for next Monday, giving me the weekend to prepare. I decided not to book my return yet, so that I could adjust on the fly. Pun intended.

The rest of the week was a strange mix of time flying by, intersected by moments that couldn’t end soon enough. I tried not to exasperate anyone, or be too much of a mess. I don’t know how well I fared. I was distracted a lot. But everything worked out in the end, until I left for France at last.