I wake up to my phone's ringing. What time is it? So bright… Seriously, who is calling so early… f**k, I have to answer, that's Neal’s number.
“What is it?”
“Nate, it's happening again. It’s bad.”
“s**t… Ok, I’m coming.”
I hang up and sigh. For my brother's Beta to call me means it must be really bad… I should be getting up sometime soon anyway. I mind-link our little brother while hitting the shower.
Liam, where are you?
...Busy, why?
Seriously? You are on another territory again? How many times do I have to tell you?
Come on I'm just having fun. My exams are over and I'm bored.
Come back right now. Damian is having another one.
Oh crap… Ok, ok, I'll get there.
Seriously, sometimes I just can't take how carefree Liam is. I grab whatever clothes I find, a shirt and a dark pair of jeans, and run downstairs to get my motorbike. Thank Moon Goddess, my brother only lives a few blocks away, and with my bike, I can avoid most of Silver City’s early traffic. I speed up a bit, and it only takes me ten minutes to get to the Black Corporation Building Damian lives in.
We both own it, but I don't like the idea of living at our Company's building. I need some privacy and my own place. Damian doesn't really have any life on is own aside work anyway…
The secretaries at the entrance give me flirtatious glances when I come in, but seriously, I don't give a damn right now... I just run to the elevator and hit the button. The elevator's mirror isn't flattering. My hairstyle is still half wet, and I didn't have time to shave either. I try to settle my shirt a bit. This is still the Company building after all.
I finally reach the twenty-eighth floor. I see a couple of female workers blush when I run past them. I guess blue eyes are less scary than my brother's silver irises…
I spot Neal in front of my brother's office. With his shaved head and piercings, he doesn’t look like a CEO’s secretary at all, but the guy is skilled. He’s been by my brother’s side for a few years now, but the Beta looks tired and a bit pale. Guess he still can’t handle my brother’s crisis on his own. A few of my brother’s pack members, the Blood Moon's lieutenants, are there too. They all look relieved to see me.
“How's he?” I ask.
Neal shakes his head.
“It started a couple of hours ago. I couldn't stop it. But he didn’t shape-shift.”
“It's ok, I'll take it from there. Can you just replace him at the meetings for this morning?”
“Of course. Just let me know, ok?”
“Yeah. Leave us alone guys.”
They all nod, but I know some of them are still just going to wait in front of the door. My brother's people loyalty to him is like that.
I enter the office. What a freaking mess… Damian really went crazy this time. The furniture is a wreck. I have to be careful where I step, between all the sharp wood pieces. s**t, why is there shattered glass too? I told them not to leave any glass around him!
I spot my brother, sitting against the wall, his head in his hands. I can’t see his face, just his jet black hair. He’s breathing heavily, I don’t even think he noticed me coming in. I walk slowly up to him and Damian starts growling furiously. I don’t care, I know he would never hurt me.
“Damian…”
“Get the f**k out, Nate,” he growls.
Does he realize he’s using his Alpha aura? Not that he can actually scare me, though, but no one outside this door could approach him at the moment. No wonder they had to call me. I ignore his warnings and only stop right in front of him. I can’t really blame Damian. My brother has been enduring this nightmare for years now... I don’t know how he can take it. I crouch down to face him, putting a hand on the nape of his neck, but he pushes me away.
“Don’t comfort me.”
“Damian, you have to snap out of it.”
“Shut up.”
I sigh. He really is hard to deal with when he’s like that. I wait a couple of minutes, but he is not saying a word, just closing his eyes and hiding his face like he is in pain. I see his closed fist shaking.
“...You want to tell me about it?”
I hear him breathe in with difficulty, and he raises his head to face me. He really doesn’t look good… His eyes are red and he has dark circles under it. s**t, he looks like he’s about to murder someone.
“...It’s her again, isn’t it?”
“They’re f*****g beating her, Nate.”
As he says that, his voice breaks, and he puts his head in his arms again. It’s been like that for ten years, yet he is still willing to endure it. My brother met his fated mate when they were children, but lost her. Yet, the bond between them is still there. Whenever she’s in pain, he can feel it, through his wolf. We have no idea why, but that girl is often beaten up or injured. Every time, It’s a torture for him, but he never wanted to break that bond. The only thing he’s obsessed with his finding her.
I still don’t know if I think this is stupid of him, or if I should be jealous. He could simply reject her, and move on. Forget it all, forget that little girl he met so many years ago. But Damian won’t. My brother is so stubborn, he is willing to endure for that stranger’s sake.
I don’t really get it. I had my heart broken once, and that was it. I learned my lesson, the hard way. Who needs love? I can find any girl tonight, sleep with her and move on. Why would we need to get complicated feelings involved in the first place? That’s only bound to break sometime, and hurt. I’m done with that.
Damian is an i***t do hold on like this.
"Hey, Damian?"
Liam just came in, too. Our little brother is Damian's carbon copy, except for the fact that he's still in his teens. Aside from that, my brothers both have the same jet black hair and almost the same facial features. I'm the only one who inherited our mother's pale blonde hair and soft traits. The only thing is that Damian has silver eyes, mine are light blue, and Liam's are somewhere in between.
He runs to us, leaves his bag halfway and sits next to me.
"We're going to find her, Damian, I promise. You have to hold on."
I nod, but we have been saying that for years now. I don't know how Damian can still believe in us, but he does. The only thing we know is that the girl he met was seven years old, with black hair, night blue eyes, and a scar on her face. She could be in any pack, anywhere in Silver City...
We stay with my brother until he can actually calm down, a couple of hours later. Damian is the strongest in our family, the Alpha King of Silver City. If it wasn’t for him stepping up, we might still be until our father’s violent domination. Maybe because he is the oldest, Damian always stood between our father and us. He took care of us and protected us as long as he could. So, as the second born, I owe it to him to be there when he’s the one in pain.
We finally take a cup of coffee together, and once I’m sure Damian’s stable, we leave him to Neal and his meetings. Liam leaves the Company building saying he will go to the police station to see if they have any clue about the girl and I go to my own office a few floors downstairs.
I didn’t peek at my phone at all until now, so it’s no surprise I have a dozen missed calls, and twice as many messages. I run through the list quickly. Most of them are from my managers.
I saw a couple of texts from Narcissa, but I don’t feel like dealing with her right now. I can always say I was busy with work later.
I make sure to be, at least. Most of my day is spent between calling back my managers, answering emails and attending meetings with Damian. All day, my secretary is getting on my nerves. She has that stupid smile on all day, and I catch her glancing at me at least five times before lunch. Why the heck is she blushing like some teenage girl? Exasperated the third time she brings me the wrong file, I call Isaac into my office and send her to the secretaries office for some stupid task.
Isaac, my Beta and best friend comes in ten minutes later. He always has a gentle smile on, and a juvenile look. If it wasn’t for the large burn scar on his neck and bad taste in clothes, he would be as popular as me with the female workers. Who wears a brown suit nowadays?
“Hi, Nate. What do we have today?”
“You have to fire that secretary, Isaac. She isn’t able to focus more than ten minutes on a file and has the attitude of a teenage girl!”
He shakes his head, not looking surprised at all.
“Nate, it’s the third secretary this month.”
“I don’t give a damn. Find an old one or a guy, I don’t care, but one that can actually do some decent work without eyeing me!” I growl.
He laughs and crosses his arms.
“Sorry, mister popular, but you’re demanding. That girl had the best resume. It’s not my fault they all want to get in your bed. For the reminder, the previous one was fifty years old, and it didn’t help.”
I glare at him. That last woman was a freaking cougar and obsessed with me too. Is he blaming it on me now? Why did Damian have to make Isaac the Human Ressources Head? I have to argue with my Beta twice a month because of that.
“You’ll have to do with it, Nate, I’m not changing your secretary again unless you give me a good reason for it. Last time I made the secretaries’ office share the work for you, the girls almost fought. That’s what you get for being the bachelor Alpha with the reputation of sleeping around.”
That’s easy for him to say. He's the one who forbade me from having anymore physical relationship with the female staff... He’s too afraid it would get me into a scandal or something, and he knows I would never get in a serious relationship either. Yet, all the female employees keep fantasizing about me, because I seem nicer and more approachable than Damian, who basically scares the whole building. Moreover, I have a reputation for sleeping around, making their expectations even worse.
Isaac smirks.
“Come on, you’re just in a bad mood because you’ve been working like crazy these days, aren’t you? Just call Narcissa or someone.”
“No, not Narcissa.”
She’s been getting annoying these days, and I’m bored with her. Even as a s*x friend, she has a cold and commanding personality too. The only thing I like about her is her mature attitude and her looks. That’s it. I sigh and get up to stare at Silver City behind my office’s glass wall. Isaac’s right, I just need to get some relief.
“Alright, let’s go out tonight. I want to check out the new nightclub we bought.”
“That’s my man! Now stop whining about your secretary and let me go do what you're paying me for,” says Isaac.
He leaves my office with a wink, and I roll my eyes. He’s right, I just need to evacuate it all somehow. It’s been a while since I actually went out. Hopefully, I can find some decent relief tonight…