Trapped: By love (Book 3) - Complete

Chapter 9

~Lucille~

The trip home, my mind is on what I need to get done in the new branch. I don’t even think we will need to appoint anyone to work there. I get angry all over again when I think of Ava trying to tell me how things work. I was managing a bank before her great grandmother was even in diapers! Okay fine, so I couldn’t actually tell her that so she wouldn’t know, but still.

“UGH” why did Thomas have to talk me into this? Why did I agree to do this come to think of it? I’m such an i***t!! I should have just said no. Maybe I can train Charlie and let her run it for him. I mean the hard part is done. The accounts are open, the branch is open again. Now someone just has to move the money around and keep an eye on it so nobody will suspect anything.

Although even that daft Ava had questions which I had to explain away with the old-money, trust-fund-baby excuse. “UGH!!” for f*cks sakes… I can’t let Charlie deal with this kind of stress. When financial auditors come sniffing around, she won’t have the experience to guide their attention in a different direction.

The plane lands and the car is waiting to take me home. I can’t wait to get there and see Brian. Just be a vampire for a minute and a mate for an hour before I think about business again! I step out of the plane and see him… Standing by the car.

Lucille “BRIAN!!”

Running down the stairs as fast as I can without arousing suspicion, I crash into his arms.

Brian “I thought I would surprise you.”

Lucille “Best surprise ever!!”

Pulling me up close, he gives me a soft kiss on my nose.

Brian “Come on, I want to get you home. You must be tired after your trip.”

I slide into the back seat of the car and he takes the seat next to me, my bags are put in the back and the driver climbs into the front with a guard in the passenger seat.

Lucille “What is this?”

Brian “Just some extra security measures Selena has put into place. I will tell you everything once you are settled. Now let’s get you home. Okay?”

Still being in the human parts of town, I don’t pay much attention to it. Sliding both my arms into his elbow, resting my head on his shoulder I watch the trees pass as we drive to the castle. I will be so glad when we get back home and I don’t have to deal with these modern-day things again. I hated being in the city with the foul dirty air. The constant buzz and noise from all corners. The way people were trying to constantly outdo each other.

This car is more expensive, my watch is the better model, my new phone has that extra feature. That is what I love about our simple life in the castle. We don’t need it. Yes, we have cars for when we need them. Yes, we have laptops and phones, but most of them are still in their boxes. Selena bought them for me for research purposes, but what I have in our library can’t be found anywhere on some laptops or phones.

Besides, I prefer the feel of a book, the smell of the leather and the paper. I feel a soft wind blowing on my ear.

Brian “We are home, you can wake up now.”

What? I fell asleep? I don’t sleep! I sit up and he jumps out running around to my side of the car, holding out his hand for me to take. I climb out and happily yawn when he picks me up bridal style, carrying me inside the castle. Resting my head against his shoulder, all I feel is the soft material of our bedding.

~Selena~

Lucille is finally home!! Standing in the entrance hall I eagerly await her energetic smile. But all I get as a passed-out vampire in the arms of her mate. I follow them to their room and watch as Brian puts her down on the bed. At least she is smiling, but she is clearly fast asleep and not going to tell me a*********s about her trip right now.

Brian “Did you want to speak to her now your Majesty?”

Selena “No, no, no it’s not urgent. Let her sleep. I was just curious about her trip.”

Turning around I leave Brian to tend to her. Not that I think he will be able to do much tending either. My dear friend is dead to the world at the moment. Walking back to my office I fidget with my nails when I realize my engagement ring isn’t on my finger.

I start looking around me, tracing back my steps, feeling panic set in. I can’t remember taking it off somewhere. I try and think where it could possibly be, checking outside where I was walking the night before. The dungeons. Could it have dropped when I was there? Surely a guard would have brought it back if they saw it? Unless it rolled into one of the cells…

No!! I need to find my ring! I feel tears starting to fall.

Charlie “Selena?”

I turn to see Charlie and David. Running straight into her arms giving her a huge hug.

Selena “Oh, finally you are back. I thought I would never see you again!”

Charlie “But we said we were coming back today. The freezer trucks will start arriving next week. Giving us time to get the bar and fridges ready. You have to see everything we bought! I’m so excited! I never owned my own bar before… Selena, why are you crying?”

Selena “I lost my engagement ring. I can’t find it anywhere.”

David “Your Majesty, I’m sure it’s not gone. We just need to look carefully. I will call some people to help us look. Okay?”

Charlie gives me another hug and we start searching again. Not long after most of the castle is awake and searching for my ring.

~Thomas~

I grab my dad’s diary and sit down behind the desk. My feet up, I start reading.

“We made it and just barely made it through the border patrols. My parents used our last money to pay a man that I didn’t think we could trust, but he brought us to this little town that my dad wanted us to come to. He has a book that he says was passed down from generations of Black’s telling of a story of a great ancestor of ours that came from this little town.

There is a deed for a piece of land here in the book, but it is so old that I don’t think it is worth anything. My dad seems to think otherwise.”

So, grandad was the one that moved back here and the family actually kept the deed to the territory. I need to check with Lucille where that is. That might help me establish the property lines so long. Turning the page, it continues.

“We went to a place called a bank today. Dad saw a man who didn’t look happy when he saw the piece of paper. First, he tried to tell dad that the place had been sold on auction many years ago because it had been left abandoned, but dad didn’t leave it there.

We walked out to where the property was and found the ruins of what was once a house built of stone. Dad marched us right back to the bank, demanding that the deed be recognized because the property was still abandoned.

The man had no other choice but to agree to our demands when other patrons of the establishment started agreeing with him. It seems this man didn’t have a good name in the community. The deed was recognized and my parents excitedly told me that we owned property in this new land.

Tonight, we sleep under the stars in our new home that has no walls and no roof, but it is ours. The first time I live in a house that we own.”

But we own so many other properties all over the world…

“Today, dad and I cleaned the ground around the house and mom pulled out the bushes on the inside. It was hard work and my hands are too sore to write a lot. Tomorrow we start rebuilding our home so I might not be journaling for a while.”

Wow… so my grandparents and my dad physically built the house on their own. But now I don’t understand how Mom came into the picture. She was also a wolf and she wasn’t from here. Skipping a couple of pages, I start reading again.

“Dad found a secret compartment in one of the walls with books from our ancestors. It has a register of more families around the country. We thought we were the last ones left! We thought we were running from war to a strange land and now we find out that we have family here.

Mom couldn’t wait and made contact as soon as she found out and we are going to visit them in a month. Just think of it… cousins my age… won’t that be wonderful!”

Okay dad, please tell me mom wasn’t your cousin!! A shiver runs down my spine. He carries on telling of the arrangements then the trip there, meeting his cousins and I roll my eyes, skipping a couple more pages.

“Today is my first day in the service of our country. I’m excited but nervous. Dad said he is proud of me and mom wouldn’t stop crying. I climbed the train with my chest proud.

There are army nurses on the same train as us and they giggle as we guys can’t keep our eyes off them. Nothing wrong with appreciating true beauty. But one captured my heart the moment I saw her.

She was walking in the middle of her group on the platform. Her long black hair blowing in the wind, bright blue eyes shining like pools of the ocean captured and her red lips full of life.

Something was pulling me to her, like a siren’s call. I was openly gawking while she shyly stole a look and blushed.”

No, that can’t be… did they? I guess they must have. But then none of that explains how I got here… okay, never mind. It doesn’t explain how Azi and I get our mess sorted out or how the books found their way here. I skip a bunch of pages.

“I have found it, the last of the journals. The package arrived today. After years of searching our entire family history is in one room. I just don’t know if I will have that many years to read them all. Now that I have them together, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the lot of them.

I also came across two financial ledgers during my search. I wonder if there could be more. These are from around the same time as the book my father used on our voyage here. Meaning there should be more.”

Okay great! But if he didn’t know about being a wolf, how would he have known about getting the alpha books together?!

Azi “That is a million-dollar question Thomas… how do you know he didn’t know about being a wolf? You said yourself that he didn’t allow you near these cupboards. That he always kept them locked.”

Thomas “How do you know about that? You weren’t here when I said that?!”

Azi “Oh, brother, do I have to draw pictures for you?”

Thomas “UGH!!!”

“Today Thomas was born. Today I think my wife turned into a monster. Not the kind men joke about. The real-life kind, with canines, ears like a wolf and paws with claws as huge as a bear!!

She gave birth here at home, not wanting to go to the hospital and at first, I couldn’t understand why. Now I know. I looked in on her and Thomas and she looks normal again and they are sleeping.

What do I do? I’m too scared to go near her! What if my son is also a monster? Wait I read something in one of those books.”

So, mom knew, she turned when she had me. Did she know before she had me? Is she royal blood? Would that affect? Could that be the reason Azi and I are two separate entities in one body? So many damn questions and nobody to answer them!!!

I drop the book on the desk and take a deep breath. Will I ever know what really happened?