Returned (ATHENS WOLVES NOVELLA)

3

I jumped awake hearing my sisters ring tone and dug through my pocket and swiped to answer. "Hello, what's up?"

"She's awake." Courtney's happy cheerful voice came through the end and I just smiled happily.

"I'm on my way back right now." I told her and then looked at the time and then realized how dark it was.

"Did you take a shower?" She asked me and I huffed and rolled my eyes. "Take one, I will tell her what you are doing and then explain that you smelled like a dead cat in the sun for 3 weeks." She told me and I just growled before sniffing myself.

"I do not smell that bad." I told her and she laughed.

"You do dear brother, now shower quick and get back here. She is happy you are back." She told me and I hung up and rushed towards my old room. I found a dark blue V-neck that would be tight in certain areas more than before. I found a grey sweatshirt that was also tight and then went right towards the shower.

I took a quick one, sliding on my older boxers, my jeans from just the other day, and then walked right out and then walked to my bike. I didn't bother to lock up, no one messed with this house, never did, and never will.

I pulled on my leather jacket again and rode right back to the clinic and then ran inside seeing Courtney standing near the end of the bed and I walked faster and opened the curtain seeing Rene's brown eyes sparkling when she looked at me.

"Hey there big bro." She whispered and I walked closer and sat next to her on the bed.

"How are you feeling?" I asked and she smiled weakly.

"Better. You came." She whispered and I smiled and nodded.

"Someone had to come see if you were going to be okay." I said and leaned in and kissed her forehead.

"Sam said I could go home tonight if I keep healing at the rapid rate." She told me and I smiled wider.

"Good, I was at the house already. The couch is very comfortable." I said and she gave me a small smile again and I ran my hand down her hair. "You can sleep on it." I suggested and her mouth fell open. "I can take your bed."

"Over my dead body." She glared and I lost the amusement when I looked around. "Sorry, not the best analogy huh?"

"No." I said and shook my head and I heard a throat clear behind me.

"Everything okay in here?" I heard Sam and turned back to look at her coming in with a small worried look.

"Everything is fine." Rene told her and then looked at me.

"I don't know what happened? But for right now could you try and relax a bit? You're heart rate spiked immensely and if you want to go home tonight then you have to have good vital signs." She told her, not in a snobby, I know more than you do, kind of way, but a just letting you know, kind of way.

"Sorry, I just got happy seeing Sean again." Rene told her and I looked back at her and winked and she smiled widely.

"Okay, but if your heart rate picks up like that again you will need to be left alone to rest again." She warned and I caught the brief glace towards me.

Something sparked in her eyes and I caught it and narrowed my eyes trying to figure it out. She jerked her head to the side and I just gave her a small nod and focused back on Rene. "I'll be right back. Have to take a piss but don't miss me too much."

"Don't play games, I saw Sam asking you to come out there." Rene told me and I gave her a wide eyed look and she winked back at me. "I am very observant."

"I still have to piss." I told her and she scrunched her face up. I got up and walked out and saw Sam fidgeting. "What? Is something still wrong with Rene?" I asked her coming closer but stopping a safe distance away.

"When I was giving her the transfusion Tino called." She told me and I waited. "She's half witch." She basically whispered out and I blinked.

"How is that possible?" I asked her knowing most wolves hated witches, especially warlocks.

"I don't ever remember there being any problems with warlocks when I was young. Do you?" She asked and I narrowed my eyes.

"My mother didn't sleep with the bad warlock." I said and she blinked and gulped.

"I didn't say she did."

"You said a problem with a warlock... does she have to have s*x with a guy who is a problem besides my father?" I asked her and then shook my head. I was not going to get into this. "I have to piss, excuse me." I said and moved past her, making sure to let her see I didn't ever want to touch her by giving her a wide berth and then slamming the bathroom door.

I unzipped my pants and was just about to pull myself out when the door was thrown open. "You know what... you have no right to act like being around me is painful. You made me reject you!" Sam shouted and I quickly zipped up but didn't button before turning to her.

"Like you didn't want to! You didn't even put up a fight! You gave me this look asking me if I was seriously asking that and then you did it. No problem. Just didn't expect that I expected it. Wanted to inflict more pain on me." I muttered the last part and moved past her to the door and held it open.

"No, you don't get to come back and start ordering me around and assuming things." She said and crossed her arms.

"Unless you want me to piss with you standing right here... I have been with rogues for the past 8 years, I really could care less." I told her and she turned beet red before storming out. I closed and locked it this time before going back and pissing.

I walked out still wiping my hands and scenting her close by but I went right to Rene. I didn't need to hear more from Sam about what she thinks I am trying to do to her.

I walked closer to the chair since Courtney was now near Rene and I watched them interact talking about nothing and everything. It was their quirk. I used to have it too. We would still do it if I never left.

But I couldn't stay. Not even now. Even if seeing them talking made me miss the pack, them, and everything I knew as a kid.

I had to stay away from Sam, or my wolf would be driven insane. I also had to take care of my new family. The Canadian Rogues.

"Hey! I am talking to you." Courtney slapped my knee and I moved my eyes from the wall and looked at her.

"Sorry, zoning out."

"I asked what happened between you and Sam out there." She said and I gulped slightly and she narrowed her eyes.

"Rene is part witch." I said and looked to my baby sister who looked confused.

Courtney told her a bit more about what had happened since she had been admitted to the clinic, how long it had been, and then the blood tests, Valentino Clarke saying she was half witch and then she demanded to speak to Sam.

"I'll get her." Knowing that Courtney needed to calm her down and I wasn't the best person for the job right now.

I got up and mentally kicked myself as I sniffed her out. I went back towards the bathroom but realized it wasn't her in there at the moments and then followed her scent into a private office seeing her sitting with her head on her desk and her hair now down from it's bun.

"Rene would like to speak to you about her blood work." I announced and she gasped and lifted her head before turning away. But not before I could see the red cheeks, and the blotchiness and heard her sniffle. I obviously made her cry.

She wiped at her face no longer trying to hide her tears before standing up. She was no longer wearing her white coat and I got to see her in a tight grey dress. It was long, to her knees but it hugged all her curves.

Now with her brown hair down and slightly curled because of her bun. "I'll call Tino in for her." She said almost quietly and I blinked before turning and walking away. I stopped and turned back before halting and taking a deep breath. I heard her heels just before she turned the corner and knocked into me. "Sorry." She said walking around me and I followed her and then stopped when her head looked back at me.

I gave her a few feet and then started walking as well. She walked in and told Rene that she had to call in Valentino because he could really explain to her what he found in her blood. "Thank you Sam." Rene nodded to her and Sam turned right around and looked at me before blinking. Her eye twitched and she rushed past me and I looked at my sisters and then followed the sound of her heels.

"What do you want?" She asked realizing I had followed her.

"What's wrong?" I asked knowing that if I didn't ask and she started crying again my wolf would lose it.

"Nothing."

"Bull, Sam just tell me." I told her and crossed my arms waiting.

"You being here is what is wrong. You said that I would never have to talk to you again and even then it hu- it is just getting hard." She told me and I walked closer.

"My sister is in there in a bed, only half holding onto her sanity and you are crying because you have to talk to me? Really?" I asked and leaned on her desk as she groaned and sank into the chair.

"I'm crying because it is hard to see you here so carefree. It hurts to know that you didn't care enough about me to give us a chance. All because you wanted to leave the pack, all because you thought you needed to distance yourself! You didn't once think about what I wanted. You didn't ask me, you didn't even let me think about what I wanted." She said and I saw the tears coming down her face and I leaned forward.

"You didn't want me, your father would have rather seen my entire family sent to that prison than to have me as a son in law." I ground out and she huffed and rolled her eyes getting a tissue and wiping her eyes.

"I am not my father, or my mother, just like you are not your parents. But if you really think that I didn't want you then you really didn't know a damn thing about me."

"You wanted me as your mate?" I asked her and she gulped before nodding.

"I did. Until you made me reject you." She said and I wiped another tear from her cheek and she froze.

"I made you reject me because I couldn't utter the words. I would never force our mating on you. I would never let you be ashamed of me your entire life." I whispered out and she met my eye again before her tears started up again.

"You thought I would be ashamed to have you as my mate?" She asked her voice cracking the whole way through and I nodded feeling my own emotions rise a bit.

"That's why you had a reject me. I could accept it as long as you said the words. Jeeze Sam if you didn't mean it why did you say it like that. Like you really meant it?" I asked sitting in the chair across from her and looking at her.

"I thought you just wanted to be free of this pack. To think you didn't even have me here. You didn't even ask what I wanted, you just demanded I reject you. You cornered me, growled and snarled my name over and over telling me to do it. So I sucked up all the courage in my body and said it because you wanted it so bad." She whispered and the last part and I felt my wolf push through.

"What would you have wanted Sam? Because with or without you as my mate I would have still left." I told her and covered my face and then she looked at me.

"I would have gone with you! Of course I would have. I didn't want to hear it from everyone in the pack that you were my mate, how I was pitied because you had left me.... I would have rather gone with you, I didn't care about what they said. I still don't." She told me and then stood up.

I stood as well and she came closer and hugged me tight and I let myself relax a bit and hold her to me tight as well.

"I take back my rejection. I accept you, Sean Miller, as my eternal fated mate." She whispered lifting her head and looking me right in the eye and I smiled for the first time in what felt like years and pulled her tighter against me.