Chapter Ten: Pirouette
1672 Words
When Sebastian finally returned to the pack house the day following the Beltane Ball, he felt lighter than air. He’d finally met his mates - mates! Two of them. Carrie was going to s**t a brick when he told her that they were Princes, even though that meant that things were about to change for the Misfits in a major way.
Little did he know that floating so high only meant that he had farther to fall when it all came crashing down.
The pack house was eerily quiet when he walked in. The reception desk was devoid of their usual receptionist, Princess Francesca, and while the pack house was never an especially busy place this early in the morning he wasn’t used to it being so....silent. The phantom sense of dread that haunted the back of his mind only grew was he strode down the hallway toward the kitchen and found that it too was empty, aside from a kettle which had been left on the stove. It just began whistling as he entered the empty kitchen, so he moved it from the stove and turned the burner off.
“Hello?” he called, assuming that whoever had been boiling water must be nearby.
When there was no answer, Sebastian patted at his pockets for his phone, which he’d muted the night before and had yet to turn back on. He cursed loudly when he saw the flood of missed messages, then ran out of the kitchen in the direction of the elevator. Sebastian’s heart rose up into his throat as the elevator ascended, nearly choking him by the time it dinged, and the doors opened onto the second floor Alpha suite where all twenty or so of their still relatively small pack had gathered, including Elder Mason Silvius who was the first to take notice of him.
“Beta Sebastian, thank the goddess they didn’t take you too.” he growled, pulling Sebastian into a bear hug so rough that it actually caused the breath to squeak from him in a rather embarrassing manner.
“Where’s…” Sebastian wheezed, his face turning red from a mixture of embarrassment and lack of air. “Carrie..?!”
The Elder’s expression was stony as he released the Beta from his stranglehold, but Sebastian had been around him long enough now to detect that Mason wasn’t speaking because he couldn’t answer without potentially losing it - and if Mason Silvius started crying everyone in the room would probably panic. He was the adultiest adult in the room; one of the cornerstones of the pack’s strength - him and the Alpha, Mason’s daughter Penelope Silvius.
Sebastian patted Mason’s shoulder, and looked around for his Alpha. She off to one corner speaking to a lean man in a black suit that Sebastian had never seen before. He had a long face with a five o’clock shadow even though it was just past seven, and dark circles under his dark brown eyes. That’s when he realized that The Misfits were not alone in the Alpha suite.
Aside from his gathered pack, there were several black besuited official looking types hanging around as well, speaking with various members of the pack - a few of them taking notes. One of them caught his eye - or rather, his ear. She looked like a real ball buster; easily six feet tall with long, straight, dark auburn hair tied into a long tail, and a skirt that was too short to truly be considered work appropriate. She was not wearing a jacket, but was wearing a white button down shirt. It was hanging haphazardly over her shoulders, showing off the straps of the silky camisole she wore under it.
She was also shouting into a cell phone in a loud and authoritative tone, “Listen to me, you little s**t! I have been running operations since before you were born.”
She didn’t look a day over thirty-five, but age and appearance had little to do with each other in the supernatural world. Sebastian broke out into a sweat, because even though she wasn’t quite facing him, and even though it had been years since he last saw her in person, he still recognized her.
“If a word of this gets out before it’s supposed to, I will personally destroy any opportunity you have of making children with the heel of my pointy black shoe. I keep them sharp for just such occasions.” She threatened, her voice a low growl. The woman spun about and paused mid-rant when she caught sight of Sebastian. Then, she smiled and said in a much gentler tone, “I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding. Thank you.”
She hung up the phone, and approached the young Beta.
“Aunt Amber…” Sebastian said, his heart sinking from his throat to the pit of his stomach. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
He wanted to be happy to see his godmother again, but knew that the only reason she’d be in their pack house right now with a bunch of other SPIN agents was because whatever had happened to Carrie was bad. So bad that it required the supernatural equivalent of the CIA to fix it - although they were most famous for cleaning up after an event that had already gone sideways. It was also difficult to see her again because her presence reminded him so viscerally of the worst day of his life.
Amber put her hands on his shoulders, squeezing them gently. “We’re here because your friend Carrie was kidnapped, Sebby…and because we’re going to get her back safe.”
Carrie startled awake to the sound of a chiming alarm growing progressively louder. She groaned softly, scrunching up her adorable little face against the lights, which had turned on without her prompting. Then, there was a crackling sound, and then a voice came over the PA speaker that she had not clocked the night before, but which was now making its presence glaringly obvious. It was a grating, female voice that made Carrie groan louder, and thrash about in the covers, because Tiffany’s voice had interrupted the smooth, melodic sound of the voice she’d been dreaming of. She couldn’t remember what he was saying, but it was clearly something that had stirred her heart - or her lady parts, anyway. She was feeling a little frisky, which was surprising, and a little worrying considering her current predicament.
Carrie had always hoped that her mate would be the kind of man who would sing to her softly as they lay together in bed, or read poetry to her - even though reading poetry tended to put her to sleep. It was one of those romantic notions that never quite turned out the way she’d hoped, but which she still fantasized about regardless.
It was like how Carrie had always wanted to be the kind of girl who enjoyed reading Brontë or Austen while sipping a glass of wine in the bathtub surrounded by flickering candles. Unfortunately, it turned out that she hated the taste of wine and found repressed Georgian heroes and their yearning female counterparts boring. She loved eating burritos in her mismatched pajamas while watching trashy reality television, though.
So, maybe she would never be a classy lady. At least she was fun? Unlike Tiffany, whose voice alone was enough to bring the average person to tears.
“Good morning ladies!” Tiffany’s high pitched voice blared over the loudspeaker. “You have half an hour to ready yourselves for the first challenge. Outfits have been provided in your delivery boxes. Please prepare yourselves for a display of your physical prowess, and do try to keep in mind who you are going to be performing for.”
“I’ll perform a pirouette on your dead body,” Carrie growled, before flinging the tangled covers from her body.
She meant it too. As soon as Carrie figured out how to get out of this, she was going to kill that b***h. She might look human, might even be more human than the rest of these contestants, but she was still a wolf, and the past several years of training, and dealing with assholes, had toughened her up considerably. Or, maybe she’d just spent too much time around Sebastian.
Penny might like going on about how they were modern werewolves, and how they shouldn’t use violence as the first answer to everything. That sounded well and good, but Tiffany had sold Carfrie out, along with a bunch of other innocent she-wolves. Carrie would have her vengeance one way or another.
People always assumed that because Carrie was small and cute that she must also be harmless, more domesticated than wild, but those who knew her well knew that of her ranked pack mates she was the truly dangerous one. Penny, Ryan and Sebastian all looked dangerous on the outside - but it’s the ones who you don’t suspect that can really get the jump on you.
No one ever expected Carrie to be as tough as she was. She was sure that her competition, after hearing her introduction the day before, was not expecting much from her either. That was all part of her plan, of course. Let them underestimate her for as long as possible; the less they thought of her, the greater chance she had of getting the drop on them instead of the other way around. As much as Carrie didn’t want to hurt anyone else, she wanted even less to be the one who got got.
Carrie lumbered over to the delivery box, muttering obscenities under her breath. At least the outfit they provided might give her an idea of what type of physical challenge they were about to face. The half-wolf paused for a moment, took a deep cleansing breath, then centered herself as she opened up the small door.
What she found inside left her with more questions than it gave answers.
- Writer
