Chasing After Ashes

Chapter 3: Taste of Reality

“You took too long,” I told Tate as soon as he stepped out of the door. His shirt was still pressed cleanly against his body, not scrimped or ruffled in the least so most likely a fight didn’t really occur. Although if a fight had occurred, it wasn’t my problem in the least. They were big guys already who didn’t need anyone’s help. Though one of them was definitely grateful to receive help before. Isn’t that a little hypocritical of him then?

Tate stared at me, emotions flitting across his eyes before it settled on the concern I had come to know so well from the people around me. It was like a punch in the gut, that familiar worry in their eyes which said they did not know if I was going to break down again or do something which wasn’t normal.

I started walking, Admittedly, I hadn’t been normal since the day I had been born and the family I was born in was far from it as well, so what did they really expect for me to turn out into? Even if I suddenly break out into a song and dance on a sunny midday afternoon, it still wouldn’t be out of character.

However, I think it would border on eccentricity on Phink’s level, so maybe it would be out of character. Phink? I thought, his name tickling something at the back of my mind. It had been a while since I had last seen him and even after days of being up and about, it was only now that I remembered him.

Coming up short on what I could have forgotten, I shrugged it off. It would come up later, I was sure of it. It most likely was not even detrimental to the task at hand, so no need to beat myself up trying to remember it right now.

Speaking of the task at hand, I looked back and saw Tate still looking worriedly behind me at the top of the stairs of their house. There were lines on his forehead that spoke of his rising worry which was totally not necessary. I didn’t need him worried about me. In fact, I didn’t need anyone to be worried about me at all.

Sighing at his whole pointless worry, I barked at him. “Come on, let’s go. Time’s a-wasting, right?”

He nodded his head and walked down the stairs, heading right to one of the parked cars in front of the house. It was a sleek gleaming pure white Mustang that purred when it roared to life as we pulled off the curb and headed for the meeting we were already so late for.

As we zoomed down the road heading right into the bustling center of Ashburn city, there was only silence in the car besides the soft purr of the engine. I glanced at him, wondering why he was quiet when he normally would have said something at this point.

He gripped the beige leather handle of the steering wheel hard, staring straight at the road in front of us like he couldn’t have looked at anything else.

I needed other details for this meeting with the Thyranos pack, and he wouldn’t have told me about it if he refused to talk to me because he had a stick up his a*s. Succumbing on that need to know, I spoke first, “What’s wrong?”

His hand dented the leather of the wheel before he decided to enlighten me with his voice seconds later. “That friend of yours is an i***t,” he said, stressing out the word friend like it was necessary.

Rastor and I weren’t even friends now, I was sure of it with how he was treating me, so he didn’t have to emphasize it nor state the obvious. Rastor was an i***t—a hopeless, sapless, i***t who was formerly my friend but was now letting his misgivings color his opinion of me.

I was not an extension of my pack, no matter how closely related I was to them so he didn’t have the right to be such a bastard to me.

“Yes, I know. You have a point here or what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at Tate.

He only sped up faster and faster until it looked like we were going to reach the city in seconds instead of less than half an hour.

“Don’t take what he said to heart, he’s just stupid which was why he was acting like that.”

“Who said I was taking it to heart? I’m not even thinking about him anymore.”

“Don’t lie Evangeline. I know this is hitting you hard. You are not fine, no matter how much you pretend to be.”

I shook my head. He wasn’t making any sense as usual. “Do we really have time for this?” I asked instead, hoping to change the direction of the conversation back into what I wanted to know: what the meeting with the enforcer of the other pack was about.

“Yes,” and that was all he said, refusing to still look at me.

Oh this is getting too ridiculous, I thought as a few long seconds passed again and he still didn’t speak.

“I am not pretending to be fine because I really am. I don’t care that Rastor hates me. He can choke on his anger for all I care, I’m not going to apologize nor defend myself to him and the rest of the Reons pack because I don’t need to. I wasn’t one of the people who hired witches and warlocks so they could trap hundreds upon hundreds of rogues into doing their bidding. I was only related to them, and I sure as hell am not going to apologize for it nor consider it a sin I can be tied down with to be related to a bunch of murderers.”

He didn’t speak so I continued, “They may be shocked that the Rosewood pack, my pack, was the one who did all of this but they’re not the only ones this has affected. There are hundreds, thousands, of us whose lives had been ruined but they are acting like they were the main victim here. As if the crimes against their pack, the pain they suffered, outweighed everyone else’s.”

I laughed, a short abrupt sound at the ridiculousness of the Reons before I continued my train of thought, “Have they even considered for one second that destroying their pack and the others weren’t the main goal here? They just got in the way of my family’s goal to find me. No, of course they haven’t considered it because they hadn’t bothered to talk to me nor ask what actually happened and why everything happened like this.

They hadn’t considered that I was taking this harder than anyone else because the burden of all the lives my pack had taken were pulling me under that I couldn’t handle everything at all. In fact—“

I didn’t expect him to cut me off because I was still on a roll, yet he was able to interject before I uttered my next sentence. “Of course they had. Maybe not all of them, but most had probably realized killing the other packs weren’t the real goal, otherwise why would your brother kidnap you?”

Hearing the word brother made me see red and I snapped, “Excuse me, what?” I wanted to throttle him but I controlled myself. He was driving after all.

Tate sighed, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at me like he was exasperated at me. “Evangeline, you weren’t really part of any pack when this had all happened. No one would have thought you were a werewolf when you were with us and as for the Reons, you weren’t a formally invited member in their pack. In fact, if the attackers’ real goal here was to destroy both packs, they wouldn’t have thought of you one bit, much less take the time to kidnap you.”

Embarrassingly, he had a point. A well-made, well-thought out point that I felt stupid for going off like the others were too blinded by their opinions to have realized the truth. Maybe they didn’t know the whole of it, because I hadn’t told anyone at all—except just now—about how my family sought me out, thus killing various packs in their need to find me.

However, my refusing to say anything because I couldn’t stomach the truth, much less make it any more real by telling another soul about it months ago, didn’t mean the others couldn’t have come to the realization that something was off about their need to kill other packs.

The silence in the car became deafening as I continued to be silent, refusing to admit Tate had got me there. It was stupid, but I didn’t want to admit or acknowledge I was an i***t. Hell, I didn’t want to admit Tate could be right about anything, especially with how idiotic he had been for choosing Trisha over me for what seemed like years ago, just because he thought I was human.

However, that was then and this was now. I had to give him a point for saying it and I didn’t want to seem more like an ignorant fool who refused to acknowledge the truth when it was already glaringly obvious.

“Yeah, you’re right.” The words tasted sour as I forced them out, but I had to, didn’t I? I may not be entirely fond of the Reons pack now because of how they were treating me, but it didn’t mean I thought they were all idiots. Additionally, I had to somehow acknowledge the truth of what Tate said since he was right, no matter how much I did not like the feeling that he could be right on the mark with some things.

He raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything as he continued to drive. I uncomfortably shifted in my seat, not expecting him to break the silence as I felt the awkwardness of admitting I was wrong and he was right, settling in over me.

Unable to take it, I looked out the window and saw that we were already past the woods and had since entered the slightly urbanized part of the city where most humans lived. We passed buildings upon buildings in a speed that made them all blur together and I couldn’t see which part of the city we were already in.

Before I knew it, Tate slowed to a stop and parked in front of an empty and spacious baseball field with a small outer building at the side of it. As he turned off the engine, I looked harder outside and noticed it was small but was built like it was its own fort, the outer walls seemingly made of a material strong enough to survive a bomb.

Pulling the door open, I stepped out into the blazing hot sun. There was a black Mercedes parked in front of the other building, seemingly more out of place beside the huge empty baseball field. There were no one in the field, or even loitering around and lingering in the bleachers overlooking it. Odd, I thought, knowing even if there were no games, people liked to hang around the field.

Stranger even was as I tasted the air, what wafted into my nostrils were nothing but the scents of three unfamiliar wolves, sweet tangy scent of freshly cut grass, and faint whiff of coffee. If this field had been used in the last few days, wouldn’t there a few other scents, mostly humans’, that would have lingered?

It was the case with most of the places populated by them, which was everywhere. Even the odd abandoned house near our school before that a few of my human classmates had frequented before on a dare, their scents lingered in the air. So it was certainly odd that I couldn’t get a taste of them around here, not even faintly.

Before I could wonder more about it, Tate stepped beside me and nudged my shoulder, shaking me off my thoughts. “Come on, let’s go.”

We started walking towards the outer building, our footsteps softly crunching the grass beneath our feet. I still didn’t know what this meeting was about except a different pack wanted to meet with Hans to discuss something.

Could it be…? I thought, glancing at Tate.

He was as emotionless as I had ever seen him. That was the only way I could describe it as we continued forward, almost to the building now. The emotions which was always reflected clearly in his emerald green eyes were gone, making him seem more otherworldly with his pale blond curls, sun-kissed skin, sharp jaw, and toned body.

There were times I could completely ignore him, the charisma and the pure masculine energy he radiated, but today wasn’t one of those times. Before I could do anything and lose my focus, I turned away and hastily grabbed the handle of the door, opening it quickly.

Suddenly, a warm hand engulfed my own, stopping me from fully pushing the door open. Irritated, I turned and was about to snap at him when I noticed our faces were only inches apart. He was leaning down on me, his face angled upwards as he looked at me with a seriousness in his eyes that let me know he wasn’t trying anything at all.

“If you wouldn’t mind, don’t talk to anyone in this meeting. Not even if you were directly spoken to.”

My eyes narrowed at him as I said, “And why shouldn’t I?”

“If you could, please control your powers as well. Do not let them know you are as powerful as you are.” It was the please that did it. My annoyance left as quickly as it came and I stared more thoroughly at him, wondering why he was acting this way.

My earlier thought creeped up to me and I asked, “Did they came to ask about my pack? About my…” I gulped, taking a second before I could force the word out of me, “brother?”

“No. They came to discuss a business proposal. Some of their pack members want to do an exchange of wolves, something of the sort.”

When I only raised an eyebrow at him, he continued. “They want a few of their pack members to live with us, interact with our young and see how our pack is like. Since every pack is not necessarily the same, they want to see how our pack’s “engines” are oiled and how effectively it is running. Whatever they learn from us, they’ll take back to their pack and use as a lesson to improve their “system”. Same goes with the pack members we’ll be sending in exchange.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you want me to pretend to be a weaker wolf and essentially a mute, submissive one beside you.”

Tate sighed, the soft release of breath gently caressing my face. He leaned forward, his face a mere inch away from mine. “But I doubt that’s all there is to it especially since my father was the one who suggested I bring you along.”

Abruptly, he leaned back and pushed the door open. “Shall we?”

Dumbstruck by his actions and knowing it was better to err on the safe side, I started pulling in most of the power which had spilled out of me, which would easily let people know exactly how powerful I was. After that was done, I quickly followed Tate inside the building which turned out to be a cozy diner.

The smell of coffee, bacon, and pastries permeated the air like a sweet heavenly delicacy I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. There were three men sitting at the centermost booth, staring at us as we entered their line of sight.

One man in particular, whose dark brown hair was long enough to be tied into a ponytail tightly behind him, making his face more angular, sharper, as he stared at me with a glint of something in his dark eyes. The other two men who sat beside him, backs rigid with an alertness that further confirmed the other man was Wendell, the enforcer of the Thyranos pack.

Remembering my place as the proverbial submissive accompanying a dominant, I looked away immediately, despite wanting to throttle a total stranger. He wasn’t doing anything besides stare at me with a keen interest I couldn’t help but detest. It wasn’t even that long since we entered, meaning it hadn’t been long since he started looking at me, but there was an innate, knee-jerk reaction in me which wanted to force him to stop what he was doing—even if he wasn’t doing anything at all.

I breathed in through my nose slowly, letting the air fill my lungs to hopefully clear away this pensive feeling which was coursing through my veins. I can’t ruin this meeting on the oddball reaction I have, especially since there were things at stake, stuff at play I don’t even have an inch of an idea about. Unless I figure it out soon, I couldn’t afford to make a mistake and cost me to be pulled into further s**t than I already was in.

“Pardon the delay. There were inconveniences in between that couldn’t simply be ignored or left for later,” Tate said as he stepped to the right, in front of me.

The heavy weight of Wendell’s gaze didn’t ease away like I thought it would have once he would pay attention to Tate. Risking the quick glance upwards, I saw he was still looking at me with what I then realized, was keen interest. In what, I couldn’t begin to assume, but with how he was looking at me like I was prey and an opportunity he couldn’t wait to get his hands on.

The annoyance which appeared without reason when I saw him, clawed to get out of me, ravaging every inch of my control—which admittedly wasn’t much to begin with now. Before I knew it, the words were out of my mouth before I could have thought twice if this was a good idea. “You got something to say to me?”

I heard a soft sigh of exasperation to my right, where I just knew without looking that Tate was frustrated at this turn of events. Well, what could I have done? The guy was a freaking creep, I thought, narrowing my eyes at him.

When a few seconds passed and he didn’t say anything, I crossed my arms in front of me, walked forward a few steps so I was only a few meters away from him, raised my brow and asked, “Well?”

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For those of you who have read up to this point, Chasing After Ashes is the Book 2 of the Rosewood Trilogy. The first book is Alpha, Do I Know You? Kindly see link here for Book 1: https://www.dreame.com/novel/1964802.html

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'Til next time guys! Hope everyone enjoyed this. :)