Oh Hell No

Chapter 7

"ALLEN ATLAS GRIFFIN, WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Ryder and Jamie paused in the entryway, both silently debating if they should leave. The girl that just yelled didn't sound too happy and it'd be safe to assume that more shouting would follow, giving headaches to everyone within thirty feet. He honestly wanted to have a nice day to bond with his mate but no, he couldn't even have that much. He quietly swears to murder them both.

He reluctantly follows the noise to the kitchen, and Jamie, who doesn't have much of a choice, follows. A blonde girl is standing at the entrance to the kitchen, jaw open in shock. Jamie pieced together that she was the tan wolf from before; the striking blue eyes made that obvious enough. "Chels" they had called her, presumably a nickname.

A guilty-looking boy stared at her, frozen. He was pointing a fire extinguisher at the oven, which now had a foamy white lump that Jamie suspected wasn't usually there. Based on the smell, he had burnt an innocent batch of mac & cheese. If she was the alpha, that would be an offense punishable by banishment, if not death.

The girl breaks out of her stupor, "I leave you alone for two minutes and you almost burn the place down?!" She yells in a pitch that would rival a banshee's screech.

"So much for her not thinking we're weird," Ryder mutters quietly, "Well, Jamie this is Chelsie, the current gamma of the pack. The idiot who managed to set fire to boiling water is Allen, who has no official title."

Jamie nodded, pretending to take note of their names. If it weren't for the lack of a mark on Allen, she would have guessed them to be mates, pointless yelling was common in the mated couples she had seen before. They also looked to be around her age, and she couldn't help but wonder why an alpha as old as Mason would choose someone Chelsie's age as his third-in-command. There was no way that the blonde was the original gamma, especially since Mason is old enough to have a teenage son and has probably been alpha for a number of years.

"Out of curiosity, how did you become the gamma, Chelsie?" She asks, figuring that the girl couldn't be older than nineteen.

The girl in question stiffened, forgetting Allen's transgression for the moment, "Oh, I'm sure you don't want to hear that story," She assures, "It's pretty long and complicated, and I'm guessing Ryder is eager to get you to himself," She deflects the query easily enough that Jamie almost believes her. Almost.

If she actually planned on staying she would have pushed it, but she didn't care to hear a sob story from a girl she'd never be more than acquaintances with, "Hey wait, who are you?" Allen asks, finally realizing that a rogue was standing only a few feet away from him, and that his future alpha was doing nothing about it.

Ryder wraps an arm around her waist protectively, as if this noodle of a man would actually be able to take her, "She is my mate," And your future luna, so back off, he added silently.

"Ohh," He nods slowly, looking fairly calm despite the flicker of fear in his eyes.

"And that means they want time alone, so don't bother trying to distract me!" Chelsie interjects, trying to keep the conversation from becoming incredibly awkward. Maybe she wouldn't be the most irritating one here.

Allen smiles nervously at her and sets down the fire extinguisher, "Well it's been nice meeting you Jamie but-" He sprints past the three of them before Chelsie can react, but she is quick to give chase.

"You irresponsible prick!" She yells after him.

Ryder doesn't hesitate to continue on, lightly pushing Jamie towards the stairs. He directs her to his room, knowing that most of the pack won't bother them there. At least most of them will knock first, giving him a proper chance to tell them to screw off.

His room is much simpler than Jamie would have thought, with dark blue walls, a queen-sized bed, a fairly empty bookshelf, chair, and a mounted TV. Had she been human she would have immediately accused him of being a rich kid. Technically, she could still call him that, but it wouldn't have as much impact since every room in the pack house probably looked similar to this.

"I'm sorry about them, they're pretty crazy," Ryder tells her, watching curiously as she looks around the room. If she so much as frowned at an object, he added it to a mental list of things to get rid of. This would be her room too so he wanted her to be comfortable.

"Please, if they're what qualifies as crazy in this pack, then there's nothing for you to apologize for," She waves his comment off, having encountered much stranger people. For instance, she used to have a human friend that put butter on her bread before putting it in the toaster. She always worried that the girl would end up burning the house down or blowing up their toaster.

"Oh, how I wish they were the worst," He replies without thinking. His goal was to not scare her off, telling her that there were people crazier than the chaotic cousins probably wouldn't help his case.

Fortunately for him, it took a lot more than that to scare her off. In fact, she laughed openly, and Ryder placed a hand to his chest to make sure his heart was still beating. Once he realized that it hadn't stopped he smiled, so overwhelmed with pride at the knowledge that he made her laugh. By goddess, he had to do that again, and soon.

He was getting attached fast, with or without the mate bond he was sure that he would have found her adorable. Her past didn't matter, even if she did kill someone. Okay, maybe it mattered a little, but he only cared about that fact because others might not want to accept her as their future luna based on that one, miniscule fact. Ryder didn't think there'd be a day when he considered murder to be a miniscule act, but he supposed that's what the mate bond did to you. The idea didn't seem so heinous in comparison to the notion that one of his pack members would openly speak against someone as perfect as Jamie, at least not to him. 

A/N: Anyone else loving the platonic chemistry between Allen and Chelsie, or are y'all just trying to guess what her past is? Or maybe no one cares