Luke turned left, onto a road that he'd driven a thousand times before, although never in his 1996 Toyota Tacoma. The guard station was a quarter of a mile up the main road and when they got to it he took a deep breath as guards came to both sides of the truck.
"Don't roll down your window until I tell you to." Charlie nodded at the instructions that he had already given her at least a half dozen times. She glanced over at the lock on her door even though she knew that it was firmly pushed into place.
"I don't know why my brother's being such a pussy about this right now. He always asks about you."
Charlie rolled her eyes as the car rolled to a stop. "His pack is his number one priority. He doesn't want to do anything to put them in danger. I understand that. He doesn't know me at all."
"Well I do. And you're the best friend I've ever had." Luke growled the words and Charlie shook her head as he began to roll down his window.
"Just take it easy on him, Goober. He can't make everyone happy in this situation and he's trying to do what he thinks is best, just like you are." She reached over and squeezed his hand and didn't let go.
"Luke," a broad shouldered man smiled warmly at their Alpha's younger brother, relaxing slightly as he recognized the driver of the unfamiliar truck. "What are you doing home, man. Your brother didn't tell us you were coming up, so we weren't expecting you. And-" the guard paused, cocking his head to one side and taking a deep breath before his brow wrinkled into a frown. His eyes flickered from Charlie to Luke and back again several times as his mouth settled into a frown.
"What's going on here, Luke. You know I can't let you in the compound with her in your truck." The guard's smile had fallen away and Luke could hear the increase in his heartbeat. The man's eyes unfocused for a moment and Luke knew that he was mindlinking other members of the pack.
"Devon, Devon, hey." He tried to recapture the muscular warrior's attention. "My brother should know I'm coming. I told him. I have no idea why he didn't tell you. Maybe he didn't want to ruin the surprise. Or maybe he's just embarrassed." The dark haired guard raised his eyebrows and stared at the nineteen year old college student before him, who gave him a broad smile before slipping one muscular arm around the shoulders of the red head who was now sitting close beside him.
"This is Charlie. She's my mate. I just found her last week and so no, I haven't marked her yet. We're taking things slow, because obviously she's still new to this whole thing." Luke hoped the lie sounded as smoothly out loud as it had in his head.
"Especially marking." Charlie giggled and hid her face against Luke's neck as if she were embarrassed. Luke could hear her heart pounding in her chest, which he knew was unusual for his usually cool headed roommate. He'd seen her in so many tense situations and he realized now, as she clung to his hand that he'd never actually even heard her heart rate really speed up when they were in stressful situations.
"This is your mate, Luke? She's gorgeous. Hey Tim, get your ass over here. This is Luke's mate. You've got to meet her. She's stunning."
Within five minutes there were a dozen men and women who had stopped by along with two more cars full of people, who had driven up to the checkpoint and all of them had gotten out of their cars, along with Luke and Charlie, to meet Lukes new "mate." There were some questions about her bruises, which Luke quickly explained away as a problem with a boyfriend who wasn't understanding when she'd found her mate and had to end things.
"Okay, okay, you guys." Luke said, laughing as he helped Charlie back into his truck. "Charlie is exhausted and I want to get her home so she can get some rest. We'll see you all at dinner tonight."
"If you make it to dinner." Devon called to them as the truck began to roll forward. "Twenty bucks says we don't see you out of your bedroom room until breakfast tomorrow."
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Charlie lay back on Luke's king sized bed and stared at the ceiling.
"They were so happy with the idea that I was your mate. It was insane." She shook her head, almost wishing it was true. "You know Luke, you're really, really lucky to have all these people who care about you this much." Her arms were back behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling.
"Yeah, I guess I am. I haven't really thought about it before." His eyes swept over the form of his gorgeous best friend and he shook his head and looked away quickly. His brother might not realize yet what was happening but he certainly did. It was half the reason that he had brought her here, where he knew that she would be safer than anywhere else in the world.
Luke knew that Charlie wasn't his mate. But he was fairly certain that someday she would be his Luna. He just wasn't certain what was holding his brother back from recognizing the bond when it was so clearly there. Hell, Luke could practically feel it in the air when they were in the same room together. But maybe some good old fashioned jealousy could finally snap the bond into place. At least he hoped that it would. Liam would be unbearable until it happened.
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When they had decided to leave their apartment they had left in a hurry. Charlie had grabbed her purse and he'd picked up his wallet. Luke had known he had an entire closet full of clothes here in his room and he'd always wanted to take Charlie shopping anyways.
She worked so hard and she hardly ever spent a penny on herself. Other than buying a few things that she'd absolutely needed the previous winter, like boots and a heavy jacket, and then new shoes when hers completely fell apart, her closet remained largely unchanged from the day that he'd met her.
Luke wasn't rich like his Alpha brother, but he had a little nest egg that he hadn't touched, consisting of rather generous presents he'd received from both sets of grandparents at every holiday over the course of his life, and only one or two of those Christmas or birthday presents would buy Charlie an entire wardrobe, especially with her simple tastes.
"Is it okay if I take a shower. I want to wash the feeling of those asshole's hands off of me."
"Definitely. Here, why don't you grab a shirt and some boxers out of my closet and afterwards we can order some pizza. There's a pizza parlor in the packhouse and they make some of the best pizza I've ever had. I was thinking maybe we should skip dinner and talk more about our plans for making sure everyone buys our story. We can watch movies, drink soda, and just hang out. We haven't done that in ages."
Charlie nodded and slipped inside his walk in closet. "Dude this thing is bigger than my room in our apartment." He could hear her laughing inside. "Does it have an echo? This is insane." She emerged a few moments later with a huge grin on her face, carrying something black and red in one hand, and a pair of black boxers with white pinstripes in the other. "Have you been holding out on me, Goober? Did you, my adorably nerdy friend who makes fun of sports with me every single weekend, play football in high school?" She held up the jersey and grinned at him.
"Pretty much everyone plays here. There's only like a thousand people in the pack. If every guy doesn't play in each class that comes up, we can't even make a team and it wouldn't be fair to the other guys." She shook her long red ponytail laughing in reply.
"I hope there are videos of this somewhere. I'm sure if there are that there has got to be someone here that would love to show them to your little human mate." And with that she turned, laughing hysterically, and disappeared into the bathroom, his old jersey slung over her shoulder.
A/N- I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you did I'd love it if you'd comment and click that little star button to vote for it.
This is Chapter Four, but don't worry the entire story will be posted here in the next few weeks. This entire story is already up on Patreon for anyone who can't wait that long, along with many others under "The Alpha and The Red Head." And for those of you who want more stories, long and short, right this second and who want to read Patreon exclusive short stories, you may also want to check out the link below:
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Chasing Charlie
Werewolf"She unwrapped her legs from his waist and slid down his body, ignoring his murmur of surprise as she brushed his hands to the side. She knew how to take control and a part of her sensed that that was exactly what he wanted, even before he knew it h...
