Teen Beasts 🐾 S.S.

Hour of the Wolf

Cora was pacing the length of the loft's living room, rocking Jason in her arms as she occasionally looked over at the night sky through the window. She had been alone with her son all day as Derek moved to stake out Ruben's home so he confront him. A part of Cora wanted to feel sorry for Ruben when her brother got his claws on him but the most part was upset that it wouldn't be her laying it out on him. She had actually liked that guy. Started to think that he could be someone she might be able to trust with everything, including her big secret. And the entire time, not only did he know but was working her the whole time. For Oscar.

Yet, despite this new revelation, there was still something else worrying her. Cora didn't know what it was though. It was like something inside her was telling her that something had just changed. She didn't know what it was but she could just tell that it was something closer than she would want it to be. She had a feeling that Derek felt the same way. And...maybe Jason did too. He seemed troubled in the way that he was staring up at her. The look in his eyes, it matched what she was seeing up in her reflection off the living room window.

But she snapped out of all of that when she heard footsteps approaching from outside the main door. Seconds later, it opened and Derek stepped in. He didn't seem very happy.

"Well?" she asked, readjusting Jason in her arms.

"Nothing," Derek huffed. "Ruben never came back from wherever he had gone to last night."

"Where do you think he is? Are his parents worried?"

Her brother shook his head. "His foster parents, and they didn't seem too concerned or surprised. From what I could make out, they were tried calling him a couple of times but reminded themselves that its nothing new and decided that he was just in one of his 'moods' again." He said that part pointedly.

"Moods?" she grunted. "What were they talking about?"

Derek moved to the fridge and pull himself out a bottle of water. "They didn't say and I wasn't going to just go in and ask them." He then went and took a frustrated gulp of water and he threw the cap off. "I can't even begin to guess, unless there's something about your boyfriend that you didn't tell me, beside the usual that is."

"I told you, Ruben's not my boyfriend." Cora huffed as she rolled her eyes. "We hadn't even really kissed, though that wasn't from a lack of trying."

Unamused, Derek rose his voice. "Can we get back to the point?" he hissed. "What do you think these moods Ruben goes through are?"

Cora moved to stare out of the window, at the dark horizon. Ruben had always seemed so calm and mellow. Not someone who really had issues or internal problems. Then again, after everything that's come out in the last 24 hours, what did she really even know about the guy?

"I have no clue," she muttered.

Derek then moved to take another drink of water and then sighed. "Well anyway, we might not know where Ruben is, but I think we could easily guess with who he is with."

She let out a frustrated puff from her nose. "Oscar. Why would he do this?"

"He's a teenage boy sneaking around for an alpha, it's pretty obvious why. He's fishing to get the bite."

That made Cora narrow his eyes. "Yeah, I guess you have experience using that tactic, don't you?" That made Derek narrow his eyes back at her as memories of Jackson came back to him. "But I didn't mean Ruben, I was talking about Oscar. Why go through all this to try and get closer to a baby?"

"It's not the baby, it's the baby's parents that I'm sure he's really after."

"How can you be so sure?"