Alpha's Faire

XXVI

"You've got to be kidding me," Jexanna muttered as she opened the freezer. Blood. Bottles, vials, and IV pouches stared back at her. She resisted the urge to scream. Her body already ached from the setup, which went surprisingly without a hitch. The teams were efficient and effective. Even Hamma's team set up the research lab within hours. But still, managing and setting up everything was exhausting.

"Shou, why would you invite Alpha Stone for dinner if you didn't have a single scrap of food?" She slammed the door shut and turned to the dhampir that lounged on the sofa.

"Don't act like you don't have thirty meals in your damn bag." Shou rolled his eyes as he tossed the black medicine bag towards her. Jexanna huffed as she caught it in the air.

"Of canned goods. What Alpha in their damn mind would like a canned meal?" Jexanna replied as she opened the black bag and began to shuffle around its contents, searching for any food that was stored away.

"Then go steal meat from the cafeteria."

"No!" She resisted the urge to throw the knife she found towards him. It was sparkling and sharp, being brand new and all. Her eyes narrowed. "That's carefully rationed out for not only the force but the patients as well. I can't just portal out to a store."

"You could always request more to be brought in." Shou shook his head.

"Yeah, right." Jexanna rolled her eyes at the privileged dhampir. He didn't need to cook to survive. He could easily just go and charm the pants off a willing volunteer or pillage his freezer. Dhampirs didn't need to eat food. Well, it was more like they couldn't. Their bodies couldn't process it. It resulted in them becoming ghastly ill.

Jexanna's hands finally grasped around a sack of canned food that remained in her bag. She pulled it out and dumped the contents onto the black marble countertop. She and Shou were going to stay in Shou's designated apartment on campus. It was the safest option; she couldn't risk staying in her apartment after all. That apartment belonged to Jexanna. Her relative. The aloof bounty hunter, who didn't want anyone to stay in her place. Her eyes narrowed and a huff was released into the atmosphere as a pair of soft gray eyes flashed through her mind.

He was probably already looking for Jexanna at this very moment. She wasn't a fool; Alpha Raphael Stone was too sharp to leave a lead unfollowed. Her face grew hot as she thought back to his penetrating gaze. Raphael Stone made her uncomfortable. He looked right through her facade. It was only a matter of time before her cover was blown.

"So what's for dinner?" Shou asked, snapping her out of her trance. Jexanna blinked and examined the countertop. Garbanzo beans, carrots, ham, red peppers, diced tomatoes, and some olive oil. It wasn't terrible. She could roast the beans and carrots together in the oven with olive oil. It wouldn't take much to grill and season the peppers. The ham could be seared and placed into the oven. She could oven roast the carrots, tomatoes, and beans with olive oil. Jexanna reached inside her bag for a container of herbs. She pulled out salt, pepper, and oregano. Jexanna then got to work, cooking according to her plan.

"Apparently, it's a feast of bullshit and secrets." She snapped out at the dhampir that leaned over the onyx countertop. Shou's apartment was covered in black accents everywhere. Dark ebony cabinets lined the white walls with gray tiled flooring. It wasn't as dark as Jexanna assumed it was going to be. But right now, the apartment was the last thing on her mind as she stared at the man who glanced his golden eyes away. "Now, talk—what is the point of having dinner?"

"Nope." Shou popped the p sound with his lips. "I don't want to tell you."

"Why?" She narrowed her eyes suspicious of his behavior. "What are you getting out of it? I get that we need to watch Yvette, but why involve Alpha Stone?"

"I've got a theory about Stone." Shou shrugged his shoulders as he walked behind her to grab a bottle of blood from the refrigerator. He opened it carefully, not to spill any on the floor. Jexanna rose a brow as she browsed through the drawers.

"Shou, do you even own a can opener?" She huffed, annoyed.

"Don't you have one in your magic bag?" He retorted and she flicked her tongue out at him. Shou's golden eyes sparkled as he released a chuckle. "Here." He pulled out a can opener and handed it to Jexanna.

"So, what's your theory about Alpha Stone?" She began to open and drain the water from the cans.

"It's a secret," Shou replied as he took a sip from his bottle. He flashed that smug Chesire smile, revealing slightly bloody fangs. Jexanna rolled her eyes. Anyone else would have run for the freaking hills at this point. Shou was already pretty terrifying, and for blood to be left on his fangs was even more bone-chilling. But Jexanna was used to this side of the dhampir.

"If you're going to drink Shou, then at least wipe off your mouth before smiling." She remarked as she tossed him a kitchen towel.

"Thanks." He caught it in mid-air and began to wipe his mouth. "I've got a hunch that I don't want to be right." His eyes narrowed as a distant look flashed across his face.

Jexanna paused in her tasks of dinner preparation. What hunch could that be? Shou wasn't one to fade into his thoughts. He preferred to stay alert in the present.

"And you're not going to tell me what that hunch is?" She waited for him to respond.

"If I told you, it would skew the experiment." Shou shook his head. "Don't worry about Stone."

"Yeah, yeah. You know, he's probably already got people looking through my records." She grimaced as the beans and carrots went into the oven. The peppers went onto the grill. All that was left was to saute the ham.

"Probably," Shou remarked, finishing his bottle of blood. And Jexanna suppressed the urge to throw her frying pan at him. "But that's nothing to worry about right now."

"Nothing to worry about?" Jexanna growled as she slammed the pan onto the stovetop and turned on the heat. "Do you forget what will happen if I get caught?"

Shou stared at her, a solemn look across his face. "Don't break my stove, Jex." He mentioned quietly.

"Why do you care about your stove? You don't even use it!" Jexanna flippantly replied. Shou didn't reply, he just stared back with a single blink. His golden eyes just simply narrowed at her. He was waiting for her to calm down. Jexanna breathed in and sighed as she grabbed her grill pan and placed it on the stovetop, allowing it to warm up. "I get it. We've got bigger things to worry about now."

"Good, now that you've calmed down." Shou placed his bottle into a waste bin designed to block out the smell of blood. "Do you mind telling me how you're going to approach Dr. Wells? You two have a history and it's obvious that she knows."

Jexanna's eyes narrowed. Yvette was a problem. She did indeed put the dots together. If Yvette was guilty, then that was a problem. It meant that she was a liability to Jexanna personally. But Jexanna couldn't eliminate her as soon as that was confirmed.

Yvette had always been bright, but she wasn't ever one for doing something of this scale. Attacking and destroying nearly half the world's population? No, well-planned genocide wasn't something she was capable of dreaming up. She had to have been working with a group or under someone if she were guilty.

"Don't you trust me right now to do my own thing?" Jexanna lifted a brow at Shou.

"No, not with Stone here." Her body froze. Hot betrayal pricked her heart. Shou did not trust her?

"Excuse me?" She snapped at Shou. His head went down, allowing his hair to move with the motion. Shou sighed and strutted over to her. He got close and stared at her with his bright golden eyes.

"Look, I trust you." Shou paused softly. Jexanna relaxed but waited for him to continue. There was more to this. "But what I don't trust is how you react to Alpha Stone. He's affecting you more than you know. I think that you need to stop worrying about him."

"How am I supposed to do that when he keeps popping up?" She asked.

"By letting him find out the truth."