Taming A Predator

Chapter 48

Doe's POV:

"Doe..." Khloe spoke a warning, quickly getting hushed by Marcus.

"Don't stop her, I wanna see how this goes," He said.

Both of them took up my concentration while I tried to properly balance all of our silverware on top of our cups that I'd stacked one on top of the other.

I would have gotten out plates in on this action too if it weren't for the fact that they were made of glass as opposed to everything else.

I had the spoons balanced against the rim of the top cup, now working incorporating the forks.

Listen, this is just what happens when we all somewhat had somewhere to be once the brothers were done with their lunch, and didn't want to start up an entire game in the meantime.

Marcus even stated that he didn't feel like getting heated right now over a game of Uno or the like, but then went and threatened to nudge the table in a certain way that would make my creation crumble.

As if I wouldn't make him feel my wrath for either.

I placed down the final fork with perfectly focused precision, finalizing my strange and absolutely unnecessary masterpiece, but stepped back with pride anyways.

"And you thought that I couldn't pull it off," I snidely remarked to the blonde.

"It could still fall from mysterious circumstances," He shrugged, soon finding Khloe's elbow against the arm he was threatening to raise.

"For your safety, I'm going to suggest that you don't," She wisely advised.

I'll still partially admit that I was happy that he'd loosened up from earlier, but I'd still take him down if provoked.

He slumped, deciding to listen to her for now.

I sat back into my chair with a victorious sigh, already plotting a way to one-up my creation to prove Marcus wrong twice.

My planning got swiftly interrupted by the dining room doors slamming open, startling everyone at this table.

Only a select few people were able to make that kind of entrance.

I turned my head to figure out which of the few it was, freezing when I saw Xander.

Or more so, the look he had on his face.

The almost... terrified look in his eyes only deepened when he found me.

His posture was a strange sort of familiar, and not at all in a good way.

It was a little too similar to when he was stupidly avoiding me.

Still, my back straightened in concern, ready to pry into him for what happened.

He told me that he needed me in these situations, and well, here I was.

It was just a lunch with his family, how wrong could it have gone?

Maybe it had something to do with the bloodmoon?

His steps were awkwardly quick as he approached, sending a 'hey' to Khloe and a much tenser 'hi' to Marcus, both of whom found this as strange as I did.

Finally, he made it to the back of my chair, hands reaching round to the top of my shoulders.

"I need to talk to you," The panicked edge made it to his hushed words.

Well, props to him for being direct and communicative this time around.

"Okay," I tried to have my voice take on a consoling approach, but in a way that wouldn't be weird for Khloe and Marcus to hear.