My Childhood Friend is a Werewolf

Chapter Twelve

She fucking fell asleep.

Emma kicked herself as she tore through the hallways of Cyrus' ridiculously large house, heading towards the dining room which was the next thing she had to set up. The bedroom and bathroom setup had been a little nerve-wracking, her team trying their best to set up the room while Yoko was sleeping and Cyrus was sitting up in bed shirtless, distracting them. It would have gone much faster if Emma had been there to keep them on task, but she must have been so tired that she fell asleep in Dren's car on the drive there.

That in and of itself wasn't the issue. The issue was that she fell asleep and Dren didn't wake her. He let his car sit at the front of the mansion for half an hour before she finally stirred.

She hadn't had time to give him an earful, already running far later than she should be and prioritising her job like a true professional. Make no mistake, though, she was going to rip him a new one the moment this job was over and she could sleep for two days.

Right about now Yoko should be waking up to the sight of nothing but vases of beautiful red roses littering her bedroom, the sheets and floors scattered with red petals. Cyrus had wanted them to place roses in the bathroom as well, scattering more petals in the bath he'd drawn. Yoko would take about an hour or two to get ready, so Emma knew she had about that much time to decorate the rest of the house.

The other werewolves had already been working, directed by members of her team on where to put things. Emma estimated that the rest of the house would be perfectly decorated in about an hour, after which Yoko and Cyrus would leave the house for pre-planned birthday appointments, before returning just before dinner time. She would have to finish the dining room before then, but it would be the last thing she needed to do.

Too bad it was also the thing that would take the most amount of time.

"No rest for the weary," she mumbled to herself, sighing. Her arms were heavy as steel and if it weren't for Dren's fast reflexes, she probably would have dropped the heavy vase she was carrying earlier. The thank you that came from her mouth was a begrudging one, not wanting to praise Dren when he'd been the reason she was late to her own job.

"You needed sleep," he had said simply, like that was a proper enough justification to leave her team out in cold water. Unwilling to get into an argument right at that moment, Emma pursed her lips and ignored the comment, refocusing on the arrangement she was touching. The tone of his voice sent shivers down her spine, having heard it so many times when she was perfecting a school project or essay, only to have him pull her out of the zone to force her to sleep or take a break. It riled her up every time she heard it, but Emma was determined to prove to him that she was a different person now; a mature person who would simply ignore him instead of getting angry.

Easier said than done, when just the sight of his face made her want to punch it.

The dining room was abuzz with activity, her team already inside and working like a well-oiled machine. The room was quite large and very spacious, able to fit forty people comfortably. Right now, one of the tables had been taken out to fit a grand piano to accommodate the live entertainment that Cyrus had planned for dinner. Most of the flower arrangements and centrepieces weren't too difficult to set up, as they had mostly been done in advance, but the fake flowers that needed to be hung from the ceiling would take the most time.

Several ladders had been brought in to reach the ceiling, each flower needing to be manually attached to create the most exquisite effect. One of her team members already started working on it, standing on one ladder while a werewolf stood on the other. Emma went over to an unoccupied ladder and climbed up, fake flower in hand. She grabbed the invisible wire that it was attached to, steadily working on attaching each wire to the ceiling.