Unbound

Chapter 15

"Hello?" Aubrey waved her hand in front of my face and I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. All week, I'd been going through the motions of my work in the storeroom methodically and mechanically. Each movement precise. If I focused this way, I could keep my mind on the tasks in front of me. I could keep it from wandering back to Gabriel. To the feeling of his hand holding mine, his skin against my skin. To the calm I felt when he finally relaxed beside me.

But here in the cramped back room of the clinic, sorting, counting, and labelling was all that mattered, and I committed myself fully to the work. Since I'd returned, Aubrey had tried to get me to share details of the weekend, but she was growing impatient with my distance.

"What is it?" I asked. I shouldn't have.

"Why won't you tell me anything about the gathering?" She was sitting atop my workstation, having carved herself out a section amidst the jars and pots and vials.

"Because there's nothing to tell." I leaned back on my stool and looked up at her. "I sat in a library and read all weekend. I was just there in case anything happened."

"You didn't go to any meetings?" She pushed.

"I went to one," I acquiesced.

"With Gabriel?"

I turned my attention back to my label making. "With my Alpha."

"Gabriel is your Alpha." Aubrey insisted, as though I needed a reminder. It didn't matter; I didn't consider him as such. He'd made it abundantly clear that I was not a member of his pack, so there was no need for me to accept him as my Alpha. I huffed out a short breath through my nose in response.

Aubrey switched tracks. "What about the woman?"

"Odette. Daughter of Erick, Alpha of the Cascade Pack." I listed off the two facts I knew. I left out that she was a talented painter.

"I know that, but why is she here?" She wasn't going to relent.

"What Gabriel does in his personal life is none of my concern, nor is it any of yours," I said shortly. For all my efforts to distract myself, Aubrey was ruining my peace of mind. What Odette was doing here with Gabriel was the last thing I wanted to imagine.

"They'd make a nice pair," she posited, picking up a jar to examine its contents. "This has gone off, by the way. It shouldn't be brown like this."

I took the jar she was holding and added it to the pile on the floor. "What color is it supposed to be?"

"Blue."

I made a mental note.

As much as I wanted to sulk by myself, Aubrey's persistence had lit a tiny spark of hope in me. I thought she might be starting to come around, and I desperately needed a friend. So I indulged her curiosity a bit.

"My Alpha's mate told me on the first night that Odette's mother and father were looking forward to introducing her to Gabriel, since he was the only unmated one there." The words felt heavy on my tongue. I wouldn't speculate any further; she could do with that information what she would.

"I knew you knew more than you were letting on." A grin stretched across her face. "What else?"

"They were meeting to discuss alliances." I withheld the specifics. I didn't know how closely Gabriel held security matters here. Back home, such topics were fairly openly discussed. Dmitri appreciated hearing the perspectives and opinions of his pack, but I guessed that Gabriel likely did not.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. "I don't care about that. I meant what else about Alpha Gabriel and Odette?"

"They went for a walk together one night. They rode back together in the other car. Now you know as much as I do." I pasted a new label onto the jar of nettles.