Alpha Queen [1]

xxxv

"We're home!" I called out when I unlocked the door. I knew they wouldn't be back until five but it was a habit of mine ever since I was in elementary school.

My parents recently renovated the kitchen and the den six months ago. Ares had lent my parents more than enough money to replace the furniture that was destroyed by his wolves. I was still getting used to everything looking new.

Ares put our bags at the foot of the stairs and followed me around. He had only been to my house three times and this would be the first time he slept over. Since he and my parents had full schedules and the drive between homes was a couple of hours, it was hard to pick a week to all meet up.

I put their pie on the kitchen table next to the mail. I sifted through the mail and found two envelopes with my name on them. One was from Bryant University and the other from Miami University.

"Of course the only mail I get is spam from colleges." I threw both in the trash without opening them.

It started in the spring of my junior year; I got a college brochure almost everyday along with a flood of emails in my inbox. I collected so many envelopes that my parents piled them up in a box in the garage. I thought they would stop sending me stuff but I was wrong.

"We can go upstairs now," I told Ares after I did some cleaning.

We spent some time in my room until my parents came home. I rummaged through my CDs to put on some music while Ares looked around at the knickknacks on my bookcase.

"Is this you?" I looked over my shoulder to see Ares pointing at a photograph of me and my parents. We were at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania during summer break. "Your hair is brown here."

"Yeah, apparently I was a brunette until I was like thirteen. Then my hair got more red." Tasha, Milla, and I all had brown hair when we were kids until mine started turning red. I remembered how bad Tasha wanted to dye her hair red, too, but at that time I didn't know why because I never liked the color.

I found a CD in the very back and flipped it over. Bingo. I slipped it into my radio and pressed play.

"There aren't any of us." He observed.

"Really?" I wasn't surprised since I hadn't taken my camera to the pack. I wasn't sure how they felt about pictures. "We have to fix that."

Ares sat on my bed and I joined him. I settled my head on his shoulder as we listened to the melancholic music. When I was alone with him, it was like all of my worries melted away.

"Who sings this?" Ares asked after a minute of peace. I'd played lots of music for him so I knew that when he asked for the artist, it meant he liked it.

"Coldplay."

We stayed like that for a few more minutes. His heartbeat was strong in my right ear and I could feel myself drifting off to sleep.

"They're here." Ares shook me gently and sure enough, the front door opened.

"We're home!" Dad shouted and both of us got up to go greet them.

My parents hugged me as soon as we came down the stairs. Mom gave Ares a hug, too, while Dad offered his hand. It seemed they had finally graduated to a handshake.

It took my parents some time to warm up to him. They still saw him as my crazy kidnapper. Then as they grew to know him and saw how well he treated me, they lightened up.

"Who's hungry?" Dad went outside to start the grill and Mom took out the raw meat and vegetables needing to be chopped. Ares asked if he could help but my parents shooed him out of the kitchen. We helped bring food and drinks out to the table on the deck.