Wolves of Haven : Lone

Lines in the Sand

It wasn't hard to find Akia; she was sitting in the garden, spinning a flower between her fingers while she looked out over the sprawling estate to the thick forest beyond the protective stone and rod iron fencing.

Damian took his time joining her. She looked beautiful sitting there in just a pair of panties and one of his dress shirts, her hair slightly disheveled and sticking up from a restless night's sleep, knees pulled up under her as if she were a child, and only the gray circles under her eyes blemished the picture perfect image of her. To him she was perfect, had some major explaining to do, but was perfect nonetheless. His brothers all had, what their father considered, acceptable trophy wives. They didn't work, were educated but knew that their place was at home raising their children; they were commercially beautiful with personalities that were fake and grated on his nerves. Damian wanted no part of that type of trophy wife mentality especially since it didn't work out well for his father and any of his wives.

Being the youngest child, Damian had bought his time when it came to prolonging the evitable, but then he accidentally fell into bed with Akia and his world changed. He had purposely made sure that his family didn't know about their relationship, and didn't know about her at all, but the anonymity couldn't last forever.

"I'm so sorry," Akia mumbled, plucking each petal off of the flower in her hand.

Damian chuckled and joined her, kicking his legs out in front of him. "For what?"

She rolled her eyes and made a mocking face. "My family, what do you think?"

"I think they're hilarious, and now so much about you makes sense," he said and she looked at him with wide eyes. "I like your family," he continued, his attention across the rolling estate towards the thick trees beyond the fencing. "There is something about them, even the naked kid with blue hair and balls of bald steel," he said, trying to keep from laughing, but couldn't help it. "They are different than my family and I like that."

Akia continued to look at him in disbelief. "You never talk about your family, not like that. What's going on?"

He smiled and looked over at her from the corner of his eye, and she whimpered when their eyes met. "I don't talk about my family because they aren't worthy of accolades that don't pertain to law enforcement since that's the only redeeming quality any of them apparently have. Now, if I had a family like yours, I would have been much more open about them because I think they're hilarious. Now so much of your personality makes sense."

She sighed, shaking her head. "So I'm infantile like the two that are most likely still trying to give each other atomic wedgies, that's just great."

Damian chuckled. "That, that right there is solely because of your family. You have a great sense of humor, and usually I'm the only one that gets to see it, but being at your home, even if just for a few minutes so far, you let that guard down around others, and I clearly get to see you. But," he said, turning serious, "I'll admit that I'm conflicted on that. If you were more open and like this back in Boston, you would have grown tired of me by now and moved on."

Akia pushed him over, shaking her head with a smile. "You're ridiculous. I'm surprised you haven't moved on by now."

He smiled and sat up. "But you were just starting to warm up to me. Why would I bail now?" he teased. "Grab a quick shower, take your pills, we'll grab breakfast on the way to the station, and you can make introductions. We'll call it an early night and talk more."

She cocked an eyebrow. "That sounds ominous."

"It should," he said in a deep tone, one that was heavily laced with sarcasm. "Go, you stink like sweaty brothers," he teased.