Lady and the Wolf [Book One, Lady and the Wolf Series] -Published-

Chapter Twenty-One: Confessions

The meaning of awkward: embarrassing, uncomfortable and unpleasant — three words that summed up this entire situation. Emma had left her to sit and stare at the three males that crowded the room. She wasn't even going to pretend she didn't remember this time. She was not going to pretend that she wasn't attacked by wolves three times the size of her own pet wolf nor was she going to pretend the giant wolf that nearly took Van's head off never happened either.

However, she was going to pretend that she didn't notice Van staring a hole through her head next to her hospital bed or that they didn't stare into each other's eyes for a good portion of time while buried alive. The awkwardness just kept coming wave after wave.

"I... what... what are you, exactly?" she finally asked. Years of living under the same roof and you'd think you knew a person — apparently not because she had no freaking clue about this Titanic-sized secret. Aira was four docks away from paddling up shit-creek at this point.

Drake and Aiden seemed to look every other way but in her general direction. The only one who had the guts to tell her anything was Van. Go figure.

He answered as if it was obvious. "Shifters... or your kind refers to us as werewolves. Degrading..."

Her rapid blinking should have been enough to tell them she had no clue what they were talking about. "Werewolves aren't real," she replied, matter-of-fact. She loved the men in this room with all her heart, but that was so far-fetched even Aira couldn't just sit back and believe it.

Van's hand crept up and squeezed her bandaged arm softly, catching her attention. Aira turned her head and gave him a puzzled expression. After a moment, she snatched her arm away as if it burned. She couldn't help but notice Van's face fall into a dark expression as he snatched her arm back, squeezing it in iron like grip.

Drake shot up out of his chair when he noticed his daughter flinch. "Van..." he warned.

Van flipped her arm and with a scowl, muttered, "You need to change this." He showed Aira the blood seeping through the bandages on her injury.

Aira frowned and tenderly took her arm back. "This is a mean joke," she muttered as she turned her head away from them.

The arm that shot out and grabbed her chin made Aira gasp in fright. Van's hand tightened as he pulled her face closer to his, his grip like iron as he stared into her eyes. Through the murky brown color of his iris, Aira could instantly tell these were nothing but contacts as the gold shined through.

Has Van always worn eye contacts? she thought to herself. Now that she really thought about it, the way the light often shined off of her father's eyes had always been odd. She always knew her father wore contact lenses, but Aira had thought it was because he had bad eyesight. She supposed that was just another lie she was told over the years.

Her face was inches from Van's. She knew her father was watching them carefully. She could almost feel the tension when Van's face tilted away from hers, giving Aiden a quick glance.

"Pup, show her," he commanded, leaving no room for discussion. Aira vaguely remembered Van calling her brother "pup" when they were kids, but that memory had been lost as she grew older.

Aiden's face paled. "Me?" he asked, visibly dumbfounded by the very notion of Van's demand. "Why me?"

Drake's body had visibly slackened from his angry stance when he realized what Van was trying to do. Shaking his head, he looked to Aiden and chuckled, "Well, considering you're the least scary version of us, I have to take Van's side." He stayed closed to Aira.