The Alpha and his Mate

Chapter Twenty Five

Annabelle's POV

I woke up in a cold sweat with beads of perspiration running down my forehead and into my hairline. I looked around and found myself laying on a comfy bed, with my shoes missing and the duvet pulled up over my body and around my shoulders. I kicked the duvet off of me in the hopes that it would cool my adrenaline filled body down and sat up to take in my surroundings.

It was difficult as the room was dark due to the blackout blind being drawn shut but as far as I could tell no one was in the room with me. How did I end up here anyway, I don't remember going for a nap. The last thing I remembered was walking through the front door to Jax's family home to find multiple pairs of eyes staring at me.

I slowly sat up and took everything in, I had no idea where I was but for some reason, I didn't feel panicked. Surely a normal person would feel some form of fear when waking up in an unknown room and having no knowledge of even getting there.

It was familiar somehow, well maybe not familiar in the sense that I knew where I was, but more in the sense that it smelled like Jax, it smelt of home.

The voice in my head made this weird purring sound when I mentioned the word home and it wasn't till after I thought my words through that I realised what I had just thought. I had a home. For the first time in twelve years I felt like I belonged somewhere.

This was definitely a teenage boys bedroom, that was for sure. There were posters of cars and bands blue tacked and scattered across the four walls. An old TV sat in the corner of the room on a glass stand with piles of action movies and video games stacked neatly underneath with some form of games console standing next to them.

The walls were a dark blue colour, not unlike the colour on Jax's walls at the moment, with the floor covered in a fluffy cream carpet that had definitely seen better days. I twitched as I felt the urge to go and get the hoover to try and make the fabric fluffy again but stopped myself when I reminded myself of where I was, or more accurately where I wasn't.

I may not be living in that house anymore and made to do all the housework and cook all the meals but old habits die hard, especially habits that had been drilled into you since you were seven years old. I had found myself on multiple occasions resorting back to my old ways, getting up early and cleaning the place before Jax had even woken up before getting on with cooking breakfast for him.

He had told me over and over again that I didn't need to do any of that if I didn't want to, that it wasn't my job to do everything in the house. He said that I was now a Luna and if I didn't feel like cooking or cleaning that day he could always do it himself or we could order some food in. If I was being honest though sometimes I kind of liked doing it. It wasn't so much the task itself that I missed, I don't think anyone could miss cooking and cleaning after someone else, but it was more the routine and sense of purpose I'd feel after the job was done. It was a sense of normality in my life as everything else around me seemed to change at the drop of a hat. It soothed my anxiety and helped to ground me when my head wouldn't stop thinking.

Even though the whole room was clean and organised I could tell that it hadn't been lived in here in a long time, something about the air. It smelled to dusty and clean to have someone regularly using the space.

I quickly shook my head as I'd realised I had gotten distracted and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand, I needed to tell Jax what I'd seen.

I stuffed my feet into some slippers which were sitting by the side of the bed and slowly pulled the door open, cautious of what I was going to find.

As I pulled the door open my view of the corridor was blocked by the back of a guy about the same build as Jax but a few inches shorter. I shrunk back slightly at the close proximity of the stranger and started to shield myself with the door slightly, just in case he wasn't the friendly type.