The Alpha's Daughter (Un-Edited Version)

The Alpha's Daughter - Chapter 11

Annie:

I stepped away from him in horror. How the hell did he know? I tried not to panic; he may have just been speaking about something else. And anyway, he was half out of it; he mightn't have known who he was speaking to. But deep down, I knew exactly what he was speaking about. But how? I had been so careful; I hadn't thought about Dante or the other pack in the presence of anyone else, so nobody could have read my mind. What if it had been Dante who had put Flint in this state? The thought made me shiver; it was all my fault. Flint had been hurt and it was all my doing.

"Annie?" I turned and saw that Cal had come in, still wearing his blanket. At least he had cleaned off the blood. I forced a smile and looked back at Flint. Lying there, you wouldn't have thought he was a threat. He looked like any other person you could meet on the street, nothing special at all.

"Are you okay?" Cal asked. He was standing by my side, looking at Flint's lifeless body. For a minute, I thought that he was talking to him but then I saw that Cal was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah," I sighed. "I just got a bit of a scare, that's all." I was reminded of how relieved I was when I found out he was okay and my knees felt like they were about to buckle. I felt like I was in shock. Every worst scenario possible had ran through my head when I had seen that he was covered in all of that blood. Flint's blood. I put my hands to my face and made an exasperated noise.

"What?" Cal asked.

"Why can't my life be simple?" I began to laugh hysterically. "It's not fair." I was talking about everything; Dante, Flint, dad...Cal. I wanted a normal existence. With normal friends, normal siblings, normal parents and even more normal boyfriend. But no, I got werewolves and mates and packs after my head.

"I used to ask myself that," Cal said, shrugging his shoulders. "But then I realised that life's not very fair. Take this whole mating thing, for example," he turned to look at me, "you're not my biggest fan. If life had been fair, I would have got a gorgeous blonde who adored me and wanted to wash my pants."

I gave him a playful hit in the stomach. He grabbed me by the waist and began to tickle me. I screamed with laughter, trying to get him off of me. I hated being tickled. I tried to hit him but he grabbed my wrists. I stopped moving and just looked at him. One long, frustratingly awkward moment passed. I was so ready to just kiss him. I was going to do it, in spite of myself. I was going to-

"How's the casualty?" Sierra asked, coming back into the room. Cal dropped my wrists and looked anywhere but my face. He suddenly became very interested in the photographs on top of the mantelpiece and walked over to view them in greater detail.

"He's fine," I said. I wasn't going to tell her about him waking up; she would only ask questions and I didn't want to answer them. Not yet, anyway.

"Well, I'm fine through here if you want to go and get something to drink," she said, fussing with Flint's dressings. I didn't need telling twice. I scurried out of the living room, my face flushing. Cal came quickly after me, closing the door behind him.

"Your face," he laughed. I sucked in my cheeks and pretended that I wasn't trying not to laugh.

"Shut up," I mumbled, embarrassed. Then I felt bad. I was laughing and treating everything like a big joke when Flint was lying in there with those injuries. My face fell and Cal must have noticed because moments later, he had tentatively wrapped his arms around me. I stood rigid but then my body fought against me and I allowed myself to accept the hug. To be honest, being in his arms felt right and no matter how corny it sounded, I felt safe there.

"He'll be okay, you know?" Cal said, holding me close. "He's a werewolf." I nodded. Somehow, this wasn't how I had envisioned my Saturday night. I was now going to have to wait for Flint to wake up to see if he was speaking the truth.