Pack, page 10
“When you disappeared, we tried to find you. We really did. And as lunar week dragged on and you were nowhere to be found,” I can see his expression hardening here. He’s expecting me to deal him a low blow. “Nobody really knew what to do, or what to think. And it was me, who suggested to Addison and Wiatt, that we,” I can’t help but momentarily hold my breath. Even saying these words still, now, after Paris has been returned to us, still feel horrible to say. “Stop looking for you.”
Paris masks his face so it’s in neutral. This is still not good between us. “And it was both me and Addison who thought that we should, pretend to be together for outside appearances of the pack.”
Paris’s lip snarls up slightly. I put up a hand to stop him. “Our reasoning came back to you.” Paris opens his mouth. “Hey, you said you’d let me explain everything.” Paris closes his mouth again. Clearly I’m testing his patience levels, unintentionally. “We were working on the theory that you’re disappearance was orchestrated, so that whoever took you, could see the inner workings of your pack play out.”
A look of slight surprise falls over Paris’s silent face. His eyes soften slightly but I keep on track. “And working off this theory, we decided we’d attempt to play whoever it was that thought they could play us. Only Addison, Wiatt and I were in on this. We decided to fool the enemy, that we would pretend, I had moved on into your pack, to the next most powerful werewolf in your hierarchy.”
“Addison.” He said letting out a relived, heavy breath.
I nodded my head. “Addison. The plan was, I would pretend that I was only here for the power and glory and I’d moved on to Addison and he would give off the impression that he was, entitled to me by default, because of your disappearance and vacancy in the top spot.” I paused and watched him even out his breathing, calming down.
“In keeping up the lie of Addison and me being together, I stayed here, at his place all week, I slept in his bed, just slept!” I said holding up a hand. “So I could ensure his scent was on me, from his sheets. When we were outside of the house, we had to look like we were a couple. So I hung off his arm, sat on his lap, and he,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “He acted like you might with me.”
Paris frowned heavily. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing, it means he put his hands on me, on my back, on my ass, it means we held hands and he ran his nose along my neck.”
“That all?” Paris asked his body was tense again.
“We thought it would be more convincing if we were all about the little touches, that indicate intimacy rather than being all over each other.” Paris sighed loudly and nodded his head.
“Okay. Did Addison sleep in the bed with you? When you were in his bed?” I want to squirm, I don’t want to be talking about this at all with him.
“Yes. But we were just sharing the bed. Literally, sleeping. No sex!”
“And nothing else?” Paris pushed.
“We might have spooned at some point in the night.” I reply. Paris’s mouth is flat again. Set grimly on his face. The redness from Addison’s hits to his face has faded.
“I see.” He mutters looking at his hands. Addison walks back into the room with three coffee mugs.
“You have to believe we thought, we were doing something that would help get you back. We had to be convincing. Because if we were being watched, then we wanted to send out disinformation to whoever was monitoring us. We didn’t want them to have any true idea of what goes on in the pack.”
Paris looks back up at me. “Bad for business, I get it.” He says accepting his coffee off Addison this time. I reach up for mine as Addison leans down to me to hand me a mug.
“Did you figure out who’s leeching information to my kidnappers?” He asks before blowing across the top of his mug.
“No. It never come out, and then you turned up here and now, here we are.” I look at the coffee. I should feel relieved. But I still feel so wound up with these emotions. This talk is not helping me to enjoy having Paris back. I still feel somewhat like I’m trapped in last week. Because this is not over. I know it.
“Well I have some idea.” He mutters before sipping his coffee. I glance up at Addison and we both look back at Paris.
“Who?” Addison blurts out and winces, when he tries to drink his coffee and burns his split lip.
Paris looks over at Addison and there’s some sort of silent communication going on between them. Addison is frowning back at Paris and I’m left wondering what has just passed between them. Are they so finally intoned with one another that Addison knows what Paris would say if he answered the question?
“Who?” I ask directly. “Who Paris?” He looks back at me and seems to hesitate.
“An old…girlfriend.” I glance up at Addison who’s still frowning down at him and standing beside us both. Now I frown.
“But you don’t do girlfriends. I mean, you said, you didn’t have any girlfriends as such until I came along just dates with other….”and then I get it. “Oh.” A fuck buddy. Paris didn’t date before me, he had sex with other female wolves, when he wanted it. He had bed partners. I kind of knew that, but I’ve never put much thought into it.
“Ex…lover then.” He says awkwardly clearly not happy with the term.
“How do you know that?” I ask as my curiosity and sensibility return to me.
“Things that were said to me in my captivity. Only things, some of my ex partners would say.” Partners. He said plural. Sexual partners, more than one.
Addison moves and I watch him walk to the opposite side of the room slowly and sit in an armchair. “Which one?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Paris says, tensely. “It could be more than one.”
“Pft. Paris I know damn well you were no virgin before I met you. It’s okay.” Paris glances at Addison.
“No Bg, you don’t understand. Before you, I had sexual…partners. It was just for sex and I was well, very, occupied with them.” I’m silently stunned at what I’m hearing. Because I think I can read between the lines here. “I mean, more than most people would date in a year.” Silence follows and digest this information.
“So how is it possible I’ve never had runs in with them in the pack in the whole time we’ve been dating?”
Paris nods at Addison. Addison looks at me with concern. “Because between the two of us, and the boys, we’ve made sure no one gets near you, to start feeding you any information on Paris’s previous liaisons.”
Liaisons, now we’re calling them liaisons. I try to think about all the times I’ve been around the boys in the pack environment. You’d never know I was being kept away from the evil clutches of ex lovers of Paris’s they are that smoothly deceptive at what they do.
“And I think the kidnapping was done out of some sort of retaliation for me being with you.” Paris continues on, despite my steadiness of shock setting in with what I’ve just heard.
This is so not the news a girl wants to hear. Ever. That my werewolf pack mate’s ex sexual conquests are attempting to sabotage not only my relationship with him, but the man, Paris D’arenberg, himself. In all likelihood, because of me.
“How many?” my voice is low, almost a hoarse whisper from the shock of what I’ve been told. Addison’s blue eyes look across to Paris and Paris’s head dips slightly as he looks silently back up at me. He doesn’t say it, but his body language is obvious.
A lot.
The two males before me remain utterly silent. What is the correct response to owning up to your own highly reputed, sexual past that has been well and truly hidden from the current lover in your life?
It’s not that I never expected Paris to not have a sexual past. Come on now, I’m not that naïve. And it’s not that I don’t know how highly sexed his sex drive is. Hello, subject to it all the time.
I’m just shocked that he’s chosen so deceptively to bury it away from me ever really finding out about it. I look across at Addison my eyes narrowing. His best friend, second in command, the guy I go to for advice on Paris when I need it and he’s in cahoots with him, keeping me, well and truly at bay from ever finding out much about Paris’s sexual discretions.
Seems I’m the only one willing to talk here. Figures. “More than ten?” I try for light and casual, but my laugh cracks and sounds more like derangement than before. Addison looks away to the side. Paris’s eyes don’t meet mine. Well that’s a pretty damn definitive answer if ever I didn’t want one!
“But they’re not all from your pack right?”
The silence stretches on and on and I wonder why I let my brain engage with my mouth and keep asking these questions. Do I enjoy self harm?
“Most.” Paris replies softly, looking up at me briefly.
“Most.” I repeat for clarification, feeling shock reverberate through my system. Most of my pack mate’s ex lovers and sexual conquests are from his werewolf pack. The one he leads, the one he lives in and is involved in, on a daily, hourly basis. How could I not know this? How I’d miss ever picking up on that?
“A handful are not.” He continues on gently. As if that makes me feel any less kind of stunned at this revelation.
I’ve been amongst his pack, and always wondered why I got such hostility and have never been truly accepted by them. This might go a fair way to explaining that. Paris’s pack the Manhattan Maen are the largest werewolf pack in New York. I do not know what the percentage of women is like. But out of that, I know he’s slept with more than ten female werewolves from this pack.
“What did you do? Use a different one each lunar week? Oh wait, that can’t be right, must have been each week!” I can’t help the bitchy comment slip out. I’m fighting my misplaced anger at this. I know I have no right to be upset and angry over his past. But my female brain is over riding my werewolf brain at the moment.
But of course, baiting the alpha werewolf male does not bring out his calm and charming side. Paris’s eyes darken and he straightens up, looking directly at me. “Actually it was more like two or three a night.” He throws at me conceitedly.
My mouth drops open. Of course it was, I think to myself. Of course it was. I suddenly get an idea of the number of women we’re talking about here. I close my mouth and look away from him, standing up.
“Well aren’t I lucky then that I had Conall to get me off while you were AWOL.” And with my bitchy remark said out loud and both sets of male eyes glaring anger at me, I leave the room.
“Bg!” Paris calls out after me.
I hear him walking after me as I head to the bedroom only to pick up my overnight bag. Paris stands in the doorway as I turn around to leave again. “Bg.” He says looking at me like he’s wounded and I stand still. He’s just about one of three people who are allowed to get close to calling me by my actual name, not my pack name. I can tell he’s not sure how to start this conversation off with me. Awkward doesn’t even begin to cover the tension between us.
“I can’t handle this.” I say at him. “Having a past is fine Paris, but having you throw it in my face is not.”
“I know, I’m sorry for that. I was rude prick out there, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. Done that.” He answers me quickly stepping inside the room and towards me. “I’m not trying to hurt you, honestly.” His hands are my arms and we’re looking at each other face to face. “Please don’t run away from this.” His voice drops to an almost whisper. “I need you.”
As if I don’t know that already. After turning up for dead, on the doorstep at midnight after a week of being abducted wasn’t a big enough clue to that! When the need to know information routine was put into place by Addison and me.
I understand the value of trust, the week Paris was missing, I invested a lot of myself in the concept of trust. Trust that my instinct was right. Trust that Addison and I could pull off what we needed to do to get him back. Trust that somehow the universe would return my lover, my werewolf, my Paris, back to me.
“I know that.” I get out of my mouth. But my chest feels tight and my head hurts. I’ve never been in a relationship like this before. I’ve never faced this kind of obstacle before. I’ve never had to confront this kind of feeling before. “But right now, I don’t want to hear about how you need to use me to get something for yourself.”
With his abduction, my emotions have been wired to the height and extreme of stress that just isn’t healthy to have. With this on top of everything else, I feel wiped out. Emotionally drained. His hand slips under my chin and lifts my face up to look back at him.
“It’s not for me its for us. I want us. I need us.” He says simply. “You’re my pack mate. You’re what matters here, not those other women.” My voice has left me and keep my mouth clamped together, if I open it, I’ll cry. I don’t want to cry. “And I don’t want them coming at us, if it’s going to get to you.”
My eyes water and I look at him. Shrugging my shoulders loosely. “We can fight anything.” Paris says softly, wiping a thumb over the tear that slides down my face.
Tiredness is seeping into my limbs and my insides feel heavy. Chokingly heavy. “I got to go.” I mutter dropping my head down. I can’t think right now because feeling is taking over and my mixed emotions are swirling around, churning inside me.
“Please don’t go.” His voice is hoarse and tugs at me. I think about what it must have been like all week, all lunar week without me. Am I just about the sex to him? It seems like I’m more than just a body for him to fill.
I sob and sniff. “I just need to get my head clear.” He wipes at the tears rolling down my face.
“Stay the night here.” It’s a plea, not an order.
I sigh and drop my handbag nodding my head. I’ll stay because I don’t really want to go anywhere without him, not after the week that’s been. But I’m not sure I’m up for continuing the talks about the ex lovers with him. Then his expression changes and becomes solemn again. “Where you just lashing out at me, using Conall because you knew it would cut me?”
I sigh heavily. I don’t want to have the conversation go from how many werewolves Paris banged in the past and has kept well hidden from me, to me and my ex. This is not going to end well. Not at all.
“Kind of.” I mutter in a low voice. “But what I said, well, it was true as well.” I finish holding his gaze. I should at the least own up and be honest about what happened. I can see the muscle in the back of his jaw twitching wildly as his whole jaw goes tight.
Paris’s leans more onto one foot as he asks “He touched you?” I gulp salvia down.
“Yes.” I mutter softly.
“I’ll kill him.” Paris mutters between clenched teeth.
“You can’t.” I state a little stronger.
“To hell I can’t.” Paris seethes, his face is getting red.
“I’m as much to blame as he is.” I state feeling down right awkward.
Paris breathes out heavily. “You let him touch you?”
“I has passed out, exhaustion, hadn’t been sleeping the whole time you were gone, couldn’t shape shift, it all just caught up with me. Conall was supposed to be looking out for me. I woke up and he was….” My voice has gone small again and I look down at the ground. “His fingers were…..I thought it was you and I….”
Paris backs up from me and puts both his hands on his hips. He’s looking at me somewhere between anger and appalled.
“So did Addison fuck you as well?” I lift my head again. Now, we’re just going in circles. “Or were you both just lying to my face?”
I mirror his body language, going tense putting my hands on my hips. “Fuck you!” I yell at him angrily. He actually has the audacity to look shocked by my outburst.
“Fuck me?” He mutters back at me. “Are you sure you want to go there Cadence?”
“Oh so now I’m Cadence.” I reply angrily at him for using my full name. “The thing with Conall,”
He puts up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I didn’t fuck him.” I state quickly before he can dismiss any more talk. Paris’s dark blue eyes widen. “And for the official fucking record on who’s been fucking me, Addison and I have never fucked!” I yell loosing my cool and snatching my handbag up. I throw my hands up. “This is too much. I need out.” I go to move past him and Paris grabs me by my arms and pushes me up against the wall.
“Oh hell no. You can not drop Conall’s name on me and split. Not like this.” I try to shake out of his hold. And fail.
“You don’t fucking own me Paris!” I seethe angrily. “I’m not one of your fuck buddy whores, so get your paws off me.” Paris’s eyes blaze with anger and he presses into me.
“Then maybe, you shouldn’t give me reason to think you are!” He yells in my face. And I can see he regrets the words the minute they’ve left his mouth and he stops pressing against me and steps back. We’ve never fought like this. It’s so fucking pedestrian and not us. Why is this happening?
“Jesus Bg, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just….it’s Conall.. I can’t handle the idea of him and you and…well anything of you two being together.” I stay against the wall and look at Paris.
“You were gone and I was be ignored by the Manhattan Maen and nobody was feeding me information on what was going on with the search for you. I couldn’t get near Addison or the boys. I was pushed out and after the being knocked out from the day you were kidnapped, I wasn’t able to shape shift. It was lunar week and I know that doesn’t make it right….But my body it just…” The words tumble out of my mouth desperately. “My body was grid locked, in pain and barely supporting my emotions let alone the rest of me.”
Paris’s mouth drops open in surprise. “You were knocked out?” his expression softens completely and he steps back over to me.
I nod my head. “Honestly I tried to get to you, I tried so desperately, I threw myself at those guys.” I break down sobbing again. The tears come freely now. “And….and…Jules found me lying on the street outside your place. I think I was out for around twenty minutes.”
