Chapter 4: First Experiences
1665 Words
Cassian
She’s infuriating. Why was she physically fighting me for my phone?
Well, it’s annoying that she ran back to her room, but I have work to do, and now she’s out of my hair. I’ll take that as a temporary win.
Though, a different part of me can’t stand it when she’s so upset.
I ignore that part for now, and head to my office. I stay there for most of the day, getting work done, but mostly thinking about her.
I hate that she’s infected my mind so much.
Nearing the end of the day, I decide I should probably check on her.
Normally at this time, I’d be on my way to the strip club to decompress.
Her room is empty. I panic, and frantically start looking for her.
I never would have expected to find her here— sleeping soundly in my bed.
The mate bond is probably making her crave my scent.
Admittedly… I crave hers too.
Did she do as I told her and go to the kitchen if she was hungry? I immediately feel guilty, realizing I should have checked on her earlier.
She stirs, and her eyes crack open. Then she sees me, and they become wide. She jumps up out of the bed, and I see that she’s still wearing the sundress I gave her this morning.
She tries to run for the door, probably thinking I’d be mad about catching her here.
“Wait, it’s okay…” I whisper, moving in front of her path, blocking her exit.
She stops, and her arms wrap around herself.
I take her hand, and lead her back to sit on the bed. Then I take out my phone.
“Can you type?” I ask her.
She nods.
I open my notes app, and hand it to her. “Type your name first, and let me see.”
She types extremely slow, but eventually gets there. She turns the phone around and the note says ‘lillia’
“Okay, good.” It’s still frustrating, but this is a solid start.
She beams at my approval.
“How old are you?”
It doesn’t take her long to type the numbers. It says 22, which was my guess. She’s so young.
“Can you tell me why you don’t talk?”
She starts typing, and again, it takes so long. I know she has a voice, evident from her shrilling screaming. So there has to be a reason she doesn't speak.
She finally turns the phone around.
‘Mother said not allowed’
Really? I was expecting a whole paragraph with how long that took.
“Is she the one that gave you those bruises on your body?”
She doesn’t type, instead she just nods, and looks down, hugging herself again.
I take the phone back. “That’s enough for tonight then. Thank you for telling me.”
She beams again. She doesn’t smile with her teeth, but I can see it clearly in her eyes.
“Come.” I say, standing up, “I’m taking you somewhere.”
I thought she would be excited to hear that, but she looks worried instead. She follows me out of the room and to the garages anyway.
In the garage I have a few different vehicles. A jeep, a ferrari, a lamborghini, and the suv we rode in from the club. When she sees the cars, she looks scared again.
I’m a powerful alpha wolf and the mate I was given is afraid of cars. This has to be some bad karma.
“You pick.” Maybe she can choose whichever one looks the least scary to her.
She chooses the lamborghini.
“Are you sure? This is one louder than the others.”
She c***s her head, but then goes to open the door. She tries to open it straight out like how I opened the suv door, but these are butterfly doors.
I help her with it, pulling the door up.
She looks annoyed at me.
What did I do? I just helped her with the door.
She gets in and I try to help her with her seatbelt too. She grunts, and pushes my hand away.
“You have to wear it.” I say angrily.
She grabs it herself and tries to buckle it on her own. It’s twisted, but she clicks it in.
I give up on that battle, and get in the driver seat.
She flinches when the engine starts.
As I drive, she seems to be doing a lot better than when we left the club. I go slow, and try not to accelerate too fast, which makes me feel like I look dumb, driving like a grandma in a lambo.
Her eyes watch every single thing we pass like she’s never been outside before.
Shit, maybe she hasn’t.
Then I feel her pulling on my shirt. I glance at her and she’s looking at me with her big eyes, like she’s trying to ask me something?
I ignore her, because I have no idea what she wants.
She stops pulling when we park at the mall.
I try to come around and help her get out but she’s frantically trying to get it done before I get there. So I walk super slow, and let her win this one.
“Have you been to this mall before?”
She shakes her head, and follows me to the main entrance. There’s a lot of people bustling about, even at 8pm. She looks excited, but grips my hand tighter, and scoots closer to me.
“You can get anything you want, okay?”
She c***s her head, looking confused.
“You probably want more clothes, right?”
Still confused.
And now I’m frustrated. Has she never been shopping before? Then it hits me, and I feel like I should have asked this earlier.
“Were you ever allowed to leave that club?”
I already knew her answer at this point.
She shakes her head no.
The implications of that hit me like a semi-truck. She’s been imprisoned since birth. Her only views of life were whatever she saw in a strip club. It makes me angry, and sad for her. I want to kill her mother for what she did to my innocent mate.
She can sense my fury, and her face looks at me with worry. s**t, she probably thinks she upset me again.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart.” I offer her a smile.
She gets that look on her face— confused, but hopeful.
I start walking her through the mall, many people are staring, taking pictures, wondering who this girl is that's holding hands with their alpha. But I growl at anyone who gets too close.
“Pick any store that looks good to you, and we can go inside”
Of course, she pulls me into the store with a lot of colors, and neon lights.
It’s a s*x shop.
“Uh, I don’t think there’s anything you want here.”
She ignores my protest, and pulls me all the way inside. Then she points at a mannequin wearing a black lace assless corset-style suit. She points at it really excited, concerningly excited.
I frown. “Why do you want that?”
She shakes her head and points to my front pocket that has my phone. I look down but she’s already digging for it.
I pull up the notes app for her and she types—
“Rimi”
“Oh, yes, I have seen Rimi wearing that. Is that why you wanted to come in here?”
She nods excitedly, then tries to pull it off of the mannequin.
“No, no stop that” I pull her hands back, stopping her from ruining the store’s display. “You have to get one from the rack.”
I can’t believe this is the first thing I’m buying for her. And there’s definitely people watching us.
We’re checking out and she keeps shoving my phone at me, trying to get me to look at her note that says ‘Rimi’
“Yes, I know, Rimi has this, I get it.”
She shakes her head and adds another word
‘Rimi here’
“Oh. No, she’s not here right now. It’s night time, she’s probably working.”
The cashier is watching our odd exchange, but doesn’t say anything.
Now, Lillia looks annoyed, and it’s directed at me, as if I’m responsible for Rimi not currently being in the mall.
We’ve wasted a ton of time, and the mall is going to close soon, so I force Lillia into Zara and make her choose a bunch of outfits. Most of her ‘choosing’ is just me shoving clothes at her.
She tries to take off her dress in the middle of the store, thinking that I wanted her to put the clothing on right now.
I grab her hands and pull her dress straps back onto her shoulders.
“Stop that,” I scold, “You can’t just take your clothes off in front of people.”
She looks confused, almost hurt, by that statement, though it makes sense. She literally grew up in a strip club, where women removing their clothing for men was praised.
“We’ll buy these, and you can try them on at home.”
The mall makes its final closing announcement, and I pull Lillia back to the car outside.
She’s fighting me, like she doesn’t want to go. She’s grabbing my arm with both hands, and sticking her feet to the ground.
“The mall is closing, we can come back tomorrow.” I say, annoyed.
Still fighting me.
So I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. Her shopping bags land against my back, and she continues to hit me with them.
I ignore it, and force her into the car.
She’s sobbing the whole way home.
- Writer
