Hunted

Goodmorning

KayaI wake up from someone knocking on the door. I open my eyes and see that Jace is still asleep. The door opens and Vincent walks in.

“Oh, I didn’t know someone was with you.” He walks over to the closet but just before he opens the door he turns around. “Wait, is that Jace?” He looks confused.

“It’s a long story,” I say before he can say anything else.

“I bet it is.” He giggles and walks into the closet. I want to wake Jace up because I have no idea what to tell Vincent.

“Jace, wake up.” No response. “Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up” He sighs and turns around, his back facing me. He has a tattoo on his right shoulder, I’ve never noticed it before so it must be new. “When did you get this?” I say while I’m gently tracing my finger over the curly lines.

He immediately turns around, gets on top of me and pins my hands above my head.

“That is a very sensitive spot, love.” He kisses me on the spot where he bit me last night before climbing off me.

“Why? Does it hurt?” I turn myself around so I’m lying on my side facing him.

“It’s our mark, love. It is our connection, and very sensitive to touch.” He comes a little closer to me and starts kissing a place on my shoulder. A sudden wave of arousal flows through my body. What is happening to me? Without thinking about it my hand goes to the mark on Jace’s shoulder.

“If you do that, I don’t know if I can restrain myself.” He whispers in my ear. He places his hand on my cheek. “As much as I would love to, we’re both not ready for the next step.” His voice sounds raspy and tired, but I understand him. We’ve moved so fast in the last couple of days that maybe we should take it slow from now on. “But that doesn’t mean I can't kiss you though.” Before I have the time to react I feel his lips crashing onto mine. Where our first kiss started very soft and sweet, this one was much more passionate and aggressive. I wrap my arms around his neck while his left hand is behind my head, and his right is on my lower back. On every point, my body touches his I fell this tingly sensation. Not painful or something like that, it is excitement. I start to move my hands around his body, craving more of this feeling. My hands go from his strong neck towards his broad chest and perfectly carved abs. When I place my hands on his lower back he suddenly breaks the kiss.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“Someone’s here” He whispers back. I put my hand before my mouth and start laughing. He

looks very confused.

“Vincent! Are you still there?”

“Are you guys done? I want to leave!” The door of the closet opens and he walks out with his hands before his eyes.

“You can open your eyes, I’m still wearing clothes.” He opens his eyes and looks at Jace, who just smiles and shrugs.  While Vincent is walking out of the room he gives Jace a high five.

“Congrats man, you deserve it,” he says just before he closes the door. Jace looks at the door, and then back to me. He carefully tries to put some of my hair behind my ear.

“So, where were we?” He smiles. This might be the first time I’ve seen him smile. Sometimes he smirks or giggles, but it is all faked. Most of the time he just has this serious face, as nothing bothers him. I recognize it because I’m the same. He lets out a big sigh before coming closer to me, again, and kissing me. Not as aggressive as before, this time is much like the first time we kissed. Except he is not going to bite me again. When we stop, we just look at each other for a minute.

“Why was Vincent so surprised to see you here?” I ask him. He sighs and stays quiet for a while.

“No one except for Isa and my dad knows that you are my mate. For all, they know you are just a hurt rogue we adopted into the pack. Adopted rogues are automatically the lowest in rank so it is kind of weird for him to see an Alpha’s son in bed with one.”

“Does he know you marked me?”

“Yeah, he does. But he is not the type to tell everyone about it, I think he wants us to tell everyone the news ourselves.” He suddenly stops. “Someone’s at the door” Jace pulls the blanket over him. You can still obviously see someone’s there, just not who. Just as he covered his face a girl comes in. She is about my age, is very tall and has red curly hair that waves around when she moves.

“You already have a guy in your bed, well-done girl that’s the spirit! Who is the lucky one?” I look under the blanket and Jace is shaking his head no.

“He wants to stay anonymous”

“Ah, that’s bullshit. If a man can get you he should be proud of himself. Let me see!” Before I could even react she runs towards the bed and pulls away from the blanket.

“Jace?” She screams in surprise. “I could have expected it. Alpha’s boy and Alpha’s girl. Anyway, breakfast is ready.” She pulls the blanket over him again and storms out of the room. Immediately after she left I hear Jace laughing. He climbs up and lays next to me again.

“Oh boy, we are going to have a rough time with her,” he says.

“Why? Who is she?”

“That was Chloe. She is the daughter of Mike, my dad’s Beta. If it wasn’t for her dad she would never be this high in rank because the only thing she can do is be annoying. She has slept with almost every free male here in the house, and called it ‘training to please her future mate’. She has been trying to get to me for a while now and I just don’t want her. Ever since I told her that, she has been trying to make my life hell”

“But you are the son of the Alpha, can’t you just tell her to stop.”

“Hey, I said she tried, she is not very smart so all of her attempts fail.” He stays quiet for a while. “How about, I show you a little around the house, and afterward we will join the rest for breakfast.”

“Good idea. I haven’t eaten since I came here”

“I’ve got some clothes for you. They are in that pink bag over there. I’m going to my room to change. How about I meet you here in five minutes.” 

“Yeah sure,” I answer him.  He quickly kisses me before leaving the bed and walking away.

After a full minute of debating to just stay in bed for the rest of the day, I decided to go look at what is in the bag. There are some black yoga pants and some black skinny jeans. That’s okay, I can work with that. There is also some underwear, the panties fit, the bras don’t. I just keep wearing the bra I’m wearing now. There are three tops, all black, all partially see-through. I just pick the least revealing one and put it on. There are no socks in the bag so I just steal those from Vincent.

Not long after that, I hear the door opening and Jace walks in. He is wearing dark blue jeans and a black shirt. We walk around the first floor where there are mostly beds- and bathrooms. The second floor is also the attic. They’ve made a little movie room with a couch and some giant pillows on the ground. The rest of the attic is mostly empty. We take the ladder back to the first floor and from there we take the giant stairs towards the ground floor. Everything is decorated in a mixture of modern and medieval. The big stairs lead towards the main hall where there is nothing more than some shoes and coats. There is a couch but it looks too fragile to be used, so I assume it’s just for decoration. We walk over towards the living room, which is giant and has multiple couches and chairs in it. A giant aquarium stands in the middle of the room. The fish all have beautiful colors and swim happily around.

“Each one of the fish represents someone who lives or has lived in this house,” Jace tells me.

“Wait that’s a lot of fish. How many people are living here?”

“Right now about 15, but this house can hold about 30. It happens rarely though, that every room is filled.”

“Wait. So there are going to be 15 people at breakfast?”

“No, probably around 30. We have training today so everyone will eat here.”

“I thought it was going to be maybe 5 or 6 people. Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because I didn’t want you to worry about it too much. It happens all the time that new people come to eat. They will look at you for a minute or so but soon you will blend in and it will be just as if you have always been there.”

“Yeah too bad, I’m still worried. The plan failed.”

“Just look at the fish, it's relaxing. When you are ready for it we can go.”

“Well then I’m going to stay here all day, thank you.”

“Breakfast ends at 10 am. Be ready before then because I’m hungry.”

I go to sit on the couch closest to the tank. There is a lot of fish in there, but it is a really big tank. Jace walks towards the tanks and presses a button, which makes the lights change.

“You can see them better now,” he says as he walks over to the couch I’m sitting on and sits down himself.

“You said every fish represents a person, right?”

“Yeah”

“Can you tell me something about the fish and who they represent?”

“Yeah, sure. We choose the fish based on personality and status, not on looks. So if you look at those two blue and yellow ones over there -he points at the fish-, they are a Queen and Emperor Angelfish. They represent the Alpha and Luna of this pack, in this case, my mom and dad. Even though mom died 23 years ago, her fish still lives…That, or someone has been buying a new one every time it died.” He laughs while he stands up, looking for a fish. “You see that pufferfish over there, that’s Vincent. He likes to act tough but he is just full of shit.”

“Which one is yours?”

“I think I have to lure him out, he’s hiding under the rocks.” He walks out of the room and returns with a ladder and a bag. He climbs onto the ladder to reach the top of the tank, then he throws a little ball in the water.  As the ball sinks some of the fish come look at it but leave it alone until the ball reaches the bottom. A Hound shark comes swimming at it, I recognize it from tv.

“Why does everyone have cute fish and you have a shark?”

“Not everyone has cute fish. Look at that lionfish, the one with the red and white stripes and deadly spikes. That’s Nick’s, not cute at all.” He stops for a moment while he looks at me.

“Oh yeah, the shark. When I was 18 I got this one. I was kind of an ass to everyone so yeah, the shark. Maybe one day we can get you a fish.”

“I don’t know what fish I could be.”

“You don’t get to choose your fish, the people around you do. Maybe if we all get to know each other, we might figure out what fish should represent you.”

“Fine I’ll go to breakfast”

“That’s not what I meant, but great, let’s go.” He stands up and walks towards the door.

I look at the tank one last time. It is giant and contains so many different species of fish, but still, they all live peacefully together, it’s beautiful.

We walk into the big dining room and as soon as we do, every head turns to us. I hate this, all this attention, just watch yourself, people.