LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 13: You Can Trust Me
It takes me less than a minute to realize that Lucian wasn't joking when he said he had no idea what he was doing when it came to gardening.
I've long since given up on trying to read the book Lucian loaned me because I can't stop staring at him. It wasn't long ago that he helped me into a lounger in the garden. Just like when I caught my first glance of Winter Lake from the bus window, something about Lucian's garden makes me breathe a little easier. I feel calmer, without knowing why.
The fact that Lucian doesn't have any neighbors—none that are close enough for me to scent anyway—makes it seem like we're alone in the peaceful garden that backs up to a dense forest. A forest that's lush and wild and calls to the wolf side of me that wants to run and explore.
I fully intended to enjoy the bright sunny morning, but it's getting hotter by the minute. I'd thought that between reading a few chapters, I'd nap if I got tired, but otherwise be lazy all day.
But that was before I saw Lucian's attempts at gardening.
Although I've never seen anyone gardening before, something about the way he's doing it doesn't seem right. I watch him tear open seed packets and after a peek inside the paper envelope, dumps the lot in one spot and buries it under a pile of soil he awkwardly pats with one hand.
"Lucian, why are you growing vegetables?"
"Figured it'd be relaxing," he says, opening another envelope and glancing around as if looking for the best place to dump it. "
And is it?"
"When I've finished and I'm back inside, yes. Yes, it is."
I raise my leg and cross my arms over my knee so I can rest my chin on it, keeping my injured leg straight. For nearly an hour, I observe Lucian as he tries to figure out how to garden.
As it gets closer to midday, it gets so hot that I start thinking about telling Lucian I'm ready to go back inside. If I wasn't in baggy sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, it wouldn't be so bad, I tell myself as I raise a hand to wipe at the perspiration dotting my brow. But not yet.
Now I'm happy enough to watch Lucian in his shorts and t-shirt doing a terrible job of gardening.
"Maybe you should borrow a book from the library," I suggest once he's finished emptying seed packets into the earth and patting them down.
"Is that your way of telling me I don't know what I'm doing?" he asks, glancing over at me with a sparkle in his eye.
I don't say a word.
"Feel free to jump in any time," he says.
I stay silent, though it's a battle to keep myself from grinning.
"I see how it is; not one day, and already I'm the source of entertainment," Lucian grumbles. The need to smile, to laugh, evaporates as I sink into memory.
I'm back at the Kieran's pack and this time the person who's the source of entertainment is me. Only it isn't so good-natured.
It's my first day with the pack, and while his pack are loud and boisterous as they crowd around Kieran, doing nothing to hide their pleasure at his return, the only one who looks the slightest bit thrilled at my arrival is Kieran's dad, Lysander.
His soul vibrates with his happiness at the prospect of an heir who could be an alpha and omega, a child that will make their pack famous and he knows it. With the alpha trait so strong in the Frost line, and the omega in the Phoenixes', the possibility of producing a child who can be both leader and healer of the pack, the first in recorded history, is impossible to ignore.
"Is that her?" I hear someone mutter.
"Yeah, she's a bit… quiet-looking, isn't she?" The first speaker laughs.
"Boring you mean."
"Well, now that you mention it."
I try to ignore it since there are problems big and small in all packs. Sometimes the presence of an omega will unearth the deeper problems buried in the heart of the pack, making it easier for her to heal. It's a little harder to ignore the malicious glee in their voices.
It doesn't take five minutes surrounded by the pack to know that my being here won't change things because I don't want to be anywhere near them, much less heal them.
"You think he told her?" I hear someone else murmur, and once again I avoid looking in their direction. The last thing I want to be accused of is eavesdropping when I've barely been here a day.
I can feel more lingering glances. They're trying to figure out where I belong in pack hierarchy, but just as with the Phoenix pack, I know I won't fit here either. I feel the difference between us, even between me and Kieran who's supposed to be the one I'm closest to in the world. The other half of my soul.
Kieran's pack is full of energy and fighting spirit. There are a lot of dominant personalities here. I feel them clashing and colliding with each other, and I know there must be lots of fights. Fights that Kieran and his father will expect my presence to stop.
But I can see myself spending more time hiding than changing anything, just as I did in my father's pack.
I remember how excited Kieran's father was when Kieran and I took one look at each other and the same word spilled from both our lips. Mate.
I wish I'd squashed the word. Buried it. Pretended I hadn't seen him.
"Doubt it," another voice answers the speaker.
"How long do you think it'll take her to find out?" someone else asks.
What are they talking about? Me? But what don't they want me to know?
Someone laughs, and it's full of dark anticipation. "Not long. See, he's already slipped away. We all know where he'll be, don't we?"
Me. They're talking about me and Kieran. But when I look for him, he isn't where I last saw him. When I turn to his father, I find him wearing a fixed smile on his face, but he doesn't look surprised that Kieran's gone.
His excitement has dimmed only a little because Kieran and I are mated. He must know that no matter that Kieran's slipped away, he'll still get what he wants, an heir that will
give the Frost Pack the fame and the prestige he and my father spoke about during mine and Kieran's mating ceremony.
He knows where Kieran is gone, and something tells me I won't like it when I find out.
"Cassia?" I startle at the sight of Lucian crouched in front of my lounger looking concerned. "You okay?"
I flash the same false smile I give anyone when they ask. "Sure. Fine."
Lucian studies me in silence before shaking his head. "It's pretty convincing, but the light's missing."
I blink at him. "What?"
"The light. It's missing from your eyes when you smile. That's how I know it isn't real."
His assumption that he knows anything about me has my anger sparking to life. "And how do you know what's real?"
He flashes me a smile. Not the bright one I'm used to seeing on his face, not the one that makes me want to smile with him, but this one is a pale echo of it. "I know."
The hidden pain, I guess. Something happened to him or someone he knew, which is the reason why he came here to Winter Lake.
It was probably the same something that made him leave his name behind and take the name of this place as his.
Everything in me wants to ask, wants to fix it, but a question always leads to another question and I have no intention of opening myself up like that. Not to anyone. No matter how bright their smile is.
"Right," I tell him.
His false smile falls away. "You can trust me, Cassia."
"I don't know you. I don't want to know you." My voice is hard, harder than it needs to be because if anyone is going to slip past my defences, it's going to be Lucian.
A larger part of me than I'd ever admit wants to trust him. Wants to let him in, and that's the part I have to silence in case one day I listen.
Lucian leans closer, close enough I scent the salt of his sweat on his skin. It's not unpleasant. But then, nothing about him is unpleasant.
"Yes, you do," he says in a low voice.
We stare at each other for several seconds. Me trying to figure out what to say, and him gazing back at me as if he's prepared to wait forever.
"Lucian?" My gaze jerks to the side of the house. Orion.
Of course it would be him, the one person I'd rather never see again. He's in stained blue overalls. His uniform from the gas station, I'm guessing, and his expression is blank, except for the small line running between his eyes. Something about his frown tells me he's been there, watching, listening, and he's not happy with anything he's seen or heard.
"What's up, Orion?" Lucian gets to his feet and turns to him.
"You got a minute? I need a word." His eyes don't leave mine, which tells me everything I need to know about what subject he's eager to talk to Lucian about. Me.
He's come to warn Lucian away because I'm trouble. And he's right, I am trouble. The second my father learns I ran away from the Frost pack, he'll help Kieran hunt me down because my running will make the Phoenixes and the Frosts look bad, and he won't like that.
"Appearances are important, Cassia. And none more so than the Phoenixes," Father would tell me. "We have a reputation to keep up. Nothing will upset everything I've worked so hard to build. I won't let it." His words were the soundtrack of my childhood, my adolescence, and my young adulthood.
He never tired of reminding me. In case I'd ever forget. Which was just another way for him to say: hide your tears, squash down your rage, and act the perfect daughter. The perfect obedient daughter. Always.
"I'll be right back. You want me to take you in?" Lucian asks.
So I can't overhear? No, I think I'd like to know what Orion thinks of me, and if he says anything alarming, I need to know if I have to break my promise to Lucian and run.
"I'm fine. I'll just read my book." I flash him another false smile, trying to inject some of the light he said was missing. But when he shakes his head a little, just like he did before, I realize he's seen right through me.
Again. I lean back in the lounger, using the book to shield my face since apparently I'm better at hiding than I am at lying.
After a pause, I hear Lucian walk up the slight incline of the garden and to Orion near the side of the house. Once I'm sure they've moved far enough away, I rest my book on my belly and close my eyes.
For what I'm intending on doing, it's going to take all my concentration and even then, it still might not work.