So I went online. As terrible of a father as Amante was, at least he pretty much let me buy whatever I wanted so long as I didn’t bother him.
That was where the bed tent came in handy. While there were definitely nicer options and even nests available for me to buy, the all black tent that slotted onto the bedframe and allowed the mattress to be shoved inside did the trick.
I wasn’t planning on sticking around for very long anyway.
Or so I hoped.
Elio had promised me that night before he and the rest of the pack left to go do my father’s bidding that he would come back for me—that they wouldn’t leave me behind in this place again.
But now three weeks had passed and I had not seen hide nor hair of any of the alphas who claimed that everything they did was to protect me.
Even the thought of it made me snort with derision as I took care of the other inhabitants of my little sanctuary.
I didn’t spend much time with the people in the Amante estate aside from the head housekeeper, so my only usual company aside from the sparse appearances of Elio’s pack were housed in the large glass tanks that lined the only physical wall of the solarium.
My obsession with reptiles and amphibians had started the night of my eighteenth birthday and it had started with the snake that was currently winding its way lazily around my forearm while I misted the insides of the enclosures.
Pluto was a gray, almost lavender colored ball python and he was the last gift I had ever received from Alesso before he died.
He’d made some offhanded joke that snakes were deaf so we would probably get along—come to find out later upon further research that snakescouldhear things—just not very much.
Either way it didn’t matter much to me because from the moment I held the snake in my hands I was obsessed.
Since then I’ve added two crested geckos, a gargoyle gecko, several hognose snakes, and a plethora of tree frogs to my solarium.
They didn’t care who I was or what I was capable of, all they cared about was having the right temperatures, humidity, and juicy bugs to snack on.
It was also a bonus that my father abhorred anything scaly. It was something Alesso had known very well, and another reason for buying one for me for my birthday.
Because of the reptiles, my father tended to give my space a wide berth for fear of running into Pluto who had grown to beabout three feet long and looked far scarier than he could ever be.
Since my fascination began I’d read everything I could get my hands on about my pets, and how it sometimes felt, my only friends.
It was a bit pathetic, even I could admit it, but at least they weren’t treating me any differently than before.
They didn’t seem to care if I was a beta, alpha, or an omega and that brought with it a certain level of comfort.
Closing the tank I was misting, I paused as the scent of sweet watermelon hit my nose.
I didn’t even need to turn around to know that someone was standing behind me anymore. My new super sniffer was one of the few benefits to my changed condition. Now almost no one in the house could sneak up on me.
Not even Nico who, out of all of the members of my brother’s old pack, I had felt the closest to.
Turning, I found him standing by the large glass windows that made up the far wall of the solarium, one hand casually tucked into his pocket as he watched me with a pair of dark eyes that seemed to stare right through me.
Nico and I were closer in age than the rest of them and he had always felt like more of a playmate than anything else. He also sucked at keeping a poker face and we both knew it.
His eyes were glued to the snake around my neck as he stared at it with open suspicion. He was also terrified of snakes—a fact he wanted to keep a secret even though I’d known since the day I tried to get him to hold Pluto while I cleaned.
‘Cini,’he signed, his tattooed fingers moving through the air with a practiced ease.
I ignored him, turning my gaze away as I started to prep the pre-thawed mice and rats for my snakes.
They had spent three weeks ignoring me, so I figured a little tit for tat was long overdue.
Nico wouldn’t come near me while I had Pluto on my shoulders, so it gave me a few minutes to gather my thoughts on what I was going to say to him.
Smells good,the pair of tiny voices that had appeared the night I had been rescued whispered softly.Mine.
