One of the kittens gives a morose meow, almost like it’s feeling the sadness inside me.
“Yeah, Heidi Ho, we can leave it at that.” She places the basket down, taking a step closer.
“So…” I take a step away from her though, suddenly overwhelmed again and barely hanging on. “I think I need you to take the basket to the kitchen for me. One of the staff will be able to feed them, and I’ll arrange someone else to look after them.”
“You don’t want to?”
I shake my head, peeling off my eye mask. Trying to stop everything building up, her empathy, my confession, their trickery. My voice breaks when I speak again. “I’m going to go call the office and let them know I’m away for a couple of days while you deal with the kittens for me.”
“Heidi,” she whispers as she does a horrible job of locking down her emotions like I need her to.
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “Tristan, I can’t do this today. We’ve got to go and…”
“What about tomorrow, Ho, can you do this tomorrow?”
I huff a watery, sad laugh, “I have to say, Tristan, your support is leaving a lot to be desired.”
She takes a step towards me. “I won’t let you sweep this under the carpet, Heidi. What he did to you, would have to hurt. You need to talk about it.”
“And I just said I would. But first I have to get one of my dearest friends in the fucking universe packed and then I have a handful of days to sort all this pack shit out, Tristan, or I lose everything.”
“What? You didn’t say anything about the timeline! I thought we had loads of time!”
“I have to pack to get control of my trust, to get my position at Verdune, and it has to happen very soon.”
Tristan glares. But it’s not at me, it’s the situation I’m in. “I still think that it’s ridiculous. And offensive, Ho.”
“But it’s the way of the world, according to our society. I promise, Tris, I will talk about what he did, but first I need to focus on other more important things, happier things, than me falling victim to the games Alphas like to play.”
Tristan’s blue eyes stare into the deepest part of me for what feels like a very long time before she smiles softly and picks up the basket of kittens. “I’ll be back. I need to take a piss. When I get back, I’ll do my lippy, but then we’re good to go.”
And I fall in deeper love with my bestie.
ChapterThirty-Two
HEIDI
Tristan and I barely sit our asses in the back of the borrowed Escalade from Koz, when I get a call from my fake pack Alpha, Joseph.
“You’re travelling?” he asks, and his voice grates like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Yes. How are you by the way, Joseph?” I bite my jaw, stopping both my snark and anything else falling out of my mouth.
As he prattles, his voice hurts my brain, and I have to close my eyes and imagine I’m a long, long, long way away from all of this so I don’t explode. In my haste to escape, I miss everything he says, and he growls frustrated at me when I don’t answer quickly enough. “You have to repeat yourself, the reception here is horrible and you dropped out.”
He tsks. A grown ass man tsks at me, and it takes everything in me not to tell him to fuck off. But since I need him on my side and he’s probably the easiest to pacify, I start apologising like expected. “Sorry, Joseph.”
“We need more warning if you’re travelling, Heidi,” he says, dialling up the volume and slowing his speech down, making himself sound like a condescending monotoned dick.
“I assumed you wouldn’t want to be involved in a weekend away with the girls I was at Unity Collegiate with. It was an oversight,” I offer back equally blandly and subtly snarky at the same time.
Tristan completes the dramatics for me as we both listen to Joseph deliver a righteous dressing down. She pulls vomit faces and crosses her eyes at all the right places while I hum in agreement.
“We’re coping with a lot of push-back after your refusal to have the Verdune security team look after your welfare. And once you’re back we will have to sit down and resolve the issue. Honestly, Heidi, you’re the heir of an empire, you must be used to this by now. All everyone is trying to do is keep you safe, we’re all aware of the numerous attempts made against you and Allan so you can’t say it’s not warranted. I think we can agree the first attack gave us all the reminder of how vulnerable you are, don’t you?”
I deadpan Tristan, and she starts punching her hand letting me know how little she thinks of Joseph. It’s not like I don’t agree, but I wave her off and turn to face the window, letting him get off his chest how much of an irresponsible person I am. Same shit, different day.
He hangs up, and within moments I get a notification alert that I knew was coming but didn’t want to receive. Pack Lowly are getting a little too demanding for my liking, now insisting that I have at least a couple of Verdune security staff working ‘in’ with my newer team.
