Sue had been dreaming about being trapped on a train with talking animals. It was somehow both terrifying and adorable all at once. She was woken up by the old-fashioned sounding ringer on Knight’s phone. She tried to ignore it and go back to sleep but she was also a nosy bastard, so when Knight answered it she couldn’t help but listen in. Outside the rain was patting gently on their window.“Mom, it’s three a.m. here,” Knight whispered into the phone. He was clearly trying not to wake Sue as he crept to the door. “What? No…that’s…when?”The tone of Knight’s ’ voice put Sue on alert. She had never heard her husband sound so distraught. Knight was quiet for a while, so Sue pushed herself up in bed and grabbed her glasses from the nightstand. Knight was standing in the open doorway with his hand gripping onto the wooden frame as though he thought he might fall down.“Knight?” Sue asked quietly as she slipped out of bed. She walked over to Knight and put her hand on the werewolf’s shou
The West house seemed even bigger without Lenard West in it. The large estate had been Knight’s home growing up. It still felt like his safe place. After Knight’s stepdad, though he had believed him to be his real dad at the time, beat up Knight when he tried to defend his mom, they had moved into the estate. Knight had been just a kid at the time.Knight and Sue spent a lot of time at the house, what with the weekly family dinners and quarterly pack gatherings. Knight’s grandpa was always the center of everything. The man had been a force of nature, a man who commanded respect without even trying. His shoes were far too big for Knight to fill.The funeral had been too long and too depressing. He needed to let Sue know that when he died, he wanted something different. He didn’t know what, but it certainly wasn’t that. A church full of people wearing black, crying as an old man stood at the front, saying a bunch of scripted words he’d said a thousand times before.As he walked around h
The day after the funeral, Knight dragged himself into work. Sue had tried to talk him out of it, but he needed to do something. He couldn’t stand sitting around with everyone at his grandparent’s house. It was like they all thought they had to wallow in the misery to honor Lenard. It was bullshit, of course. The last thing Lenard West would ever want was for people to mope.“Are you sure about this?” Sue asked as they drove into the office. “We could do something else. We don’t have to stay at your grandma’s place, we could go anywhere. It’s Friday anyway, is it really worth going back to work for just one day?”He knew Sue was trying to help but the fact that she had just referred to the house as his grandma’s place, instead of grandparents’, was pissing him off.“Honestly? I just want to go to work,” Knight told her. “I’ve got stuff that needs doing and a lot of paperwork to read through before I meet with Grandpa’s lawyers later.”“Okay,” Sue said as she wrung her hands on her lap
The apartment was filled with the sounds of rapid gunfire and shouting coming from the TV in the living room. Video games weren’t really Sue’s thing. She hadn’t grown up with a sibling nor had friends who liked video games so she had never really given them a chance. They were, however, at the top of Joey’s favorite things. Video games and pizza.“Hey sis, you gotta get to cover,” Joey told her far too calmly.“I’m trying to get to cover,” Sue shouted at him. “The buttons aren’t doing as they’re told.”Joey snorted at her which just made Sue angrier.“Who the hell is this guy?” Suw demanded as she was killed by a member of the opposing team. They were playing online against some complete strangers and some little punk calling himself IDidYourMom seemed to have it out for Sue because the guy kept shooting her and killing her. “What is his problem?”Beside him, Joey snickered. Being a veteran of the game, he was doi
It was a relief when the weekend rolled around. It had been just over a week since they had buried his grandpa. Knight kept waiting for things to feel normal again, but he wasn’t sure it ever would.He had known that going off to London for a week would result in a backlog of work, and he was prepared for it. Heaping on top of that all that needed to be done for his grandpa’s businesses, and the pack members who wanted to have a sit down with him, Knight was starting to feel like he was drowning in paperwork.It was mostly the older members who wanted to make sure that Knight’s vision for the pack was the same as their last alpha. Honestly, Knight hadn’t even given it any thought. His grandpa had been a great alpha, Knight just hoped to be like him.In an ideal world, Knight would have spent his Saturday in bed with Sue, only venturing into his study after midday to make a dent in some of his work.However, his biological dad h
Any place that was usually filled with people became creepy when it was empty. Sue had once dated a guy who was the deputy manager of a large appliance store. They had stopped in one night, long after closing, so that she could pick up some paperwork. The eeriness of the large and empty room had unnerved Sue.Sitting in the communal office by herself when it was nearing nine gave her that same feeling.“All it needs now is a couple of zombies to come walking slowly in,” Sue muttered to herself as she sat back in her chair and looked around the empty space. The main lights had been switched off leaving only the wall lights to illuminate the place.She looked at the clock on her phone and sighed. Enough was enough. If she had to drag Knight home kicking and screaming, then that was what she would have to do. Metaphorically, of course. She was well aware that trying to move a werewolf would be like trying to move a mountain to he
The West pack had four official meetings every year, one for each season. The one they had in autumn was during the week of Halloween. A big party was thrown at the estate with games and various other attractions outside. Sue had been to a couple of their parties so far but not the Halloween one. It was going to be the first pack gathering since Lenard’s funeral and the first gathering under their new alpha.As the alpha’s mate, Sue still didn’t really know what her new role was, if any. Knight’s mother and grandmother had organized everything. If she was honest, she was grateful that they hadn’t asked for her input so far.“So, things not to mention to your mom are the fact that we got married and the fact that you’ve not only met your real dad but have also been hanging out with him and his pack,” Sue mused out loud as Knight parked the car outside his grandma’s house.Knight turned and gave her a look. “No, I’m going to tel
As they made their way back outside, Sue took the lead, walking faster than the others in an attempt to escape the awkward situation. She spotted Jared and Leslie over by one of the apple bobbing stations, and she made a beeline for them.The two of them were with Jared’s daughter, Marie, but it was the adults who were doing the bobbing.“Having fun?” she asked as she got closer to them. She looked behind her, sparing Knight a glance. She felt a bit bad about abandoning him to his mother and grandmother, but she couldn’t take Julia looking at her like she had taken her baby boy away from her again.“Jared made a joke about me having a big mouth,” Leslie told her. The hair around her face was a little wet, but Jared was absolutely soaking. “So I dunked him in it.”Sue laughed as Jared shook his head like a dog.“Do we win anything if we get an apple?” Marie asked.Sue didn’t know the little girl very well. She had only spoken to her a few times. While she was fine with kids, she wasn’t