Sierra sighed, “You are important too, Mel.” I smiled, “I know I’m important to Xander.” Freya offered, “I could tell Oden, and he could talk to his human.” I declined, “No… he must have forgotten too…something is just going on.”
Freya argued, “But that hurts your feelings.” I pointed out, “It does, but it shouldn’t. Xander is an Alpha. I’ve always known that sometimes the needs of the pack come before mine. We can go on our honeymoon another time.” Freya sighed, “Alright. I won’t say anything to wolf or human, even though I disagree with avoidance being the plan.” I appreciated that.
Xander seemed to be more and more preoccupied with something. I really wondered what was bothering him so much. My husband clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it, so I made myself busy. I had a few more therapy sessions with Haley.
My mother in law wasn’t happy that I didn’t want her to mention the honeymoon trip to anyone. It bothered her that Xander forgot. Haley mentioned that communication is big in a relationship. I told her I’d think about it.
I just really thought this was the way to go. I was used to being forgotten… and it wasn’t like he forgot me like everyone else had… even though they didn’t. We were still together and something big was going on. That was ok because I was still here with him.
I worked in the science building a lot, and with the wolf less members. They were coming along very nicely. I could visibly see their confidence growing. Some even started working out with full blooded Werewolves.
One guy approached me after the wolf less run. I was pretty sure his name was Vick, and he did have a wolf. He had a lot of wolf less friends though so I’d seen him around. He smiled at me greeting, “Hi, I’m Vick.” I said, “I’m Melanie… I thought that was your name.”
Vick told me, “I have a wolf because of you.” I gasped, “Wait, what?” Vick laughed, “You gave Princess Luna Haley the idea to give a wolf from one person to another. Luna Haley gave me, as she called him, Robuffoon’s wolf.” I spit out my water.
Vick said, “My wolf said he always wanted to help you, but he couldn’t.” I nodded numbly, “I’m very happy for you and that wolf. That poor guy had a horrible human. Are you and your wolf happy together?”
Vick grinned, “We are great. He’s happy that I listen to him and let him out to run. We are a team.” I said, “I’m thrilled that worked out for you both.” He walked away. I was really glad Robert’s wolf got a good person.
Avoidance was apparently my coping mechanism for a lot of things. To keep avoiding meeting with my family, I decided to set Haley up on Twitter. Haley smiled at me, “Where the fuckwhere you when Cassie and Cayden were getting married?” I replied dryly, “Nowhere fun.”
Haley snorted, “Well, I tried to tweet about Cassie finding her damn dress, but I couldn’t figure the damn thing out. I got so annoyed and gave up. The site should be called chirps. Birds chirp. Their logo is a bird, but they call these things tweets. Then I couldn’t decide on a twitter handle.”
I laughed, “I set all that up for you and followed all your pups and their mates. I found your nephews too. None of your full blooded Fairy relatives appear to be on Twitter.” Haley was typing on her phone. My mother in law cursed, “There’s a fucking word limit?”
I laughed, “Umm it’s actually a character limit… not a word limit.” Haley groaned, “You have got to be fucking kidding me! Now I’m limited in my opinion ONLINE?!” I laughed, “You can send out multiple tweets. Just reply to your own tweet.”
Haley sighed and made her first tweet. It was in fact about how birds chirped not tweeted. I bit my lip. Haley got up and said, “Thank you, Melanie.” She left the room with her phone up to her ear. She said, “Aiden, are Fairies not aware about the Twitter world? By the way, it should be called the chirp world.”
Sierra ran into my office and slammed the door shut. We looked at each other and busted up laughing. I immediately invested some stocks in twitter. I knew Faerie would get into Twitter now which meant a whole new realm of users. Which would increase their stock eventually.
Sierra asked “Why are you avoiding your family? You had that family run, and you talked to your brother.” I hummed, “I was embarrassing… and cried… and admitted somethings…. now I don’t know how to act. I nearly told T about running the Resistance… and I did tell him a lot of stuff… now it’s weird. It wasn’t weird when we ran together… but we can’t be wolves all the time.”
Sierra said, “They will take you any way you want to be. Just think about it.” I nodded, “I will… it’s not them, Si… it’s me.” Sierra sighed, “Then I know to tell them to persist, because it’s how we became your friends.” With that she left.
The days were flying by and my excuses to not have a family discussion were getting VERY flimsy. Tristan linked me, “What the actual fuck is going on? We were making progress.” I said, “We are… so...” he cut me off, “Yet you’re freezing us out again.”
I hummed, “I mean… I…” Tristan growled, “Stop stonewalling. We love you and you love us. I don’t care if you think you’re awkward. I know something is going on with you. Did you and Xander have a fight?” I replied, “Uhh no.”
Tristan asked, “Did he forget something?” I hummed, “I need to do some stuff and…” Tristan interrupted, “AH HA! That’s it. You’re stonewalling us because you feel awkward and we’d say something to Alexander about whatever this is. I’m going to figure it out and we are on your schedule today.” My brother was probably not going to figure it out since there was no evidence of Xander missing anything.
A half hour before I was supposed to meet with them for the probably sixth time… an alert went off on my computer. I groaned, “CRAP!” A group of Bounty Hunters had found Angelique. I had her place ready to go here… but my friend just hadn’t read my encrypted email yet.
I linked Sierra, “I need to reschedule with my family. Something came up.” Sierra snorted, “Your brothers get more and more annoyed when I move this meeting. I’ll come up with something better than saying something came up.”
I sighed because I knew I should just have the meeting… and get over the weirdness… but I didn’t know how. I also didn’t want to blurt out I was my own boss. I told her, “Maybe we should just schedule runs… in wolf form…. with my family. Thatwent really well… no one cried… everyone was happy.” Sierra replied, “I will offer that option.”
I let Xander know I was leaving then ran quickly to the holoport, barely beating Egres and the other Hackura guards. I shot them an apologetic look… but I needed to get to Angelique quickly. KJ linked, “Luna Melanie, we need to come with you.” I replied, “Uhhh no can do... so… I’ll be back. No worries.” KJ snorted in reply.
I ran into my Nashville apartment and called Angelique’s burner phone. I grumbled, “Come on… answer.” My friend didn’t. Crap. I threw on my Resistance gear and strapped myself down with weapons. I texted Valentina.
Me:I need you.
Valentina shimmered to me immediately. I informed her, “We’re off to Illinois.” Valentina asked, “Is Angelique ok?” I answered, “She’s probably gone already, but we need to check.” Valentina nodded. We shimmered several yards back from Angelique’s place.
A dead Bounty Hunter at our feet greeted us. Well, Angelique was definitely gone since there was no doubt she’d killed this one. I leaned down and touched the body and discovered he wasn’t exactly warm. I took out my knife and nodded to Valentina.
We split up and took out the Bounty Hunters, slowly working our way into the house. When we got to the last Bounty Hunter, I tied her to a chair. I warned, “I’ll do this the easy way or the hard way. Who put the bounty out?”
