Kiara took a deep, smooth breath, a smile resting on her pretty face. She stood tall on the happy face welcome mat, her lungs filling with the crisp morning air as she held her head high.
She adjusted her handbag and took a sip of her coffee from her game cup. The lid clicked against her teeth, the hot liquid sliding down her throat and giving her a nice, warm jolt to start the day.
She was standing in front of Princess’s house.
It was Sunday, and she was back to work.
She slid her key card and entered the house.
The moment she walked in, heading toward her gaming desk, she noticed Princess’s chair wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It had been dragged completely out of its usual spot near the monitors, sitting crookedly in the center of the room. Behind the chair was a couch, and curled up on that couch like a little furball was a brown-haired girl.
The smile on Kiara’s face instantly vanished. Her lips flattened into a hard, rigid line, her chest locking up as she stopped dead in her tracks, her coffee cup freezing halfway to her mouth.
Faye Grande was the last person she wanted to see at her workplace, even though her workplace happened to be where the Moon Wolf lived. A sharp huff of breath escaped Kiara’s nose, her fingers tightening around the strap of her handbag as she stared across the room.
After what had happened the previous night, Kiara had gone to bed with a smile on her face...
And with a girlfriend.
Yes, she now had a girlfriend.
One she had rented for a day...
Then rented again for a whole year. It was a crazy arrangement, but it worked perfectly for her.
She needed a distraction, and Bambi happened to be exactly that. The girl was the perfect shield to keep her mind from wandering back to places it shouldn’t go, keeping her grounded and focused.
Kiara wanted to ignore the girl on the couch, but she couldn’t help asking,
"What are you doing on the couch?" Kiara’s voice was sharp and dry, cutting through the heavy silence of the game room like a knife.
Faye slowly turned her head. Her movements were incredibly sluggish, her hair tangled wildly across her face as her pale cheeks came into view. Seeing that it was Kiara instead of the person she wanted to see, she simply ignored her and stayed curled up in the same position. She pulled her knees even tighter against her chest, her breathing coming in small, ragged hitches.
Kiara clicked her tongue with a loud, irritated snap.
"Like I care," she muttered. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, her chest rising with a long, heavy breath to show her complete annoyance.
She dragged Princess’s chair back to the gaming station and sat down on her own chair.
She switched on her PC. While waiting for it to boot up, she scrolled through her phone, checking her messages.
Most of them were from her new rent a girlfriend.
Bambi wasn’t much of a texter. She didn’t use big blocks of words or complicated sentences.
She mostly sent cute emojis and GIFs. Tiny bouncing bears and sparkling hearts lit up Kiara’s screen, making the girl let out a soft, amused breath through her nose.
Kiara then wondered where Princess was. She was supposed to be home. The house was completely empty except for the miserable wolf on the couch, and that wasn’t normal for a Sunday morning.
Once again, her eyes drifted toward the girl on the couch.
She rolled her eyes away and opened their friends’ tracking app.
Princess was at Eriko’s house. The little glowing icon showed the alpha’s location completely stationary over the cottage coordinates.
Then her gaze shifted to another friend’s location.
The convenience store. The marker was moving slowly near the edge of the screen, a completely different name popping up beside it.
She stared at the screen for a while. Her breathing slowed down, a dull ache settling into her chest as she watched the little icon.
"You finally got the relationship you wanted," Kiara muttered to herself. The whisper was bitter, her throat tightening as she locked her phone and placed it on the desk before turning her attention back to the monitor. She forced herself to sit up straight, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"I don’t deserve to be a mother... I don’t deserve to be a mother..."
The constant mumbling from the couch made it impossible for Kiara to focus. The repetitive, broken whisper was drifting across the room, a fast, frantic chant that kept buzzing in her ears.
She sighed. The sound was heavy and loud, her chest slumping forward as she realized she wouldn’t be able to get any work done like this.
She had no choice but to stop whatever the Moon Wolf was doing.
Kiara stood up and walked over to Faye.
She leaned against the back of the couch, resting her cheek on her palm.
Watching closely, she realized Faye wasn’t just repeating negative words.
She was crying. Real, thick tears were streaming down the side of Faye’s face, soaking into the fabric of the couch, her chest heaving with deep, painful shudders that looked completely exhausting.
Even though Kiara didn’t particularly like the girl, she couldn’t help wondering what had happened. A strange spike of worry hit her stomach, her eyebrows knitting together as she watched the total breakdown.
She considered calling her owner to tell her that her girlfriend was crying on the couch...
But she didn’t.
Princess hardly ever answered calls in the morning.
"Faye," Kiara called.
There was no response. The git didn’t even blink, her eyes totally blank as she stared straight through the back of the couch.
Faye just kept mumbling to herself. Her lips moved rapidly, the words coming out in a dry, breathless stream that didn’t stop for a single second.
Wanting to snap the wolf out of whatever state she was in, Kiara walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of chilled water from the fridge. She marched back into the game room with quick, determined steps.
Without warning...
She poured the water straight onto Faye’s face. A stream of ice-cold liquid splashed directly over the wolf’s eyes and mouth, soaking her hair and collar in an instant.
Faye was forced out of her daze. Her eyes snapped open, a sharp, violent gasp tearing out of her lungs as the cold shock hit her nervous system.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she growled.
In a burst of rage, she grabbed Kiara by the arms and pinned her to the floor. The movement was incredibly fast, a blur of motion that sent Kiara crashing onto her back, the plastic water bottle rolling away across the floor.
Faye’s breathing was uneven, and for a split second, she didn’t even seem to recognize who she was looking at. She was hovering directly over the girl, her chest expanding and collapsing in wild, ragged pants, her fingers digging deep into Kiara’s skin like iron claws.
She was so angry that, for a brief moment, Kiara saw her eyes glow.
They weren’t an Omega’s eyes anymore.
They glowed a brilliant moon-white. The pale, blinding light flared out from her pupils, casting an eerie reflection across Kiara’s face and making the her breath catch completely in her throat.
The exact same eyes the Moon Wolf had in the painting inside her mother’s library.