"Dad's gone," my cousin's voice was barely above a whisper. "You must come home for the Evaluations," she uttered and the phone line went dead.
*****
After Keri's Uncle - the Alpha of the Silver Bullets pack - loses his battle with cancer, the young...
My birthday was on Wednesday! Oh, and the April GIVEAWAY is live! You can win a follow on social media/Wattpad, feedback on your story and a postcard from Bulgaria with a personalized message from me. More info about the giveaway in the A/N at the bottom.
Enjoy the new chapter!
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Keri.
He had called me Keri.
If he only knew how that had messed with my heart.
I had not expected my name to sound like a summon when it came from his lips. I had not expected it to enchant me, to intensify the electricity buzzing in the air, to pull me towards him - an impulse that I'd only managed not to fall prey to because my body had frozen, stunned when Callum had finally call me that.
Keri.
"We didn't have a girl's night, but it wasn't that bad until whatever it was that I said upset you." Kelly's voice reminded me that I was not alone in my study.
I pushed the reading glasses further up my nose and cleared my throat as I busied myself with rearranging the financial reports in front of me.
"You didn't upset me," I said in a convincingly distracted tone, hoping she'd think that work was the only thing on my mind and let me do it. Well, pretend to do it. Kelly didn't need to know that though. But with the reports already checked, Aunt Olivia's notes on them included, I'd have to find some other source for my false business.
"Then what was with the mood swing?"
I pursed my lips.
Really, cousin?
"It was just time to get home," I said, putting the stack of papers at the corner of my desk before I opened one of its drawers and pretended to be rummaging through it. Technically, I was rummaging through it; I was just pretending to be looking for something specific. And I needed to find something I could utilize to explain why I'd opened the drawer in the first place.
This whole charade was getting tiresome.
And unnerving; I could feel the first stage of a headache, a subtle pain in my temples that pulsed with the promise to increase in the very near future.
"Have you seen my paperclips?" I asked, mentally praising myself that I'd come up with a good excuse for my hand and gaze to wander around the drawer.
"On the desk," she replied.
"Ah." I closed the drawer, picked a paperclip from a box on my desk and went through the reports again, this time clipping some of them together.
Even when I heard Kelly's long sigh, I didn't look at her.
"I took you out so you could relax, but I swear, cous, you are more stressed than before."
Her words made me sneak a glance at her; brief, but enough to notice her stiff posture and worried expression.
