The Black Sheep

Ashes

Ash spent most of the day, using the left side of his jaw to chew on chips and catching up on his reading. The room was strangely quiet without the presence of his noisy roommates and more time then he would be willing to admit, he found himself glancing up in search of the rude deaf boy, the spontaneous redhead, or to offer some chips to the clueless glutton. Eventually, he'd given up on reading in favor of a walk down memory lane. At the time, neither Alex or himself could say anything but, Ruby was right. The month was almost over and none knew what was next.

It was a sad thought, yet he couldn't help rolling his eyes at his own weak state of mind.

For a man who spoke of this whole event as a long walk to the guillotine, he sure did his damndest to add as much emotion chains as possible.

The brunette took a deep breath, rolling back on his stomach with every intention of going back to reading when the hotel phone rang, he jumped.

Scumbling out off the bed with his breath slightly quickened to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Yes, may I speak to a Miss Sasha please?" The educated and practice voice at the other end of the receiver spoke and Ash, use to the mistake, didn't even pause.

"This is he." He breathe out. The receptionist apologized repeatedly for his mistake to which Ash assured him that it was no big deal and that the mistake was common.

The embarrassed man then went on to tell him that he had a package and that he just wanted to confirm his presence before sending the delivery person up. Ash thanked him and hung up.

Instead of regaining his earlier presence on the bed, he stayed on his feet and turned towards the door.

It was only after he'd touched a hand to the side of his cheeks to satisfied an itch did he remembered his bruising and with the pain, came an epiphany.

I should have sent the package away, he thought in the moment a knock to the door.

Ash took a second to observe his options. He didn't have any. He already knew who sent him a delivery, but the had already confirmed his presence so the could pretend not to be in.

Taken a deep breath he swung the door open, ignoring the young she-wolves rasen fist. She was openly staring at the right side of Ash's face and the later cleared his throat.

"Hello sir, these are for you," She says, quickly regaining her composer and shoving a bouquet of about two dozen red roses at him, followed by a large long box with a velvet bow.

Refusing them would have been ideal but the girl was barely in her teens, and Ash didn't want to put her in Chris's sight. The omega frowned, he had no doubts that the sadistic general had hand-picked her especially for the job.

"I'll need you to sign here" She gestured to the bottom of a form with a bright innocent smile. her cheeks painted a pale pink as she blushed.

Once she was gone, he returned to the room, dropping the flowers in the steel trash can and Ignored the white envelope that feels to the floor when he did so.

He then placed the box on the bed and sat on the floor before it. Staring at the size, the bow and the expensively famous mark on the side.

Five minutes into the suffocating silence, he was forced to accept that staring wouldn't make it disappeared and opened it.

The first thing the saw was a small square box laying on top of a bunch of decorative paper. He took it and open the covers, cufflinks. Gold cufflinks, elegantly decorated with a diamond encrusted patterns. Ash had no doubt that it was real.