Stronger as One (#1, Completed)

28. Where did that come from?

AIDEN

"Yes, my sister. Tall, beautiful woman with blue eyes and silver-grey hair, although she is more of a brunette usually," Lucien said, with pride shining through in his tone.

Well, that solved the mystery then. Aurelie Moreau was his sister. It made sense now- she had clearly inherited her character from her mother.

"She better not be with Callum again. I should warn him to stay away from her." He spoke again, the pride in his voice having been replaced by annoyance. Here was my confirmation though that there was definitely something going on between Riley and the bear Alpha.

"Erm, I think I saw them earlier doing a tour of the house," Rafe told Lucien but I had a feeling that there was more to the story than Rafe let out.

"Of course they are. Let me go find her and I will introduce her to you guys." Rafe and I both gave Lucien a small nod and an awkward smile, neither of us wanting to tell him of our earlier encounter with his sister.

Once we are alone again, Rafe downed his whisky and slammed the glass on the bar.

"Easy there, wolf boy. I thought that your little disappearance act with the waitress was meant to relax you, not stress you," I joked with him, trying to ease the tension that was clearly present.

"Don't even get me started. On top of that, I feel like I am allergic to these kinds of gatherings- I am literally itching to leave."

I laughed when he said that, only because his choice of words was ironic, as I had been feeling a weird itch on my torso for the last hour.

"I have a solution for you- why don't we go back to my place and crack open one of my premium whiskeys? You can crash at mine seeing as this place will probably be a mess until tomorrow lunchtime." I was done with my Beta duties for the night and didn't mind relaxing with my best friend for the rest of it.

"That sounds like a fucking plan, mate."

***

"What a weird night, man. This is why I don't usually do any of this social gatherings crap." Rafe took another puff of the Montecristo cigars that we were smoking on my deck.

The night was definitely very unusual, although one wouldn't have guessed it if they were to look at the sight of tranquillity in front of us- a completely still Loch Lomond bathing in the moonlight, with nothing but the chirping of the crickets being heard around us.

"Oh, come on, Rafe. You can't tell me that meeting one girl who stood up to you like that threw you off your balance? Aren't you supposed to be the great Rafe Macalister?" I was teasing him yet again tonight but hey, that's what best friends were for, right?

"Not that again, Aiden. And this Moreau girl... she is certainly different. Not sure that my wolf feels at ease with that."

Interesting. I had never heard Rafe talk about girls and his wolf in the same sentence. Then again, my own dragon felt odd when Riley was around.

"How about we jump into the sauna to release some of tonight's tension?" I am not sure how I had not come up with that earlier already and Rafe seemed to like my idea.

We made our way to the sauna and started undressing. As we were about to go in, I noticed a weird tattoo on Rafe's shoulder. It looked like some text in silver writing.

"Are you serious, you prick? You got a tattoo and you didn't even tell your best friend?" I tried to play hurt.

"What the hell are you talking about, Aiden?" Rafe was looking at me super confused as if he didn't even know that the tattoo was there. My next guess would have been that he was drunk when he got it but shifters didn't really get drunk.