Beautiful Creatures Series

Chapter 29: 7

Katelyn rolled, overstretching. The morning sunlit up the loft. This bed was surprisingly comfortable. It had been like sleeping on a warm plush cloud. It only took her a second to realize she was alone. She had no idea what time it was. There was no clock in the loft, and her cellphone had been destroyed. Katelyn got out of bed and walked over to the railing. She looked down at the kitchen below to see Darrell wearing just a pair of light faded blue jeans that hung low on his hips and nothing more. He was standing at the stove cooking while dancing in one place, listening to so some country music song playing on the iPod speakers sitting on the counter next to him. It was quite a sight.

Eager to join him, Katelyn grabbed up her pants and got pulled them on before heading down the stairs. As she reached the kitchen below, she saw Darrell plating two plates with steak, eggs, sausage, homemade potato hash mixed with purple onions, mushrooms, and bacon bits. It looked like something a big truck would order from some diner. It was so much food.

“Good morning,” he said, placing both plates on the table. “I was just going to wake you up. I hope you are hungry,” Darrell took a seat next to her and dug into his breakfast.

“You made me breakfast?” She asked, surprised as she picked up her fork and knife. Nigel had never made her breakfast.

“Well, I was already making my own; it was nothing to make a little extra.”

“A little extra? There is a mountain of food here.”

He chuckled. “I’m not a good judge of how much humans eat. Lycans have a remarkably high metabolism. We eat a ton just to function through the day. If you can’t eat it all, I will eat what you don’t,” he said, cutting into his steak.

She could not help but notice that his meat was nearly rare. “I don’t think you cooked your meat enough. It is rare, nearly bloody.”

“Just the way I like it. Just shoot the cow and put it on my plate.”

“Is that a Lycan thing?” She asked as he lifted the rare meat on his fork to his mouth.

“No, Dove, that’s a Texan thing,” he winked at her.

Katelyn found him extremely amusing. “So, you can build a house. You can cook you own your own company….”

“You forgot, I look great naked,” he grinned, and Katelyn laughed.

“What else can you do?”

“You mean besides turn into a three-hundred-pound supernatural wolf?”

She giggled, “Yes, besides that.”

He chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth as he stood up from his seat and offered his hand to Katelyn. Curious, she placed her hand in his and rose. Darrell took Katelyn into his arms and proceeded to slow dance to the song playing on the speakers. He slowly two-stepped Katelyn around the kitchen, singing along with the song as he spun her and dipped her. He was light on his feet, and Katelyn was totally smitten with this sexy country boy. Slow dancing in the kitchen had her pulse skipping a beat. She knew Darrell was not a real boyfriend, but he was already a better boyfriend than Nigel had been.

After their dance, they finished their meal and then they both got dressed. Katelyn was going back to the house with Darrell. If she was going to be staying here with him, she would need a few things. Besides, she knew for a fact, Nigel was not going to be there. He usually started work quite early if he came home at all the night before.

They hopped into Darrell’s truck and headed for the house she had been sharing with Nigel. As they pulled into the driveway, Darrell put the truck in park and then they got out and approached the front door where Nigel had pinned a letter to the door for Darrell.

The letter accused Darrell of being the reason Katelyn left him even if she had run off with someone else like Darrell had suggested. It said Nigel wanted nothing more to do with him and that he was fired. Darrell crumpled the note in his hand and smiled at Katelyn. “Finally. I was starting to think he was never going to fire me,” from what Katelyn understood the contract, they had stated that if Darrell breached the contract, he had to refund all money paid, but it Nigel batched the contract, Darrell got to keep all the money already paid.

“Do you often try to get fired?”

“No, but in this case, it was a blessing.”

Katelyn took out her key and unlocked the door. “I’ll just be a few minutes. She said as they went inside. She just needed her laptop, her camera, and some clothes. While she packed a suitcase, Darrell tossed the spare key Nigel had given him onto the table in the kitchen, then he cleared out the little odds and ends tools he had left behind yesterday. Once they both had all, they needed Katelyn tossed her key on the table with Darrell’s. She had only lived here one night, so she did not have much of her stuff here yet. The majority of her possessions were still at her parents’ house, which is where she was going to leave them. When her arraignment with Darrell ended, she was going to need to go back and live with her parents.

They headed back to the community Darrell called home. They did not go back to his place. He said he had a few things to pick up, so they went to a place Darrell called the hub. One street in the middle of nowhere with only a handful of shops. The pack owns Feral, and our Pack leader Gordon owns all the buildings in the hub. He rents them to pack members who turn them into businesses that help better the lives of the pack.

“We have almost everything anyone could want,” he said, opening the door to the grocery store. Katelyn followed him inside, where they ran into Aurora stocking shelves. “Hey, there, beautiful,” Darrell greeted Aurora as he picked up a hand shopping basket. He walked toward Aurora and grinned. “When you going to trade up from the beast to me?”

“Darling, you wouldn’t be able to handle me.”

“Let me give it a go. My stamina is nothing short of amazing,” he said, pretending to hump her leg. Aurora laughed, pushing him away.

“If Stanton catches you doing that, he would rip your spine out.”

Darrell chuckled as he took something off the shelf she was stocking and tossed it into his basket. “I’m just playing. You know that. Stanton’s too touchy.” © 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“You are home from work early,” Aurora noted.

“Got fired,” he held up his hand, and they both high fived.

Aurora looked around Darrell at Katelyn. “Hello, nice to see you walking around without restraints.”

“Hello again, Aurora. Nice to see you too.”

“Katelyn is going to be staying with me for a while.”

“Oh?” Aurora said.

“We have hashed out our differences, and I realized that Darrell is not all that scary.”

“We are dating now,” Darrell added. Aurora broke out into laughter. “See, I told you no one would believe it.”

“You two are really dating?” Aurora asked.

“Yes,” Darrell answered, and Aurora laughed again.

“For real?”

“Yes,” Darrell snarled, and Aurora laughed again. “Ok, get it all out of your system.”

“I’m sorry. I know I haven’t known you as long as the rest of the pack has, but I know you well enough to know you don’t date. You fuck and flee.”

Katelyn looked at Darrell funny. “Fuck and flee?”

Darrell shrugged his shoulders. “I have commitment issues.”

“All the more reason this is unbelievable. You really expect people to believe you two are dating?”

“Yes.”

“No one is going to buy that.”

“Well, regardless, Katelyn is going to be around for a while, so everybody had better be nice.”

Well, this should make tonight’s party interesting.”

“There is a party tonight?” Katelyn asked.

“Once a month, the back gathers in the park behind the hub and throws a full moon party. It gets pretty crazy.”

“We aren’t going,” Darrell said.

“Why not? It sounds like fun,” Katelyn said.

“Trust me. You are not going to like it,” Darrell stressed. It is fifty Lycanthropes wolfing out and howling at the moon. You think I was scary wait until you in the dark with fifty beasts growling and snarling. You can’t handle it.

“I think that should be up to me,” Katelyn said. “I would love to see how the pack cuts lose.”

“You could barely handle it when I wolfed out last night. Not to mention back in the alley.”

“I’ll be fine. Please, I want to go.”

“We are not going.”

“Well, maybe not her, but Cowboy, you have to go,” Aurora said. “You know what happens on full moons. If you don’t let it out, you are going to hurt someone. I speak from experience,” Aurora argued.

Katelyn was confused. “I thought you said you could control it?”

“I can,” he said. “It is just a little hard to do during a full moon.”

“He’s going to lose his mind if he doesn’t give in to the blood lust.”

“Blood lust?” Katelyn said with alarm.

“Don’t worry. We won't go on a killing spree,” Aurora told her. “We go hunting. What we kill Lewis butchers and disperses through the community through his shop,” she said, pointing to the service window between her grocery store and butcher shop next door.

“Please, Darrell, let’s go.”

“Ok, let’s just forget for a moment that the party is more than likely going to scare you for life,” Darrell said. “But there is no way the pack is going to be ok with a human at the party.”

“I can handle it.”

“We are not going. End of discussion.”