TRIPLE UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOUND THE FUCKING ALARM

CHAPTERS 23-25 ARE NEW!!
ENJOY HUMANSSS!!!!!!

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Peter’s POV

Joy was a funny thing. Funny because it could disappear for ages and then return with a force so strong you could barely recall having to do without it.

Five months ago, I lived in sadness and spent each day pretending that I didn’t.

One week ago, I bawled myself to sleep because my mate hated me and now… I rush down the halls with a smile I can’t restrain because… I don’t think he does, and maybe, just maybe, we have a chance.

“Peter!”

“Y-Yes!” I yelp, clutching my chest as I glance up just enough to glimpse the bottom half of Maeve’s scowl.

“How many times must I say your name? Am I its keeper?”

I shake my head. “N-No.”

“I said, we are here,” she says, gesturing to my doors. My eyes widen.

I couldn’t remember the journey here even if I tried, and how could I with the treat I received right before—a moment with Luciel without anyone there to try and take him away.

My chest warms, and for a second it’s like I’m back in the shadows with him, his eyes the only light, but still more than enough to lead me to him. I’d been terrified the moment I first spotted his gaze, even knowing it was his— that it was calling after me. I’d been scared enough to bolt, but I didn’t, and thank Goddess I didn’t.

Luciel hadn’t said much, but he never really did. It wasn’t the talking that had made that moment something. It was how he looked at me, in that dark, like he knew I was scared of it, and was proud that I’d braved it anyway.

I liked making him proud.

“What is that smile about?”

I jump, lifting a hand to cover it. “N-Nothing,” I look down. “S-S-Sorry. I-I’m just t-t-tired.”

And I was, tired and overly excited with the latest memory of my mate still fresh in my mind.

Maeve hums, and I can practically taste the displeasure as she straightens, but by Goddess’ grace, she does not give any more life to it. She steps back, letting me breathe, and I take full advantage of it.

I fill my lungs while she steps aside to open the door before she turns around and lifts her right hand.

My mouth opens, jaw too slack to keep it shut.

Maeve stands still, waiting, but I can’t move other than to rub at my cuff. Still she waits.

“You can have it,” she says, her hand still raised with my phone sitting in the center of it. “I have seen enough.”

I hesitate, but don’t let myself sit in it for too long in case she changes her mind. I take my phone from her, hugging it to my chest the same way I had when she’d taken it away.

I risk a peek at her when she doesn’t move. Maeve stares back at me, and while she definitely isn’t smiling, she no longer appears so venomous. In fact, she looks a little uncomfortable.

Oh Goddess. She found the yaoi — Joseph whines before he all but slams his paws down on our panic button. She found the On or Off bookmarks!

There’s no proof that — I argue, but unless she’d cleared all activity, there would be when I looked.

“You look ill,” Maeve murmurs, and it’s a struggle to look at her again. “Do you not want it returned?”

“No!” She frowns. “Y-Yes!” Was that right? I close my eyes and breathe. “I-I do. I— um. I-I just wa-wanted t-to kn-know what you t-thought.”

Maeve remains quiet, and so do I because I am now too mortified to speak, let alone breathe.

…you asked what she thought when you know what we read… Joseph whispers, his horror bleaching through me at the speed of life.

“N-Never mind,” I whisper, stepping back so I can hide under my covers. “I-I—”

“Your family seems clinically insane.”

I freeze and look up, too surprised not to. Maeve’s expression is plain and entirely serious.

“I say ‘seems’ to not be rude,” she adds.

I stare at her until she raises one of her sharp brows. My gaze lands on the ground again, but I don’t rush to hide away anymore. She’s talking to me, and she hadn’t mentioned the manga, so maybe she hadn’t seen it.

Maybe she’d just seen the messages between my family, and in that case, she wasn’t wrong.

“E-Everybody says w-we are,” I eventually retort.

“Everybody would be right,” she retorts, and my lips quirk in their hiding place. “Your ‘Dad’ appears particularly unhinged.”

I giggle. “H-He is.”

Maeve makes a soft sound I can’t decipher. “You also have a disturbingly large digital library of one white rabbit.”

My smile breaks from me like an unleashed arrow. “T-That’s M-Mr Fluff!” I say, looking up again. “He’s m-my pet.”

Maeve’s eyes widen slightly, her surprise unmistakable as she considers me. “A werewolf with a pet bunny. How ironic.” She huffs. “I assumed he was a meal you were fattening for consumption, and that is why you refrain from meat now.”

I gape, mouth opening so wide it almost touches the floor. “N-No!” I shout as horror runs through me. “N-Never. M-Mr Fluff is m-my f-friend.”

Lips parting, Maeve stares at me for a long moment before she nods stiffly, “I… did not mean to offend.” She hesitates, tongue catching. “Apologies if I have.”

Did Maeve just…

Yeah, she did — Joseph replies for me, creeping forward to witness the phenomenon for myself.

Maeve just apologised to me. I stare at her, and I’m sure she sees my surprise as clearly as I had hers because she suddenly straightens before she turns herself cold again.

“If that is all.” Stepping aside, she gestures to my open doorway, and I take the hint for what it is.

“T-Thank you,” I try, but the door shuts without a reply.

Sighing, I turn to face the rest of my room, and my body immediately gives in to the promise of safety and comfort that is my bed. It calls for me, my den ready to keep me warm and safe, but I can’t let myself enjoy its warmth just yet.

It’s been a week since I last spoke to my parents properly, longer since I’d spoken to the rest of my family, and lies aside, I missed them more than I could put into words. I’d do the First Trial again before I ignored the chance to call them after so long.

I open my phone.

There are hundreds of messages and even more missed calls, and while some chats are open, they’re also unanswered. I glance at the door, only just realising that I can not feel Maeve’s glare.

Smiling softly, I park myself on the edge of my bed, and try to catch up on all that I have missed.

If there’s new news, then no one has shared it with me because they’re all more worried about where I am. Levi and Damon make incessant promises to bail me out of whatever I’ve gotten myself into, while Hagen and Josey promise to keep trying to buy me time, even while they beg to be let in on the truth.

Papa, on the other hand, tells me to remain vigilant and also reminds me to use protection.

Ew — Joseph groans, and I’m right there with him.

Only two people threaten me to call them immediately, and it’s the two people who know me the best.

I choose the less dangerous of the two, needing to work my way up.

It only rings once before he picks up.

“YOU’RE ALIVE! YOU’RE ALIVE! YOU ACTUALLY ARE—” Shilao pauses so abruptly, the emptiness is almost painful. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Sorry. Are you okay? Peter? Are you there? Was I too loud? Did I scare you? Did—”

“I-I’m okay,” I cut in before he can try to crawl through the phone.

A breath of relief follows instantly. “Thank Goddess,” he sighs. “I have been so worried about you, but first things first— are you really okay?”

I smile, heart filling quickly. “Y-Yes.”

“And you’re safe?”

I don’t let myself hesitate. “Yes.”

“Okay, okay, don’t tell me anything else. Your dad asks me every day if I know anything, and he’ll smell it on me if that changes.”

“Oh, Go-Goddess,” I sigh and draw my knees up to hide how my face heats. “T-That bad?”

Shilao snorts, “Dude. That can’t be a serious question.” It’s not. “You know your dad, you know he’s mental.” I do. I have a thousand texts from him alone to prove it.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he dismisses quickly. “It all comes from a good place, ya know?”

“Y-Yeah,” I mumble as I try to breathe through the guilt that rises. “I’m going to call him next.”

“NEXT?!” Shilao exclaims, and I yelp while Joseph tries to hide. “PETER!”

“W-Wh-What?” I ask, tugging at the blanket beneath me.

“You called me first?!” He shouts again, and I’m halfway under the covers before I know it. “Are you crazy, Peter? Do you not value my life?!”

“Y-You th-threatened me with N-Ni-Nikola,” I defend with a huff.

“You really believed that I had or could have footage of Hagen training, tried to bribe Nikola with it and still exist in this world?” He huffs, and he sounds like he’s hyperventilating. It makes me do the same. “I was bluffing, Peter!”

“I-I d-didn’t know th-that!”

Shilao makes another strained sound, and I have to pull the covers tighter around me to keep from panicking any more than I am. The next stage was crying, and Shilao would whisper for the rest of our lives if he made me cry.

“Okay. Okay, let’s just breathe. It’s fine.”

He takes a deep breath and I automatically do the same, holding it as long as he does before I follow him and let it out. He takes another, and another until my heart starts beating so fast and we’re no longer yelling at each other like two headless chickens.

“Alright, now, just hang up and call him now. Call me after, but call him now.”

I squirm, heart immediately kicking up again. “B-But I-I don’t f-feel ready.”

“That’s okay. You can feel nervous— don’t try to hide that from him. Just channel it into a version of the truth you need.”

I frown, and Shilao continues as though he can see it.

“You’re nervous to talk to your dad. If he senses that, admit to it. You are nervous cause he wants to know where you are, and you’re not telling. That is a version of the truth.”

“O-Okay,” I mumble, but I’ve never been good at lying, and he knows that.

“Just stick to the basics and don’t get caught up in details,” he coaches. “Get in and out and call me back— I’m serious about that. Norden and I have missed you guys.

Joseph all but wags his tail as he pushes forward. “We’ve m-missed you g-guys too.”

Between the expedition and finding Luciel, it’s been months since Shilao and I had one of our late-night calls where we talked about anything and everything until we fell asleep. Shilao did most of the talking, but still, it was nice— tradition even, and I had gone without it for too long.

“Now go before he scents me fear,” he shoos, half-teasing and half-not.

“O-Okay,” I murmur before I finally end the call.

I do so with a smile on my face, but it disappears the moment I scroll to Dad’s name and face the messages waiting there.

Dad: It’s been a week, Peter. A week and no letter.

Dad: I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but I need to know that you’re safe.

Dad: None of this feels safe.

Dad: I’ve bought a ticket for Chile.

I hit call.

The phone doesn’t even get to ring.

“PETER! PETER! AIDEN! AIDENNNNN! IT’S PETERRRRRR!”

I stick a finger in her ear, wincing as I bear Dad’s screeching, but it’s worth it. It’s more than worth it for the way my entire body illuminates with the joy of hearing my father’s voice again.

I should’ve called him first.

“Peter! PETER! Where are you?” He demands, his heavy breaths puffing out of my phone. “Tell me now, and I’ll come. I’ll come right now!”

“D-Dad…”

“I booked a flight. Did you see?” He rambles on. “I’ll catch it tomorrow, but if you’re not there, I’ll change it. I’ll even get Kat, just—”

“Dad,” I groan, and finally he stops enough to take a breath. I take advantage of it. “I-I’m in Ch-Chile, like I-I told y-you, and I-I don’t wa-want you to-to catch a-any flights o-or wake a-anyone up. I-I’m fine.”

I draw my phone higher, away from my lips and my pulse so he can’t catch the way it races after the spiel of lies I’d just spit out.

Basics. Not too many details.

I draw it back to me. “I-I j-just w-wanted t-to call w-while e-everyone was s-still sleeping,” I continue before adding in a truth. “I-It’s hard t-to get a-any time t-to call.”

Silence follows, and it lasts for long enough to make my heart drop.

He knows. He knows I’m lying. He can sense it, smell it through the phone, and he’ll find me and—

“Peter? That you, you little shit?”

My panic stalls, halted in its tracks like it always is by the one person who knew exactly how to get me out of my head.

There’s a quiet tussle, and then his voice comes clearer. “Say something for me.”

I grin, picturing his smile and automatically matching it. “Something.”

My speaker strains to relay his loud, bellowing laughter, and I giggle as I draw my phone even closer.

“It’s him!” Papa cheers. “Good to hear from you, you little devil. How’s Chile?”

“G-Great!” I answer, toying with my hair before my fingers drift to my cuff. “D-Different, but n-nice.”

“Ain’t that something,” he retorts, awed, but it’s like he knows I’m fibbing because he doesn’t focus on it. “So you finally got some connection? Thank fuck. Your dad was gonna board a flight tomorrow.”

“D-Don’t let him,” I beg desperately. “I-I’m f-fine. I-I’m hav-having fun.”

“Fun?” Dad echoes, catching the one word that reeks of a lie.

“I-It’s n-not always fun,” I admit while I grip my token. “It’s h-hard, a-and scary, but I g-get through it a-and th-then it’s—”

I think of Luciel’s eyes under the Auroras and in the shadows of the library.

“T-Then it’s worth it.”

Silence comes again, but it does not feel so heavy this time.

“That’s good, kid. That’s really good,” Papa eventually says, and there’s no faking the pride in his voice. It warms me to my core.

“Is the whole team still there?” Dad asks, and that warmth disappears to make room for fear.

He would check. He’d research them all, find their whereabouts, and both a yes or a no would set him off.

I panic for only a second before I groan, “Dad,” just like I would when he’d ask to say hi to the rest of the team when I was still in the camp.

“You can’t blame me for asking,” he protests, thwarted for now. “You were supposed to come home an entire week ago, then we get nothing more besides texts from you— rare and stilted texts, by the way, and I’m somehow supposed to act normal?”

“N-No,” I admit, lip jutting out. “B-But I-I’m fine. I p-promise.”

“He’s fine, Jewels,” I hear Pap echo on the other side. “Doesn’t he sound it?”

Dad doesn’t reply.

If he believes it, he’ll never admit it.

Subject change! — Joseph suggests, and I know just the one.

“H-How’s M-Mr Fluff?”

“Oh, that fat fuck,” Papa cackles. “He’s great. Shitting all over the place, and eating all my vegetables, but great.”

“W-What?!” Mr Fluff was potty trained and far too sophisticated to leave his poop everywhere.

“I’m kidding,” Papa groans with a snicker. “Just wanted to hear ya freak. Your bunny’s fine. He’s happy, and when he misses ya, he goes and hides in your book maze, but otherwise, he mostly chills with us.”

“T-That’s good,” I murmur while I rub a hand over my heart as joy and longing fill it in equal measure.

University had prepared me for having to be apart from Mr Fluff, and while it hadn’t been easy, and I had cried almost every day with how much I missed him, amongst other things, it had been for the best.

We had magic all around us, but a marine biologist couldn’t travel the world with his bunny, and for as loyal as he was, Mr Fluff would’ve been worse off moving around all the time. Neither of us liked it, and I had to avoid thinking about him most days just to manage being apart, but he sort of understood it somehow.

When we were apart, we coped, and when we were together, there was no separating us.

“Thanks f-for looking a-after him.”

“Always, kid,” Papa replies. “Now, I don’t want to shit on your fun, but it would help your Dad and me feel a lot better if we had a timeline to work with here, Peter. You’re gone with the wind, and that’s great and all, but give us something, kid. How long do you think you’ll be out there?”

I gnaw on my lips, thinking hard.

I had two Trials left, and four days until the next, then another week before the last. Assuming I made it through them both, that was just under two weeks, but I didn’t know enough about the clan and its rules to know if I was allowed to go and come back.

Surely I could, right? They would want me to, if only to keep everyone else from coming to look for me… wouldn’t they?

“T-Two more w-weeks?” I try, carefully. “M-Maybe three.”

That would buy me enough time to think of something else if the answer was no. It would have to be.

“Alright. Two weeks, maybe three,” Dad says, already committing it to memory. “I want a call or text from you at least every other day, okay, Peter?”

“Okay!” I agree quickly.

“Alright,” he sighs, and I can hear his relief as much as I can feel a distant trickle of it within our family bond. “Just… stay safe, Peter, and call. I only get worried when I don’t hear from you.”

“Y-You a-always worry,” I accuse, and he laughs softly.

“Okay, maybe so, but I’ll worry about you even when you’re turning grey.”

I smile into the covers and loosen my grasp on my cuff as I feel the tension finally wash away from us. “I-I’ll call,” I promise, and again, he sighs in relief. “N-Now, h-how are you?”

We talk for almost two hours, with them catching me up on all I’ve missed and fishing for whatever little details they can tug from me. They ask about my adventures, and I tell them a version of my first time in the tunnels that I turn into a mountain hike with others through well-lit caves.

They ask about John, and it isn’t until they mention his name that I remember him. I hadn’t forgotten about him, not entirely. I just… hadn’t thought about him since Luciel.

It’s hard pretending to think about him now for them.

Alex and Max talk to Joseph, and when they part, he’s far happier for it, stronger too, and I make a promise to myself to try talking to them whenever I can.

Family made wolves stronger, and I couldn’t forget that.

We talk and talk, and when I say I’m tired, they believe me, letting me go with a blood vow to call soon. I make it and hang up for only a second before I hit call on the number I’d called before.

One ring, and he’s there.

“Alright, tell me exactly what you told them so I can corroborate, and then I’ll tell you everything you’ve missed, and yes— I have been keeping up with all your favourite authors, and yes, I have purchased every new release and have them stacked at home.”

“I-I love you,” I sigh as I roll onto my back and tug the covers down to breathe.

“Love you too, Peter, now start talking.”

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I wake to the sound of snoring. Jagged, heavy, Shilao snoring.

The room is lighter in that subtle way it always is when it’s daytime, as if the sunlight has somehow found a way to filter in, even under all this ice.

It’s still too bright, and far too early when I only just closed my eyes, so for the first time since finding my mate and his hidden clan, I tug my covers higher and let Shilao’s snoring lull me back to sleep.

I barely sink back under before a knock sounds on the door.

I groan into my pillow, too tired and hating this version of a nightmare, but then it comes again— hard and fast, and Maeve’s.

“Coming!” I call, forcing myself upright before sleep can try to claim me again.

Shilao’s snores sputter a little as he makes a garbled sound. “What’s happening?”

I shake my head, slapping my hand around the sheets for my phone until I find it and hear the call cut. I’d explain that later.

Tugging my robe on, I stumble my way to the door while I rub the sleep from my eyes as I scramble for the door handle and try to fix my clothes all at once. It’s like trying to fly.

“S-Sorry, I-I was sl-sleeping,” I say as soon as I’ve got the door open. Maeve stands on the other side with my breakfast tray in hand as always. Her grip on it is lethal. “I-I’m s-so sorry.”

She huffs but extends her arms. “Mammals do need their sleep.”

I frown a little as I take the tray from her. Was that Maeve trying to be nice? Or was that the very opposite?

“You were up late?” She asks before I can figure it out, and I have to blink at least three times to try and follow along. “Talking to your loved ones?”

“Oh, y-yeah,” I mumble as understanding comes. “Shilao and I—”

“Shilao?” She intercepts curiously. “Shilao, the pack warrior, who is also the best friend?”

Sleep clears quickly then, and when I dare to look at Maeve, her expression is… delighted.

“…am I-I st-still dreaming?”

Her smile widens, turning amused. “If you are ready in ten minutes, I will take you from these rooms today.”

My eyes widen impossibly. “You… Y-You will?”

The last time I’d gone to the library, I’d have to beg her for half an hour before she relented, and even then, she only agreed when I promised not to try getting her to eat dinner with me again.

She nods once. “You have four days until you must face your next Trial, and then seven until the last— the match. You should prepare for that one as well. There is sparring on today. You can watch.”

“I… you…” I stare at her, mind whirling as it tries to put the pieces together, but they refuse to fit. “I-I’m… confused,” I admit in a near whine, and I swear I almost feel a spell of humour waft from her.

“I am aiding you, but don’t worry, I do have my own motives, and you will see them soon enough, little wolf,” she says in the thrilled tone I haven’t heard from her yet. “You can avoid them by not coming. I will not force you.”

No, she wouldn’t, but she’d planted a seed, and she already knew it was growing.

Maeve was strange because she was an open enemy to me, but she never lied, and she never tried to harm me. She was just mean…ish, and too smart, because the third Trial had been on my mind.

I was doing all I could to prepare for the second— my Mission of Valour— but it would be a lie to say that my stomach didn’t roll every time I dared to think about the third.

I knew how to fight, but I never liked it, and I wasn’t particularly good at it. I could survive if I had to; Dad and Damon had seen to that, but I never liked what I had to do in order to. And that was with wolves.

Whenever I thought about fighting a vampire, one of these vampires to be specific, well, the world got whoozy. But I couldn’t prepare by ignoring it, and any insight I could get would help me in the long run, but Maeve…

I glance at her, and find her dark brown gaze fixed upon me.

Maeve didn’t want to help me, and if anything, this was probably her way of spooking me or testing my resolve. Whichever it was, Maeve was offering me an advantage, and whether the path to it was slicked with oil, it was still an advantage.

“T-Ten m-minutes.”

Maeve’s smile splits wider. “Ten minutes.”

————-

I know y’all hate Maeve but I adore this woman. She thinks she’s on the case but she’s so far off lmfaoooo

Thoughts??????

How are we feeling from the first chapter of this special triple update??? Thoughts on Maeve and her scheming?? On her interaction with Peter?? On Shilao??

I love love love Shilao and of course, it was so good– nourishing even, to see my husvand again. AIDEN! I MISS YOU!

ANYWAY, I hope you enjoyed and on to the next!!!