Chapter 12 - Rosa

As soon as Bigby closes the door to his bedroom, I sneak back out into the hallway and start snooping. The house is clearly older—Linnea said it belonged to his parents before. I hate that I love everything about it.

It's so quaint and unlined the palatial mansions I grew up in; this house actually seems like somewhere a kid might enjoy growing up. I stand in the living room and look out the sliding glass doors. The backyard has enough room for water balloon fights and summer picnics. I bet I could even ask Bigby to build a deck, and he'd do it in a second.

I stop myself—what am I thinking? This isn't my house. Not my life. Kaila and I need to get out of here as soon as possible.

Continuing my path through the house, I trace my finger along the mantelpiece. There are a few pictures of Bigby when he was a kid, ranging from him being in diapers to one of him in a football uniform, but I wish there were more. I stare at one of him and his parents, grinning brightly at the camera, and my heart aches.

I stop, resting my head on the wood and wishing I'd had the opportunity for a real dating experience with him. I wish I grew up the way he did—charmed in a little town, with a family that loved him. With parents who wanted nothing but to see him succeed.

From the moment I first met him in college, I'd known it was doomed. He had a different pack's scent all over him, and even if he didn't, my father was the only person with a say in who I would marry.

The options varied between different packs in Southern California and Northern Mexico, but either way, I was to be blood-bonded to an alpha with the express purpose of furthering my father's political gain.

Of course, he wouldn't tell anybody else that—the concept was so outdated and horrendous that others in the pack and even other alphas might balk at the idea and might try to intervene. It wasn't something my father made public, but he made it very well-known to me.

I met Bigby in an intro chemistry class at Stanford, and the attraction to him was immediate. He was, of course, the biggest guy in the room, trying to squeeze past me and my friends to the end of the row. The second we locked eyes, I knew it was over for me. I'd squeezed my legs together, and his eyes had skipped down my body to the place where my thighs were visible below the hem of my dress.

He went on to charm and enchant everyone throughout the rest of the class, helping people who were called on and didn't know the answer. He even organized a study group for everyone. I went to the study group, and after that, Bigby and I were spending every waking moment with one another.

My heart skips when I remember one late night at the library, how he'd said he had something to show me, then took me to a closet on the top floor and fucked me so good I forgot my name. Afterward, he'd smoothed out my shirt and took me back to our study table, grabbing me a snack from the vending machine.

I had never been interested in the dumb jock—but that's not who Bigby was. He was the genius jock. He was the don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover guy. Though he commanded any space with his physical presence, I cracked up whenever another guy assumed Bigby was an idiot because he was tall and broad.

Being tall and broad wasn't so bad in bed, either.

Now, I shake away those thoughts and continue moving down the shelf, running my finger along the frames. Not a speck of dust. If I know Bigby, he has a cleaning chart, a schedule somewhere for himself, which means he dusts these twice a week, perfectly on schedule every time.

In college, he would clean my apartment for me when I had tests or wasn't feeling well. My stomach twists—that's what he was doing the night he vanished. Taking out the trash. I sat on the couch, waiting for him to come back inside, trying to find the right words to tell him about the pregnancy.

We could figure it out together. I knew we could. But then Bigby never returned, and I realized he must have seen the pregnancy test in the garbage. That was the only explanation for why he would disappear so suddenly, and so completely.

I'd gone to his apartment the next day, after calling him over and over, just to find the door ajar, the inside completely empty. The key was on the counter with a note for his landlord, explaining that he was leaving and joining an agency on the other side of the country.

Bigby Vandenberg had moved to Washington, D.C., so he would never have to see me again. And here I am, wandering around his house.

When I turn around, a little white ball saunters up to me, and I jump, putting a hand on my mouth so I don't make any noise. I kneel down, petting her and looking at her collar.

Luna .

A ball lodges in my throat, memories flooding back to me.

"You don't understand," I'd laughed, laying over Bigby's chest, playing with the strings on his sweatshirt. "My father is going to marry me off to some alpha in the south. I won't even know the guy!"

"Marrying an alpha," Bigby had murmured, and I knew he wasn't taking me seriously because he was still relaxed. Usually, even the notion of me with another man was enough to make him tense up, but people didn't usually believe me when I tried to explain what my father was like.

Marry me off to someone? This wasn't the 1800s.

But that didn't matter to my father.

"Mhm," Bigby had murmured, pressing his lips to my forehead and continuing the thought. "You would make an excellent luna."

"Oh, shut up," I'd said, slapping at his arm. "I don't have a maternal bone in my body. I'll be miserable, the entire pack will be miserable, and Gods forbid the day I have a kid. I'll be too busy at work to even take care of her!"

"Oh, you're assuming you'll have a girl, then?"

"I will only have girls, Bigby Vandenberg. And they will all grow up to be successful scientists. Women in STEM. Perhaps even an astronaut."

"How are you going to accomplish controlling your womb, huh?"

"My mother has her herbs."

"You think your mother's herbs are going to influence the gender of your future child?"

"I think I was wearing my mother's love potion when you walked into that classroom."

"Oh, hush," he'd said, wrapping one massive arm around me and rolling me onto my back. Kissing down my neck, he said, "You didn't need a love potion. You had on that fucking dress. "

***

Soft purring surrounds me, and I sigh, nuzzling closer to the warm, soft object under my arm. I can feel the sunlight warm on my face, and I'm lost in a haze of contentedness until the memory of last night comes rushing back, and I realize Kaila is not in the bed with me.

All I can think about is the fact that there was an intruder in the compound last night. I throw the covers back, startling Luna, who jumps off the bed and stretches languidly, clearly not understanding my panic.

Surely, Bigby would be able to fend off an intruder if they came straight to his house? Aris and Linnea had sounded like the infiltration wasn't related to the fact that Kaila and I were staying in the compound, but I can't stop thinking about my father, and what he would do to get his hands on us.

If my father had come here last night after not finding us in the compound, I would have heard the struggle, right? Bigby wouldn't be taken out so easily.

I run into the hallway, hearing sounds from the kitchen and following them until I appear in the doorway, staring at the scene before me.

Kaila is sitting on the counter with a bowl of pancake batter. She's giggling as Bigby stands at the oven, a spatula in his hand. He's wearing a floral apron. I blink.

"Hey, Mom," Kaila says, grinning from ear to ear. "Want a pancake?"

When Bigby turns and looks at me, it's like getting hit by a truck. His face is open and joyous, his eyes bright, his posture relaxed. My daughter is safe and happy. I just want to fall into Bigby's arms.

"Looks like someone got a visit from the hair fairy," Bigby mutters, making Kaila laugh, and I roll my eyes, turning away from them and into the hallway, my pounding heart starting to calm.

When I walk into the bathroom, I see several brand-new bottles of shampoo, conditioner—every single product I used back in college. I put a hand over my heart. When did he even have the time to go and get this stuff?

I climb into the shower, scrubbing every inch of my body and using the razor left for me on the sink. When I get out, I feel like a new woman, and I dress in the nightgown I was wearing the night before.

"Here," Bigby says when I step out into the hallway. His cheeks tinge with pink when he looks down at me, though this is what I was wearing the night before.

He's holding out my bag. Someone must have gone back into the compound to get our stuff.

It hits me fully, for the first time—we're going to be staying with Bigby for the foreseeable future.

"Thank you," I mumble, and he clears his throat before turning back into the living room. Just beyond him, over his shoulder, I can see Kaila watching Beauty and the Beast in the living room.