I STILL WANT TO PLAY!

9 FEBRUARY, TUESDAY, CONT'

It wasn't fair!

Just as I was starting to get comfortable, I heard Mum say, "Thank you for having us tonight, Alpha Lorent."

I hadn't even checked out the refreshments yet! Omo

"You're very welcome." Alpha James answered, "In fact, we are the ones who should be thanking you for making the time to join us."

My betas had spread out, Harvey was waiting at the ballroom exit. Ben was no where in sight, although I knew he was still somewhere in the estate. Ki was just straightening up from healing Delta Emerson, he was smiling, "That's all the heal I can spare you now, Delta."

"Thank you, Beta." Delta Emerson sounded in every way properly grateful, but I found it hard to trust him.

Alpha James and Dad were shaking hands. I knew humans shook hands with everyone. A handshake could mean hello or goodbye or nice to meet you. But for wolves a handshake means agreement or partnership. We didn't shake hands at hello.

A polite greeting was a simple bow or respectful nod. A handshake was a promise.

For example, they shook hands at our betrothal. This would be handshake #2. I guess we could conclude that tonight's event had deepened our inter-pack relations.

And now the men were reaching for their mates while Mum and Luna Edith politely make their bows and final thanks.

I flared and went over to Mate who was still just a short distance away. Dom was still talking to him, I'm not sure about what, but Dom looked like he was rather enjoying the one sided conversation.

The moment I drew near, Mate touched my hair and turned his full attention to me, "What is it?"

His tone was quiet, still, and sounded very grown up, but I think it was because his voice was so low.

"I don't want to go home." I sulked. In contrast I sounded very un-grownup. But I'm sure it's just that I didn't have Mate's baritone.

Mum and Dad looked over to my direction and then my parents, his parents, and Lady Amber came over. Dom bowed politely. I ducked behind Mate.

"I want to play some more." I informed my parents from behind his shoulder.

"Sam..." Mum started.

"Can I stay with Bell? Please?" I asked, "I won't cause trouble."

Bell froze.

"You...want to stay with Bell?" Mum asked carefully.

I nodded.

"Why?" Mum narrowed her eyes at me.

Ben had returned, "The car is ready."

I shook my head at him.

"My mistake, the car is not ready." He deadpanned.

Mum gave him a look but then decided to tackle the problem at its source (which as usual she identified as me), "Sam, I can't let you stay overnight here."

"Not even if Ki stays too?" I asked hopefully.

"While I trust Ki to keep you safe, I can't trust that he will keep you out of trouble." Mum said.

"And Ben too." I added because I suddenly remembered that I promised to take him to the Underground with me.

"Now, I'm sure you're up to something." Mum said.

"I just want to stay with Bell (and dream travel to the Underground.)" I said.

"I'm not sure that's entirely appropriate, Sam." Mum said.

"Luna, I'll be returning to the Underground after the next meeting. My princess can use my room again." Bell offered.

At this my Mum looked up sharply, "Again? What do you mean again?"

Now it was Dad's turn to freeze.

Suddenly everything fell in place, why Mum hadn't chewed me out for sneaking out last night. Dad hadn't told her.

Dad was so dead.

And so was I, but Dad more so than me.

"I'll explain later, darling." Dad decided, "Sam, it's time to go home."

Awww... I sulked.

Mate touched my hair like he often did, and then he cupped my cheek in his large warm hand, "Go with your parents, Princess. You can come over and play another day."

Stoopid! I flared backing away when his face came too close.

"Say goodnight, Sam." Mum instructed.

I made a pretty bow and said "Goodnight. Thank you for having me."

"It was our pleasure to have you, Alpha Sam." Alpha James said.

Luna Edith hugged me.

Lady Amber nodded, "Good girl."

Mate and Ki walked us out to the car, Mate's hand on the small of my back while I sulked.

My parents got in first.

"Goodnight princess." Mate said just before I got into the car. He leaned closer.

"Goodnight Bell." And then I whispered into his ear, "See you later."

Bell pulled back surprised, "Later?"

I'm not sure what he was expecting, but he definitely wasn't expecting that.

I quickly got into the car so he couldn't say no, or worse, alert Mum of my plans.

Ki smiled and shut the door firmly. I saw Bell step back, Ki smiling beside him. And as our car pulled away, my heart sulked about the distance between us.

{Want Mate}

Wolfie told me in no uncertain terms.

Oh, and Wolfie was back again.

I leaned against the cool glass of the window. The car was silent, but I could tell Mum and Dad were having a rather heated mindlink discussion, I would guess Dad was explaining about last night.

Maybe I should prepare my own answer for when Mum grilled me, but I didn't feel like it.

I was feeling a little excited about going to the Underground tonight. That's the beauty of dream travelling, and before I knew it, I was asleep.

When I opened my eyes, everything was dark.

{Mate! Mate! Mate!}

Someone was super excited.

I sniffed but smelled nothing. I tried to move but something heavy was slung across my body. My legs were trapped too. It was really dark, even my usual wolf-enhanced sight could not see anything. I borrowed my wolf power, eyes glowing I tried to make out where I was.

Lips. Curved perfectly like a bow and slightly parted.

An angled jaw slightly stubbled - the stubble I didn't see, it was too dark, but my forehead had rubbed it by accident.

Wait, I knew this jaw and mouth, I've seen it before - from this exact eye-crossing angle and distance too - Mate!

Now that I remembered it, I had to say, Mate kept leaning unnecessarily close to me today.

Talking about too close, I decided to pull away from Mate's sleeping face, but it was easier said than done. There was this deadweight - it felt like a very huge and heavy glob of slime was resting on me, trapping my arm under the wool coat, and my legs too. It was warm too, and getting warmer by the second.

After a bit of squirming, I manged to shift under the weight.

Now I could see shoulder. Muscular and bare. Very different from my own slender shoulders, his actually looked like a warrior's shoulder. I tried to get my bearings, the shoulder bones connected to the collar bone, the collar bones connected to the heart bone?

I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. Ack!

Scrambling to get out of his hold, I pushed a little harder. Nothing a bit of wolf strength couldn't do, if only my hair and coat and legs were not that entangled. But eventually, I managed to wriggle myself free.

Mate didn't stir, he did start snoring though, and I realized he neck was now bent in a weird angle. His blanket had fallen off too. And he was naked!

Ack again!

I pushed myself further away from Mate's naked sleeping form. Luckily it was very very dark, and the position he was in made it so that I didn't see IT.

Okay, calm down. My heart has been going in and out of overdrive all evening. This was entirely Mate's fault. I looked around and found the renegade blanket. I was sitting on it. With no little effort, I managed to pull the rough scratchy thing out from under me and covered him properly. It was cold in the room, so I was careful to cover him up to his neck.

He was still snoring though. I gingerly adjusted his head, and he sighed and fell back to quiet breathing.

I nearly had a heart attack when he sighed though.

Deciding that my heart had enough of this, I carefully wriggled along the wall till I reached the foot of the bed and got off. Whew.

Now I was free to really look around.

We were in a small room, made with bare concrete slabs. It was cold, small, and dark. It wasn't that much better than his fightcage cell, really. There was a bed, a cupboard, a desk, and a chair. Everything was very neat. The chair was tucked into the desk. The desk had a laptop and a mouse, some files standing in a corner and a empty tin can that held a pencil, a ball point pen, and a permanent marker. Along the edge or the wall, there was an extension cord. The laptop was plugged into it, and a phone.

I picked up the phone and it lit up suddenly. I nearly dropped it in shock. Black and smooth, except for the crack that ran across the glass screen. And then I suddenly recognized it. This was the same phone as Henry's and Ki's. I felt quite sure. The same weight, size, bevelled edges, and the textured metal backing. I looked at the cracked screen. I guess this phone just had a rougher life.

I carefully put the phone face down and pressed the side button to turn off the light.

Then I returned to Mate to see if he was waking up yet. It's not like there was anything to do in his room.

Mate was still sleeping, his breath rythmatic and deep. As I crept up to him, I felt a bit like I was approaching a sleeping lion.

What did the humans like to say? Let sleeping dogs lie. But I was just taking a look.

I crouched next to his bed and watched his face carefully. It was relaxed, his lashes resting in perfect crescents. His mouth was really bow shaped. I didn't mean like the ribbon type. I meant like the arrow shooting type. His top lip was thin, but well defined, dipping between the two peaks. His bottom lip was fuller, plumper in the centre than the sides. I had the urge to poke it with my finger. But of course I didn't.

I kept watching though, listening to his steady breathing, he breathed out with his mouth too. I wondered if I did that when I slept. I tried breathing slowly to see where the air went in and out from. I put a hand in front of my face to feel the airflow, then in front of mate's face. Hmmm... It was hard to tell, but his breath was warm and tickled my palm.

I looked at my palm and then back at him. He was still sleeping.

I looked at the dark waves of hair on his head, it framed his face. Then very carefully, I touched his jaw with the tips of my fingers. Rough stubble I couldn't quite see in the dark scraped on the sensitive pads of my fingers. I remembered my Dad's stubble, how as a child I had liked to feel it. Dad would use his stubble to rub the top of my head and I would squeal and slap his large face... Or maybe it was my hands that was small. I looked at my hand now. Touching Mate now was not the same as touching Dad then.

It was just stubble and it felt the same, but it was like picking up Mate's phone. It was the exact phone as Henry's and Ki's, but Mate's phone was different. It wasn't because of the cracked screen either.

I guess it felt like I was invading his privacy or something. Maybe it's true what they say, everything's different with your mate. Or maybe it was because I was doing all this while he was sleeping.

After this realization, I started to feel like some kind of creepy stalker. I guess I should stop staring at Mate.

My ankles were feeling the strain of squatting in heels. I sat back on my bum and took off my shoes. Whew, much better!

Even the arc under my feet ached!

The floor was really cold and my butt was freezing though. I stood up. Now my stockinged feet were cold. I pulled my wool coat around me, but of course that did nothing for my feet. Why was this room so cold? Part of me wanted to crawl back into the bed with Mate - just to warm my icy feet.

Mate who was naked. The blanket couldn't be that warm. I took off my coat and spread it on top of the blanket. Now I was really cold.

I sulked and plopped into the hard wooden chair and watched Mate sleep in his bed. Stoopid! Hurry and wake up! I'm cold and bored and hungry. Grrr...

But I shouldn't complain. Sitting in the cold on an uncomfortably hard chair with nothing to do wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. For one, I began to feel immensely relieved that I had the room to myself. It certainly could have been worse.

Now that I stopped to think about it, I was starting to have second thoughts. What idiot dress up in full Lorent ceremonial gear to visit an underground bunker full of escaped fight dogs all by herself?

I looked back at Mate and felt comforted by his presence - even though he slept like a log.

Yeah, from what I've heard of escaped fight dogs, I really shouldn't go out wandering by myself. I'll wait till Mate woke up.

I looked back at Mate's desk in front of me. And then I had an idea. Picking up his permanent marker I wrote in capital letters on the bottom right corner of his desk, "SAM WAS HERE."

Muahahaha! MINE.

I was very pleased at the straight and even lettering too.

NB. Now that I'm writing this, I realize I could've written something inspiring, or encouraging, or romantic even. Maybe when Mate was working at his desk, or had a hard day, he would see the loving message at feel his spirit revive. I wished I thought of it then. Too bad I didn't.

When I had written those words. I was pretty proud of myself, and then immediately bored again.

I capped the marker and dropped it into the tin can holder. It made a surprisingly loud "clunk".

And then someone standing just outside the door said, "Hoi, did you hear that?"

I froze.

Another voice also just outside the door answered, "Hear what EJ?"