Chapter 35

Celeste was tired by the time that she was finished with. Her co-workers had asked her so many questions, some of which she had no answer to that she could only partly enjoy her time at work and ended up feeling exhausted even after she had gotten coffee.

Maybe she would've been better off going along with the deal her and Bane had made even if she didn't quite remember it because of how much she had drank. At least then maybe people would stop bothering so much and Crescent wouldn't have come over today only to make things worse.

The week was only just starting too. She had four more days of work she had to survive before her next day off. She wasn't sure that was something she was going to be able to do well if the questions kept coming like they did today.

She couldn't really blame her co-workers being curious. She was a poor, low-class girl who somehow became associated with two rich and well known people. Two people who happened to be related.

She wasn't sure it was something she would've mentioned because her coworkers seemed surprised to hear that Crescent and Bane were related.

She didn't think much of it though when she said anything since Crescent was the one who said 'brother'.

Either way there wasn't anything that she could do about it now. It was what it was. No one aside from her coworkers had to know that it came from her.

Looking up at the sky she noticed that some of the daylight was already starting to fade.

With each passing week and as the cold set it, each day was slowly but surely losing more sunlight.

That meant she was going to have to be more careful on days she left worker later. She didn't want to risk anything happening on the way. Especially after whatever she saw on her balcony.

A part at the back of her mind couldn't help making her think it was also something that was related to Bane. All these weird and troublesome things had only started happening after she had bumped into.

Speaking of odd things. She noticed as she got closer to her apartment that the same dogs from before were following her again. This time though, they were walking behind her rather than on the other side of the road.

"Hey are you guys lost?" She asked turning around to see if she could get their attention. They both stopped when she did this and cocked their heads to the side at the same time.

She held out her hand to them while making sure that she didn't move too quickly so as to not scare them.

"You want to come here?" She coaxed hoping that they would come over so that she could get a better look at them. She knew Crescent said that she should be careful, but she felt bad since it seemed that they had been wandering around all day. They were probably thirsty and hunger.

She waited for a few minutes and when they didn't come over and no one else seemed to care to stop or were avoiding them because of their size, she decided to let it be and just see how far they would be willing to follow her.

They appeared to be either very docile or well trained to not mind people so much or to be aggressive. She just wished she knew who they belonged to. They looked to healthy and like a more exotic breed to not have had someone who cared for them.

If they followed her all the way back, Celeste was determined to put out some water for them. She didn't think that she had anything that they would like to eat, but she could at least do that much for them and then call someone to see if they could pick them up or find out where they lived.

The closer she got to her apartment, the closer the dogs seemed to get to her. Since she was almost in eyesight of it, she decided to pull out her phone to make the call to animal control. She thought that it would be better than waiting until she was inside incase they ran off before she came back out.

She frowned though when she got redirected to voicemail and was only able to leave a message for someone to see at a later point. She tried to be as detailed about the dogs as possible. It didn't look like they had colors on, but that didn't mean that they weren't microchipped.

The best breed that she could think of to describe them was either as huskies or malamutes. She avoided saying 'wolfdog' because she knew how many people had a problem with that type of breed.

She got surprised though when got off the phone and looked up after putting away. Bane was standing leaning against the stairs of her apartment complex. What was he doing there.

"What are you doing here?" She asked. Seeing him there made her nervous after what had just happened the other day.

"I came to make sure you were okay. I heard that you had some unexpected tag-alongs and wanted to make sure that nothing happened to you." He explained. Rather than looking at her, his gaze was focused on the two dogs that were behind her.

"I don't think that there's anything for you to worried about. They're harmless enough. I think that they're just lost." Celeste replied, defending the dogs behind her who suddenly seemed a bit on edge now that the alpha was there.

"Harmless? I think that's only because you don't know anything about that. I can assure you that those two are far from harmless and would be better leaving you alone." The last part Bane said as a warning as he shot them a hard look.

"Not all dogs are bad. And you should watch how you behave, you're making them nervous." The other huffed in response when she said this. He knew that the two 'dogs' had reason to be nervous around him. It just wasn't something that he could explain to her with so many people being around.

"Just trust me on this and let them be. They'll have no problem taking care of themselves plus there's people you can call to take care of it." The alpha said with annoyed sigh.

He had only decided to come because Crescent told him what was going on and thought that it would be better if he was the one to get involved before anything happened. He didn't expect though that the little human would get so defensive over a couple of mutts.

"I did already call someone. I was just going to go up and get them so water when I went inside and let them be after that. I don't have anything to feed them anyways." Celeste replied back sharply.

"Besides, I don't see how it is any of your business whether I take care of a few stray dogs or not. They're not hurting anyone." She had intended to brush past Bane in order to go up the stairs and inside to fetch the water and hope the two dogs who had backed off a little ways. She didn't get that far however before Bane gently but firmly grabbed her arm. The action surprised her and caught her off guard. When she turned to demand that he let her go, she noticed an oddly protective look in his eyes that she hadn't expected to see.

"I'm telling you that this for your protection. There are still a lot of things in this world that you don't know about."