Come Home to Me

Present day…

["Aren't you getting a little cozy with the human, Darius?"]

When Nicholai's deep yet mischievous-sounding voice hit his ears, Darius knew that that past was already back to haunt him. However, even if this man had done nothing wrong to him, Nicholai still posed a problem to Darius.

"…was it you? The one attacking me?" Darius gritted his teeth, hiding his hissing from the other three people. "It's been three years. Are you still not over my rejection of you?"

["One, you didn't say the magic words. So, there's no rejection to get over. Two, three years is too short compared to the time that I have waited for you to come my way. It would be stupid for me to give up after one encounter with you."] Nicholai chuckled with a rather amused tone. ["Three, I will never hurt you. You are precious to me."]

Darius pursed his lips and turned away from the door, where the man could be taking a look at him through a window or something. The inexplicable pressure that pulled on him started to pulsate yet again as if he knew that Nicholai was nearby. For three years, he had never felt any of this.

He then barked softly yet through his teeth. "Fine, what do you want? I'm not going to leave this place just because you tell me. I have things to do, so if you plan to harm Rica, I will rip you apart."

["Don't worry about the human. She's important to the rogue community."] Nicholai sounded like he moved the phone from one ear to another. ["Darius, you're already here in the city again. Come home to me. I prepared us a mansion, bigger than that of the Gillards."]

"Don't you fucking dare to mention that name to me." Darius snapped, uncaring of the man's lure and trap. "No, Nicholai. I'll deal with you later. I have some business to attend to. Don't make me come to you and kick your ass personally."

["…all right, but if you find yourself in trouble, come see me. I can take care of the wolf pups more than she can."] Nicholai only hummed and gave an address after. ["I'll be waiting for you."]

Silence. Darius frowned as the other end grew silent for a few seconds. His grip on it tightened a little before talking again as if he was convinced of something. "I'm sorry, are you waiting for me to put the phone down? You're the one who called; you put the phone down."

Nicholai laughed. ["I don't want to hang up on you."]

Darius snorted. "Why are you making me mad? Fine, I'm hanging up."

Bringing the phone away from his face, Darius pressed the button to end the call. He then placed the cordless phone back on the stand, grumbling about a few things. He had already forgotten about Nicholai for a number of things, and suddenly having that delusional Alpha around was frustrating. It's just that… he knew that Rica was not safe around him.

"Maybe I should make use of that fool. It's not like I can't avoid him all that much." Darius sighed as he shook his greasy hair. "Fuck, I'm getting more stressed out. I should eat breakfast first before coming to find Dylan again. Eh, can I really drop them off somewhere else?"

"Daddy! Why are you late?!" The demanding princess called out and ran to his legs, opting for Darius to carry the girl's small body. "I'm hungry. Dylan's hungry, too."

"Dylan's hungry?" Darius hummed at the words as he brought her to her high chair that Rica had at the ready for really young children of her clients. He combed through her fringe and pushed them to the sides to clear her face.

Megan nodded and had Adrian scoop food for her. She then waited for Darius to feed her while he got some for himself as well. "Yep! I eat for me and for Dylan!"

Rica and Darius exchanged gazes before the woman chuckled. "Yeah, who was that on the phone?"

"Hm, some guy who insisted that someone else owned the phone number. It took me a while to convince him that I didn't know who he was looking for." Darius lied, but he didn't care all that much. Whether Rica saw through it or not had already sent a message to her. It was something he couldn't discuss, either with her… or with the children around.

…

In the end, Darius only left the two with Rica again. He tried to return the call earlier, but he seemed to be blocked. Even his personal phone was blocked from making a call to the number. Since it was the case, he only pocketed his phone and traveled back to the port city that morning. Rica didn't have to go to the court today, so the two pups were welcome to stay.

It's just that when Darius reached the vicinity of the hospital, he quickly caught the scent of werewolves. It was different from the ones yesterday, but he was still alarmed. Yesterday, there was no scent of any kind of werewolf in the area, so he was confident to leave Dylan inside.

"Dylan!" Darius ran inside and looked around as he trailed the scent of the werewolves deeper into the hospital. He arrived at the employee entrance and parking. "My God… no…"

He backtracked to the visitor entrance and through the winding path to the ICU ward. When he stepped into the place filled with the stench of antiseptics, he could clearly lose trace of the foreign werewolf scent. He didn't manage to tag Dylan as well because of this.

The father only trod along the white hallways, hoping that his little boy was still where the father left him. It's just that… the ICU ward was empty.

Darius stared through the glass and saw how the bed was cleaned up. There was no more additional equipment inside the room as if it had been vacated for hours. Did something happen to his baby? No, the hospital had his number. They should have called.

"Mr. Sprint?" A nurse called out, and he could sense confusion in her voice. Moreover, the longer she stared at him standing there, the more some kind of thought was dawning upon her. "Didn't you…? Dylan was already transferred to another hospital from a request…"

"…did they say who they are?" Darius didn't know that his gait had already changed, and he approached the nurse as if he was a wolf in the wild. Terror shot through her veins as she even froze at the seemingly murderous intent flashing through Darius's reddish eyes.

She wetted her mouth and retreated a step to cope with her fear. "He provided documents on being Dylan's blood relative, so the hospital released Dylan. He said he's Dylan's maternal uncle…"

The nurse stepped back to gain distance from Darius. Darius's eyes grew redder as his aura just doubled down on his subconscious intent.

"I think the name he gave was… Nicholai Rudolf."