Leam and Lucas sat in the office talking.

"Now who on earth would be dumb enough to let Asher out?" Leam chuckled and threw popcorn in the air and caught it in his mouth.

"The real question, Leam," Lucas says "Is who was able to find the place and how?" Lucas picked up the popcorn from the bowl and threw it at Leam.

"That's a good question honestly. We should look into that."

"Nah really sherlock?!"

"You did not just take that tone with me!" Leam goes and wraps his arm around Lucas's neck into a headlock.

"You really think you can take me down?" Lucas asks and quickly swaps places with Leam.

"Oh yeah? And you think your gonna win?" They begin to roughhouse around laughing and then they hear a loud thud coming from the room. They quickly run into the room to see Valerie on the ground drowsy.

"Val, are you okay?" Lucas asked. She looked up at them dazed.

"Um, yeah I think so. I just tripped." She said sounding confused.

"Here take my hand." Leam offers his hand and she takes it. He helps her up and helps her in bed. Where she immediately passed out.

"That's odd," Leam said watching her.

"Um, Leam," Lucas said and pointed to the window that was now wide opened. The wind was blowing the curtain causing it to flutter. Leam walks over and looks outside the window. He sniffs the air and looked at Lucas.

"Asher." They said at the same time.

"But that doesn't make any sense. Why would Valerie open the window where there just happen to be Asher's scent? Or maybe perhaps even him being there." Lucas shuts the window doors and locks it. Leam and Lucas turned to look at Valerie sleeping peacefully on the bed. ***

Valerie yawned and stretched feeling still a little tired. She goes to reach beside her but all she got was air. She looks beside herself and sighed. Waking up alone again like she always does. Almost every morning. She knows it was because they are trying to protect her and their town and their pack. She knows but she still can't help feeling lonely. She goes into the bathroom and got her toothbrush with a pea-size glump of toothpaste on it. She began to brush her teeth while looking at herself in the mirror. Hmmm, I wonder if I should straighten my hair. Wait.

She paused in brushing her teeth. I never thought about straightening my hair. Ever. That's weird but I really feel like doing it. She continued to brush her teeth. She plugs in the straightener and waits for the straightener to heat up. Valerie smiles as she looks at the straightener and was excited to straighten her hair for the first time.

***

She does a finishing touch adding her lip gloss. She admired how good she looked and how good her makeup looked. She smiled at her reflection and saunters to the closet feeling good about herself. She looked around the room and settled with a jean skirt and a white long sleeve off the shoulder puffy top. She sighed when she saw a part of her recent scars were peeking out of her shirt. But she smiled remembering that she was perfect in their eyes no matter what. She skips out of the room and head to their office.

Valerie knocks on the door lightly and waited a few seconds. No one answered and she knocked again and opens the door and peeked in to see Lucas at the desk writing on a paper.

"Hey!" She said as she stepped in and shut the door behind her. "How is everything?"

"Fine." He replies without looking up. Valerie links her hand behind her back and rocked back and forth on her feet looking around. She walks over to his desk and dragged her finger on the desk as she walked over to him.

"So, wheres Leam?"

"At Alex's talking to him about.. um, Asher."

"Okay, that's good." His eyebrows and he finally took his eyes off the paper.

"Why's that?"

"Cause it gives us time. Just me and you." Valerie pulls his chair away from the table and sits on his lap facing towards him.

"Um, Valerie, I'm really bu-" She cuts him off with a kiss.

"No excuses. It's finally just you and me. Then Leam and I will have one on one time." He lifts her off his lap and set her on her feet. Valerie felt hurt but she wasn't giving up easily.

"Come on Master. At least let me do this." She unzips his pant and his eyes dart around the room.

"Don't do that- oh god." She grabs him and he lets out a groan. She slowly pulls his pants down lower.

"Valerie," He grabs her hand. "Don't, I can't right now."

"But, you're hard already. Why are you rejecting me?"

"Because-"

"Oh my god, it's because of my body, isn't it?"

"What no of course not." Valerie begins to tear up and storms out of the room with Lucas calling her name. She hears the door close and runs down the stairs to see Leam.

"Leam!" She grabs him and begins to kiss him. He is shocked at first and begins to kiss her back she slams him against the wall and begins to reach to take off his shirt.

"Valerie-now-is-not-a-great-time-for-this." He said between kisses.

"What!?" She looks at him her eyes welling up again. "Neither of mates even want me!" She begins to cry and runs out of the house crying. She transforms and runs into the woods the next thing she knows she is in the empty room before the one Asher coffin was in.

"Looking for someone?" She swirls around to see Asher standing there leaning against the wall. She probably looked hideous with her tear-streaked face and probably frizzy hair.

"I don't know how I got here- I um."

"Just admit you feel attracted to me." He walks towards her until she was against the wall. Her heart was beating fast and she realized he was right. It may be a small feeling but she could feel it, but that's impossible. She could only be attracted to her mates. She looked into his cold red eyes and realized something was wrong. Really wrong. He started leaning in and she was afraid that he was going to kiss her but she was even more afraid that she wanted him to. He leaned in closer and she quickly dodged away.

"I should really get home." She said. Suddenly he was upfront of her and he took her face and kissed her. Even scarier she was tempted to kiss him back. She pushed him and punched him across the face. Her fist was bloody from hitting his hard skin and mixed with his blood from his bloody nose.

"Don't ever touch me again!" She said.

"Come on. They both rejected you. I would treat you way better. You would have more of my time."

"Unlike you, they have a town, a pack, and a mate to protect, and might I remind you that's me." She turns her back to him. "Don't ever touch me or try to take advantage of my weakness ever again." Valerie begins to walk away.

"Love what you did with your hair by the way. Very sexy." He said after her.

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