Chapter 130: Too Many Scandals
Edrick
If I thought that Moana looked beautiful in her new dress the night before, then she looked even more stunning now dressed plainly in hiking clothes. I had never seen her dressed so casually before, and although I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt this way, I felt even more attracted to her when she was dressed like this. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that for a moment, as the three of us walked together and enjoyed nature away from the noise and the chaos of the city, it almost felt as though we were a normal little family that was simply out for a hike on a nice summer’s morning.
I had never told anyone this before, but I had never particularly enjoyed following in my father’s footsteps. I always knew that it was expected of me from a very young age, but I had secretly always envied other boys who didn’t have such high expectations. In college, as I watched my friends go on to follow their dreams and become artists or teachers or adventurers, I resented the fact that my path was set in stone that was laid down by someone else before me. I never even had a say in it; no matter how much I just wanted to play the piano and enjoy being young and free, I had no choice but to become the next WereCorp CEO.
And I got used to it, for the most part.
But ever since I met Moana, it was times like this that reminded me that I just wanted a quiet life. Sure, the money was nice, but I wanted to live here all of the time, not in the city; I only really lived there most of the time to be close to WereCorp. It was times like this, which were rare, when I realized just how much I hated being a CEO. And seeing Moana in jeans and a hoodie, with her curly red hair piled on top of her head and with Ella running ahead of us and collecting little rocks and things to line up on her windowsill, made me feel at peace. If only we didn’t have to go back and return to the city.
That spell was quickly broken, however, by the feeling of my phone vibrating. When I saw my father’s name on the screen, I almost considered declining the call… But I knew that it would only make things worse, and he was already too mad at me for everything. Even though it broke our peace, I knew that I needed to do some damage control.
I didn’t want Moana or Ella to overhear my conversation with my father and ruin our walk, so I quickly excused myself and walked off out of earshot before I answered.
“Hello?” I answered.
Of course, just as I expected, my father didn’t even bother to greet me before he started laying into me. “I can’t believe that my own son would cause so much trouble,” he growled, without so much as a hello. “You’ve done nothing but create scandal after scandal recently. Are you going to take control of yourself, or do I need to take control for you?”
I froze, feeling my blood run cold at my father’s harsh words. And in that moment, maybe I was a bit disrespectful as well when I said the first thing that came to my mind. “You do have another son, you know,” I replied, feeling myself fill with fire as I spoke. “Why don’t you appoint him as WereCorp CEO?”
My father scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snarled. “And control your temper; not just with me, but with others. At the very least, control your temper in public. I could care less what you do at home.”
I knew that he was talking about the incident where I punched the paparazzi the day before, but I didn’t care. If anything, that whole incident helped us teach the paparazzi a lesson, and I was only doing what any father would do to protect his daughter and the mother of his unborn child.
In fact, I opened my mouth to say that, but quickly stopped when I suddenly heard my name being called.
“Edrick! Help!”
Moana. Her voice sounded scared. I didn’t waste a moment before abruptly hanging up the phone and taking off at a sprint toward Moana and Ella, my mind racing with a million possibilities. Had Ella fallen and gotten hurt? Had Moana gotten hurt?
However, it was much different than that.
When I finally burst back out onto the trail and found Moana and Ella, they were both cowering behind a boulder, shaking and crying. Moana pointed to something that made my blood run cold.
It was a wolf.
And it wasn’t just any wolf; it was a Rogue in its wolf form. I could smell it.
Without a moment of hesitation, I jumped in front of Moana and Ella and did what any protective Alpha would do: I growled, deep and low. I could feel my eyes begin to glow, and I awakened my wolf in case I would need to shift and fight this thing off.
But, thankfully, the Rogue seemed to take the hint. In a cowardly fashion, as soon as it heard my growl it turned tail and took off into the woods like a bolt of lightning.
Once it was gone, I quickly turned around and ran over to Moana and Ella, reassuring them that it was okay; but we needed to leave. I picked up Ella and carried her while Moana followed alongside me, and I instinctively reached out and wrapped my free arm around Moana as well, occasionally glancing over my shoulder to make sure that the Rogue didn’t decide to come back for more. Thankfully, my growl seemed to scare it off for good.
But regardless, I couldn’t shake that feeling of impending danger. The mountain estate was secluded and it wasn’t entirely unfeasible for strangers to accidentally stumble onto the vast property, but this seemed deliberate. When I found them, the wolf was stalking straight toward them as though it was on a mission — like someone sent it here.
Maybe I was just being paranoid, but the whole thing felt suspicious. The timing was too perfect; just moments after I walked away and left Ella and Moana alone in the woods, a Rogue suddenly appeared and seemed to have its sights set on them. I wondered for a moment if it had something to do with the fact that Moana was special, and that she was even possibly the Golden Wolf, but it didn’t make any sense; she didn’t have a continuous scent yet, and I would have noticed if she had suddenly released her scent. Not only that, but her scent would have repelled the Rogue. No… This felt different, but I couldn’t quite explain why.
Either way, I didn’t feel safe here anymore. And neither did Ella and Moana. Even though I wanted to stay here in the peace and quiet forever, I knew that staying in our urban penthouse would be safer until I got to the bottom of this and knew that Moana would be safe, so I decided to have everyone pack up early and head home that night.
At first, I thought Moana would be upset that we had to leave so early. But thankfully, she only agreed with me. I knew that she had an intuition that something was wrong, too.
