PIPER

Another week had passed and still no Donovan, I was done. If he didn’t want to do anything with me then fine, I would not reach out to him either. It was good while it lasted but now it was time to move on. Even if it hurt deep inside, I had to move on. Fated mates were not as good as I thought. Priya had tried to convince me to reach out or go see him but I was not the one going to take the first step. If he truly wanted me he would’ve come already so I just shut Priya down in the back of my mind. It was Sunday and I had closed the shop early, my friends wanted to hang out and it was a great idea to catch them up on everything that had happened in my life. I was tired of lying to them so I was going to tell them everything about me, about my past and what happened with Donovan. 

Oakley invited us to his house, he lived in a beautiful house in the forest. It was like one of those houses you see in fairy tales that look unreal and majestic, he was a nymph after all. He had the power to make his house look beautiful even if it had vines and flowers all over the building. It gave cozy vibes and that’s what I liked about it. I decided not to come empty-handed, I had prepared some cake for us and cinnamon rolls. I was the first one to arrive and walked inside the house, to my surprise I saw a man I didn’t recognize walking out of Oakley’s room. A beta. Huh. We locked eyes and he panicked.

“Oh. Uhm. I’m leaving now. Excuse me.” He said as he walked past me and left through the door I had just walked in.

I sighed and placed my things on the kitchen counter. Oakley was at it again, nymphs had strong libidos so I wasn’t entirely shocked at finding him hooking up with someone. I walked inside his room to find him in the bed, almost naked, and looking at his phone.

“So you decided to come back for another round?” My friend said in a flirty voice but then locked eyes with me. “Oh. It’s you, Pip. Did he leave?”

“Yes, he just left.” I said with a sigh. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready? The guys will be here soon.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I will shower now. I lost track of time.” He said standing from the bed.

“I can see that.” I said rolling my eyes and then gave him a more serious look. “You should stop bringing them to your home. What if they do something to you?” 

“You know I can defend myself, right? No need to nag me, mom.” He said annoyed gathering his bed sheets in a ball to wash them later. 

“I’m just worried about you.” I said helping him.

“I’m okay. But I can see that you are not.” Oakley said giving me a suspicious look. “What happened to your handsome mate?”

“I'd rather not talk about that.” I said stopping what I was doing and returning to stand close to the door.

“What? Why? Something happened? Do you need me to beat him up?” He said confused and angry at the same time.

“No, I’ll tell you later okay? Now go get ready.” I sighed and gave him a soft smile.

“Fine.” He said reluctantly and walked to the bathroom. I stepped out so he could have more privacy and waited for my friend in his living room, thinking about how I was going to tell them. A few minutes passed and the noise of the main door opening made me break away from my thoughts, walking inside were my two other friends, Ezra and Theo, the latter had a disgusted face as he walked in and I could tell why. Being a werewolf he had a delicate sense of smell.

“Ugh. It smells like sex in here.” Theo said with disgust covering his nose with his hand.

“Again?” Ezra asked, he was a Rabbit shifter but even if he had a decent sense of smell, it was not as good as Theo’s.

“Yeah, all over the place. I swear that libido of his is too strong.” Theo said with his hand over his mouth and nose moving his hands and pointing at different spots in the house.

“Alpha?” Ezra asked, curiosity in his tone as he sat next to me on the couch.

“No, a beta,” I said with a sigh and then turned to look at my friend. “If you arrived sooner you would have seen his walk of shame.”

“I knew I should’ve closed the café earlier,” Ezra said making a dramatic pose on the couch.

“At least you can’t smell it.” Theo said, still standing but this time closer to us.

“That bad, huh?” I asked him with a sympathetic smile.

“Awful.” He answered.

“Can you all stop judging my horny ways? It’s not my fault, I’m just a nymph.” Said Oakley as he walked into the room, he had showered and put on some comfy clothes. “It’s a natural thing of us.”

“Sure, but please open the windows or something. This place needs some fresher air.” Theo growled at him and my nymph friend rolled his eyes annoyed. There’s something you should know about these two: they act like they can’t stand each other but they have been friends longer than I had.

“No need to. We will be in the front yard anyways.” Oakley said as he grabbed the boxes I brought and walked to the door. Theo didn’t waste time getting out fast and away from the smell and soon after Ezra and I followed them.

~oOoOo~

After eating and talking about some gossips with my friends, I knew it was time to come clean with them and tell them everything that had happened in the past months and in my whole past. Only Oakley knew about the circus because he was my best friend but it felt unfair that Ezra and Theo didn’t know about it. Priya encouraged me and after taking a deep breath I broke the silence between us.

“I have something to confess,” I said and my friends instantly looked at me. I got nervous just from their stares. ‘You got this.’ Priya said in my mind.

“Oh~ What is it? I thought we were done with the gossiping.” Ezra said with curiosity.

“It’s…more than that. I have been hiding…things from you. From all of you.” I bit my lip and saw their faces, all confused. One more deep breath and I told them everything about my past, even if it hurt telling them about it I had to do it. Ezra who was sitting closer to me comforted me when I started to cry and Theo listened closely to everything I said. “A-and I’m sorry I-I didn’t tell you about it. I just…It was something I wanted to hide from people.”

“Oh, Pip. You don’t have to hide anything from us. We were not going to judge you, you know our lives were not all smiles either.” Theo said with a sympathetic smile on his face, and I knew he was telling the truth. Unlike me, they had opened up and told me what they went through in the past. “You know I ran away from my abusive family in my former pack and Oakley is an orphan. And Ezra, well. He went through tough things as well. We all have our grey moments in our lives.”

“We are like the broken ones club.” Oakley said and we all giggled. He was always trying to make the mood better with his out-of-place comments. “Maybe that’s why we all connected so fast. Screw fated mates, we have each other.”

“About that…there’s something else.” I said and Oakley’s mouth when ‘o’ remembering. “I…found my fated mate.”

“What?” Theo said in shock.

“You did? Who? How? What?” Ezra asked shocked as well and then noticed how Oakley had not even an inch of confusion in his face. “Wait, why are you not reacting? Omg, you already knew? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I told him not to tell you. It’s complicated but I will tell you everything.” And I started talking and talking, opening my heart to them and telling them about what happened with the auction and how I had met Donovan, how he treated me, and what I had been doing these past months I was on ‘vacation’. They were shocked but also understanding, and once again I couldn’t hold back my tears. “And he hasn’t reached out to me, it’s been days, weeks, and still nothing. What if what Helena said was right? Do I not matter to him?”

“You are his fated mate. I’m sure she wasn’t right and you know he is rich, what if it is like in the movies?” Ezra said, once again comforting me, his arm across my shoulder.

“What do you mean?” I asked confused.

“Oh you know, maybe breaking the engagement has a long process and he wants to come get you when it is all over.” He explained and I had to hold back a laugh. He watches too many movies.

“That would make sense,” Oakley said and I was surprised, but not much. Sometimes I had a feeling that Ezra and he shared the same brain cell.

“But still, no text or calls?” I said furrowing my brows.

“You are right, that’s weird. But maybe he doesn’t have time, what if he wants to surprise you?” Oakley said trying to make me believe their crazy theory. “He came almost every day to the nursery and bought flowers for you, that guy is in love with you.”

“But…” I said but was interrupted.

“From what you tell us, Pip. He cares about you. A lot. It may not have been the best way to meet him and he may have kept some secrets from you but you know in movies there’s also that nasty evil fiancee and that’s who I think Helena is in this story.” Ezra said he was being sincere. He actually believed what he was saying and deep down I wanted to believe the same.

“Yeah and maybe he is trying to protect you while he settles everything down,” Oakley mentioned and something clicked in me.

“I have been feeling watched lately.” I confessed and an ‘oh’ came from my friends.

“Now that you say that, I walked down the street of your shop a few days ago and I did see a man wearing all black, you know like those bodyguards in movies.” Theo was the one to talk this time. Probably it was one of Donovan’s betas and I felt my chest flutter—a feeling I hadn’t felt in a while. He had asked someone to watch over me. He cared. He really did. “I thought it was weird but maybe there was a celebrity nearby so I brushed it off.”

“So what should I do?” I asked them, even if what they were saying was true, I needed advice.

“I say you should wait and he will come back to you when everything is okay and done with that bitch.” Oakley said using a tone of disgust and hatred in the last word.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but I agree with Oak.” Theo said with a sigh.

“I think the same but don’t get discouraged Pip. He will show up again and you will have your lovely romance story with your fated mate, get married and you better have us as your men of honor.” Ezra said once again making a movie in his head.

“Of course, he will, but you are getting ahead of yourself. First, we wait and then we see what happens.” Oakley said to Ezra and then looked at me.

“Thank you, I needed to get that out of my chest. I don’t deserve you, guys.” I said with a soft smile and they came to me in a group hug.

“Hey! Hey! Don’t say that, you do. We all do. We are the broken ones club.” My nymph friend said again and we pulled apart from the hug.

“Why do you keep saying that, Oakley?” I sighed looking at him.

“Because it’s fun and it matches us.” He smiled and took his phone out. “I’m changing the name of our group chat to that.”

“Don’t you dare, Oakley.” Theo said in a serious tone to the nymph. 

“Watch me, Theodore.” Oakley said with a mischievous smile.

“Oh, you are dead.” My wolf friend answered and I knew it was going to go down because Theo hated his full name. 

And as my friends fought over a dumb group chat name, I just laughed and realized how lucky I was to have them with me and now—even if I hated it—I had to wait and hope that Donovan would get to me soon.