Darkness breaks Moon awakes
Night now bring the stars it makes.
Yvette Yvonne.
Hugh had just got out of the shower when he heard the door bell. He left his valet to answer it as if it was anything important, Charles would let him know. As he entered the dining room, he saw a non -descript white envelope on the dining table delivered by courier. He had seen similar ones before, whenever he had got information from G.M.I. He grabbed it off the table and walked upstairs to his office to read it in private knowing it was the information on Annie he had requested. He flicked through the file and marvelled at the amount of information G.M.I. could get on a person. He had no idea how they obtained this stuff and he never asked, but he was fairly sure that none of it was legal. Two photographs fell out onto his desk and as he picked them up and found himself looking at the woman with beautiful blue eyes. She was walking alone along the street in one and entering a house on the other, he studied her face, she looked sad, pale and tired. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair knowing that it was probably his fault she looked like that. Setting the photographs aside, he started to read the file. It was incredibly detailed, Annie Lovell was the second eldest child of Bertrand and Isabelle, both deceased, born in Yorkshire on July 17th 1978, attended the local school along with her siblings Jacques and Amelie. Left at 18 with top grades, at 20 went to Lancaster University to study history, graduated with first class honours aged 23. Trained as a teacher as the University of Cumbria and then returned to Lancaster to complete her Masters’ degree in history two years later, followed by a PhD. Lectures in History at Lancaster University, lives alone, unmarried, bought a house in 2005, has ten years left on the mortgage, no records with D.V.L.A so no car. At the end of the report, there was her address, email, mobile and landline number as well as her work phone number. Hugh found it odd she didn’t live with her pack. It looked like she lived and worked in the human world and not even in Yorkshire where she was born, but in Lancashire. No wonder he couldn’t find her at the train station, she was on the west coast train, not the east as he had assumed. He frowned wondering why that would be, she definitely wasn’t a rogue, rogues smelt awful and were usually a little crazy and Annie’s scent was definitely intoxicating to him. Strange, she was most certainly an oddity, which if he was honest with himself, intrigued him. He had dreamt about her every night since the wedding, he couldn’t get her out of his head, he felt the pull to run to her but he was left floundering when he had no idea where she was. Now he knew where he was running to, Knox was practically dragging him out of the door.
Hugh checked his watch, he had some work to complete which would take until lunch time, then he decided he would drive down to Lancashire and finally talk to this woman. Hugh sent a text to Lennox and Lyall telling them he had found Annie and would be away for a few days, the replies were almost instantaneous. First from Lennox,
GO GET HER DAD!
Then Lyall,
GOOD LUCK , STAY IN TOUCH,
CAN'T WAIT TO MEET HER! x
He was worried he had got their hopes up when he still hadn’t decided what he was going to do, sighing he went down for breakfast, the quicker he got his work done the quicker he could leave and quell Knox’s constant pestering.
Hugh didn’t leave the Reiver Territory until after one and according to his sat nav, Lancashire was a six hour drive away. He seemed to hit traffic and road works every few miles and Knox was getting ever more impatient. Hugh finally reached the Lancashire town seven hours after he left home. He sat in the car for a while trying to calm his nerves. It was ridiculous, it wasn’t like he was a bloody pre-pubescent teen, Hugh wanted to go and talk to her but he had no idea what he was going to say. ‘Hi I’m your mate, the one who ran out on you in Scotland but I’ve changed my mind, or maybe I haven’t, I haven’t had the balls to decide yet’, yeah, for pities sake, like that was going to work. Was he going to reject her, accept her? What if she rejected him, what would he do then? He knew it was possible to survive losing a mate but was rejection different from losing a mate? He sat there a while longer mulling his options over and came to the conclusion that it would be easier if wolves could just meet each with alcohol and bad judgment like the humans did. Actually, he thought, that it might not be a bad idea to invite her out for a drink or dinner rather than intruding in to her house. He looked across at Annie’s street and counted along the houses to work out which was hers. It was past seven in the evening and was already dark. In all the other houses lights were on with signs of the occupants getting on with whatever humans did on a Saturday evening, with one exception, Annie’s house. He slowly climbed out of the car and walked across the street to Annie’s front door, he looked up at the house as he approached, the entire house was dark. He sighed, rang the bell and waited. Nothing. Hugh could hardly believe he had come all this way and she was out, Knox was practically whining in his head. Hugh could smell her scent but it was faint so she had been gone for a few hours that much he could tell. He caught the aroma of cooking smells coming from some of the other houses but there was none from Annie’s. It was possible she had gone out for dinner and would be back later so he decided to wait in the car.
While he sat there like some sort of weird stalker he found himself wondering who she was out with, another man perhaps? He felt a surge of envy and possessiveness, Hugh felt the low rumble in his chest as Knox started to growl. He pushed all thoughts of who she was with out of his head and began to wonder how long he would have to wait. He realised he might need somewhere to stay for the night so he started to Google local hotel rooms, he found a Travel Lodge but he hated those places. The beds were always too small and usually had a shower he could barely stand up in. He scrolled on and found a place just off the town centre, originally a gentleman’s club, now a bar which served food and had rooms. The photos of the rooms looked fine so he checked for availability and booked a double room. This done he leant back in his car seat and prepared himself to wait, rehearsing in his head what he might say when he saw her but by eleven o’clock Hugh was an even bigger bag of nerves, the waiting was killing him. He decided to go to his hotel room, grab some food and come back tomorrow. He was chickening out and he knew it, but at least he could delay rejecting her for one more day, not that he had made a firm decision to do that, Knox huffed at Hugh’s chaotic train of thought.
“We must not reject her, we must love her, cherish her, forever.”
Hugh rolled his eyes and pulled the car out of the street towards his hotel.