"No." Matteo refused my proposition as I'd expected. It was just too easy. "Absolutely not."

My father had been missing since I was young, he had been everything and then one day he simply vanished into thin air. He was basically the third in command within the pack and while there was not an official title for my father's position, his importance was quintessential to Grace Pack.

Our Alpha Lorcan sent out countless search parties for him, working tirelessly to solve the mystery of his disappearance. It went on like this for the next few years, mission after mission to look for my father until one year, the search parties stopped going out.

My father slowly slipped out of memory and I was placed into a group home within the pack. People moved on and so did I.

I had to.

I mourned him as if he had passed away because that was what helped me go on everyday, it put an end to my constant state of hoping. I couldn't keep reopening my deepest wound over and over again, so I accepted that wherever my father had vanished to, he would not be making a return trip.

It had been almost fifteen years since then with absolutely no sign of my father and while I missed him terribly, I was in a good place with it all.

So when Matteo propositioned me, I knew that this would be the perfect request. It was an impossible task, after all, my pack searched for my father for years with no luck.

He could either refuse which meant I was off the hook or he could go along and it would eventually drive Matteo mad. More importantly, either option would mean he would lose his wolf; a punishment I thought seemed pretty apt considering what he did to my pack and me.

Was it bad that I was using my potentially dead father as a way to p:ss off my evil, psychopathic mate? Maybe.

But for the first time since encountering Matteo, I finally felt like I had the upper hand.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed with a small smile and stood up for the first time in a week. I was a little unstable and sore but after a moment of focusing I felt confident enough to slowly cross the room and face Matteo.

"Then I suppose I should welcome you." I announced with a bright smile.

His dark features furrowed, "What the f:ck are you on about?"

I shrugged and clasped my hands in front of me, this had to be the most satisfying moment of my entire life. "Well, if you're not going to help me find my father then I guess I should welcome you into the Wolfless Werewolf Club."

His eyes immediately darkened as they narrowed into furious little slits and yet I still carried on. "We meet everyday because well, we don't have a wolf anytime. Currently we only have one other member but with your addition, our numbers will be growing steadily. Our symbol is a really sad person crying because it totally sucks to not be able to shift and--"

"Enough!" Matteo roared and effectively stopped my incoherent rambling. "I'll help you find your father and in return you help me fix the bond."

I nodded absentmindedly as I toyed with the IV cord attached to my arm before resolving to tug it out, "Mhm, sure thing." The beeping of my heart rate also silenced as I pulled the monitor off too.

I could tell he irritated with how blasé I was behaving about restoring his livelihood but Matteo held his tongue and didn't say anything. He ran a hand through his hair and then down the side of his face and picked up the fallen IV cord off the ground.

"What are you doing?" He rolled it up and set the thing on the bed with an over dramatic sigh.

I rolled my eyes and pulled my hair into a low ponytail, "I'm leaving." I stated bluntly, I mean wasn't it obvious that I was wrapping things up here.

He blinked and watched me walk around him and through the door, I left him standing there confused for a moment but Matteo snapped out of it and followed after me into the hallway.

Turns out we weren't in some hospital, this was a single room in a very large and very expensive looking mansion. Where was I?

I looked behind me to find Matteo leaning amused my in the doorway, relishing my confusion. "Welcome to my home, sweetheart."

I shot a glare at him, this annoying sarcastic demeanor of his was not going to fly. Ignoring his presence, I ventured further into the hallway.

"Wrong way." Matteo crooned behind me.

"Can you just leave me alone and go back to whatever you were doing for the week when you had me sedated against my will." I turned around and went the other way still though, not because he told me but because I just wasn't liking the other way anymore.

Matteo sped up his pace so he was walking beside me, his face was pursed into a frown and his hands were slipped into the pockets of his pants. It weirded me out.

He kept just walking quietly beside me, every once and a while correcting me and altering my course until we arrived in front of an open room.

"Asa had your things brought here." Matteo nodded towards the inside of the room and retracted his hands from his pockets to fold them across his chest.

I felt my breath hitch in my throat. The mention of my belongings just reminded me of home and the horrific events that took place there just a week ago.

It also reminded me of exactly who I was dealing with here. The man standing rather casually beside me was not someone I could regard lightly.

Matteo cleared his throat and reclaimed my attention, I stepped inside and sure enough I found my belongings sitting in a cardboard box atop of the bed.

"Who is Asa?" I ran my fingers along the side of the cardboard box as I passed by it and explored the rest of the room.

He tapped his left eye as an answer for me and I immediately understood who he was referring to. Turns out Eyeless wasn't really named Eyeless it was actually Asa, big shocker there.

"We leave first thing tomorrow morning so have whatever you want to bring needs to be packed and ready to go tonight." Matteo dropped that little information bomb on me ever so casually as he entered the room and fished a backpack out of the closet.

I was not planning on Matteo gearing into action so quickly, I had been banking that he'd take a long time to plan before hand. He must have noticed my paralytic state of shock because he tossed the backpack onto my bed after holding it in front of me for some time.

He started to leave the room and I scrambled in front of him before he could escape. "Wait, wait, wait! Don't you need to do some background digging or something? Y'know, really delve into the investigative portion before we go galavanting around the forest with no direction?"

Matteo scowled down at me as I attempted to block the entrance, he carelessly shoved me out of the way with a light touch. "No."

I groaned and quickly bounced back to trying to stop him from leaving but he was already standing in the doorway again, "How are we supposed to find him in time to save your wolf if you don't do the responsible thing and research beforehand it could take years--"

He growled loudly and took a step menacingly towards me, "Lets get some things clear here because it seems you've forgotten who you are dealing with."

Déjà vu.

"I do not take orders from you. I am an Alpha and you are not even a wolf which essentially means for all intents and purposes you are worthless to me. I do not want you, if it were entirely up to me, you would have been rejected a long time ago. But, it is not entirely up to me which means in order to appease my wolf I need to uphold our unfortunate pairing." Matteo was livid needless to say.

He kept walking towards me, pushing me farther and farther back into my room until the backs of my knees hit the bed and I fell backwards against it. "The only reason I agreed to help you is because it will benefit me, I do not care about you or your stupid father in the slightest but I have to make it seem like I do for my wolf's sake."

Matteo leaned forward and rested his hands on either side of me on the bed, "Since I can't stand you simply because you're you," He shrugged once, "For my sake and mine alone, I now not only have to help you find your father but I also have to help you find a way to be less you so I can restore my connection with my wolf."

Note to self, don't make Matteo frustrated because he talks forever.

"Which all goes to say, I'm getting your wolf out of you if it is the last thing I do because the idea of having you as my mate in your current state right now makes me want to tear someone apart. While we are on the road, I'm going to train you harder than ever before that it leaves your body no other option but to shift in order to survive. Then and only then will you be slightly more tolerable for me to deal with."

Selfish, pompous, disgusting little ass wipe. I could feel that face was bright red and there was an incessant ringing pounding in my ears as I was overcome with anger myself. I impulsively pushed off of the bed and swung my hand at Matteo but he easily caught it.

He stared at my hand in his and a strange emotion crossed his features just as it did that day on the auditorium stage at my school, it was just as brief as then too because in a split second he released me with a final shove.

Matteo straightened and walked calmly to the door of the room as if nothing had been said or happened between us."We leave first thing tomorrow morning so have whatever you want to bring needs to be packed and ready to go tonight." He squared his broad shoulders and just repeated his earlier statement before walking out of the room and closing the door behind him without another angry syllable.

Just like that I was alone for the first time since the day Malice attacked. Well, alone and conscious that was.

My original plan to use this wild goose chase to f:ck with Matteo could no longer happen, I needed to be long gone and far away from him before morning. As I stripped off my hospital like clothes I knew one thing was certain after hearing Matteo's deranged sequence of events, I couldn't stay.

I was going to run away from Matteo.