CHAPTER 23

JULIAN POV.
All through the night, I couldn't sleep because I was lost in thought over my mate. Her quick reaction to accept me baffled me the most. True, we were mates but given the circumstances of how she came to be in my care, I felt like she should have protested about the unfair way I had gotten her to my home.
The fact that she was with a man before I asked my men to get her should have also made her angry. I had thought that she would be so angry with me that she would eat me raw which was the reason why I had arrived later in the night than earlier.
But she hadn't said anything about how uncomfortable it was for her. She had hugged me instead and had even settled down with me when I asked that we should eat. When I remembered how jovial and lively she had been with me, it gave me the insight that she didn't mind me abducting her from my brother.
When my omega, Niamh, had even told me that my mate had first disturbed them out of fright, I had been worried. But when Niamh told me that after she heard that no one was going to harm her and that she was coming to the packhouse and she had entered back into the vehicle conveying her, I began to have my doubts about what her life had been.
Well, thinking about it wouldn't give me the required answer, I reminded myself. I would have to ask her for the answers to the questions on my mind instead. I sighed, got up, and went straight to the shower to get ready for the day. All through the few minutes it took me to get cleaned up from the night's sweat, all my mind was still on the woman who was my mate.
When I heard a knock on my door, I quickly rushed through my dressing up and I went to the door to see who it was. Looks of surprise registered on my face when I saw who was by the door. I had expected any other person but not who I saw. What was my mate doing at my door? I thought to myself and frowned. When I saw her feel intimidated, I relaxed the features of my face and pasted a smile on it instead.
"I'm sorry I disturbed you." She told me.
"No, it's totally fine. I was just about to look for you," I assured her, with the smile still on my face.
"You wanted to look for me? Why?" She asked with a nervous chuckle.
That gave me another insight into the type of life she was used to; the life of fear. Much as she tried to hide it, she couldn't completely cover it up. I wonder who had caused her fear and anxiety to make her react to even the tiniest things that should be deemed appropriate. As I thought about it, anger rose in me. I felt the desire to injure whoever had done that to her. When I saw how she took three steps away from me, I winced and tried to relax.
"I'm not going to do anything to you, Olivia," I told her.
"Then why were you going to look for me?" She asked me with a suspicious look.
I looked at her with a smile and extended my right hand to her, "Do you want to go with me to the garden?" I asked her.
She kept looking at me with suspicion for more than three minutes. All the while, I refused to retract my hand and hoped in my heart that she would trust me, even if it was just a little. After five minutes, she placed her hand in mine hesitantly. Shivers ran through my body and my wolf whimpered in my head to be released.
When we got to the garden, I saw her face lit up and a smile decorated her face. She bent down and began to examine the flowers. I noticed that the tension she felt earlier left her body the moment she got engrossed in looking at the flowers. Much as I didn't want to disrupt her happy moments, I knew that was what would happen the moment I asked her about the questions. But I knew I had to ask, otherwise, I wouldn't be at peace.
"Olivia?" I called her.
"Hmm?" She answered me absentmindedly while she held a sunflower delicately in her hand and sniffled.
"Which pack are you from?" I asked her.
She paused in the action she had been about to perform and she straightened up to look at me. I smiled at her to show her that I meant no harm.
"Blue Blood pack. That was where you first saw me, wasn't it?" She asked in a cautious tone.
"That's your origin?" I asked her in doubt. The reason I doubted her words was because I knew virtually everyone who made up the pack and beautiful as she was, I knew that her face was not one I would forget in a hurry.
"No, but let's leave it at that." She shrugged at me.
I nearly cursed within myself for that answer. I still have more questions to ask her but with the way she evaded such a simple question, I was sure that I won't be getting any valuable answers from her. But I knew that I still had to try and ask about her life.
If we wanted to be good mates to each other, then we needed to know everything about ourselves while dealing on transparent levels. That included letting one another know what our packs and our lives had been about.
"What about your family?" I asked her again. I was already thinking that she would evade that question again but she surprised me.
"I have a father, a mother, and a brother." She answered.
"Brother? Is he younger than you or is he older than you are?" I asked again.
I heard her sigh audibly before she went straight to one of the artificial rocks that I had made Hollin place all around the garden.
"He is elder to me." She finally answered.
"What is his position in the pack?" I asked out of curiosity.
"The general's assistant." She said in such a tone that made me realize that she didn't want to talk about her family to me.
If she didn't want me to talk about her family, no problem for now. Then we could talk about my brother and how she had ended up with him even when they weren't mates.
"How did you end up with Leonard?" I asked her with a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes.
"Who is Leonard?" She asked me.
"My brother!" I screamed in frustration.
"Well, I didn't know that was his full name. He was always called Leo, so I just assumed that that was his real name." She answered in her defense.
I looked at her with a frown while I wondered how she had ended up with Leonard; a man she didn't even know his full name. I badly wanted to know why Leonard had addressed her as his mate when she was mine.
"How did you end up with Leonard?" I asked her.
OLIVIA POV.
"How did you end up with Leonard?"
I heard the question but for more than ten minutes, I refused to answer the man who had asked me that question.
When I had first sought him out in the morning, it had been because I wanted to thank him for the sumptuous meal he had asked his servants to serve them yesterday. I had wanted to also ask him about his pack and his people since I was a stranger among them and I barely knew anyone.
But all the questions he had been asking me were beginning to get to my nerves. I know the questions he was asking were only basic questions that anyone saddled with a strange mate would ask just to know each other better. But how was I supposed to tell him about my secrets?
How was I supposed to let him know that my family would beat me up every morning and after the beatings, I still had to make meals for the entire pack? How was I supposed to open my mouth and confide in him that my father had told the beta and the omega to have their way with me when the way he implied had meant raping me?
How will I tell him that the Alpha of my pack who was supposed to protect everyone under his reign had listened to all the conversations and the only thing he could voice out was the fact that he doesn't appreciate seeing a sex scene when he was having his meal?
How should I tell the man who was my mate that my mother, who was supposed to be my best friend, had a whole that she used on me at every slightest provocation? And why was that? Because I couldn't communicate with my wolf and she had accidentally found out that little fact.
How should I let him know that I had only one friend in my entire pack, large as it was? How was I supposed to let him know that the servants had no iota of respect for me despite being the daughter of one of the important title holders of the pack? How should I say about how I tried to escape from everything, only for me to get caught and sold into slavery for some debt my father owed but I knew next to nothing about?
All of those questions were the reason why I refused to put a name to the pack I came from. Because I know that as an Alpha, he had the power and resources to fish for the pack. In the process, he was bound to find out about my ugly past. I wanted to avoid that awful scenario at all costs and that was why I hadn't told him about the pack.
And now, he was asking about how I came to be with his brother? What did he expect me to tell him? As I sat down, the only thought moving around my brain was how to explain how I got there without exposing the little fact that I was sold to be a slave.
"Olivia, I'm still waiting?" He told her, the words framed in a questioning tone.
I looked up at his face and I saw the determined look on his face.
"Let's just say I was a victim of circumstances," I replied to him.
"I asked you how you ended up at his place, Olivia." He told me.
Well, I was sold to your brother by my father who took a huge amount of loan from him and used me as collateral. Ever since I arrived at your brother's packaging, I have been looking for ways to escape from the monster while pretending to be on my best behavior. I was so tired of the place you abducted me from that I had begun to take a pretend stroll every day just to understand the place's layout and map out my escape route. Are you happy now?
I screamed the right answer out in my head but my lips refused to give the same explanation.
"Let me enjoy the garden in peace, would you? I asked him in a low voice instead.
"Olivia!!!." He screamed a little out of the frustration he felt at her evasiveness.
"I don't want to talk about the matter. Don't you get it?" I blew at him.
"But I just wanted to get to know you some more." He said to me.
"My name is Olivia and I think that is enough for you to know about me," I screamed at him.
Without waiting for any response from him, I walked away from him.