Xander's POV:

I didn't expect her to be so understanding. It wasn't that I wasn't aware she was seemingly flawless in every other sense, I just didn't understand how she could forgive me so quickly. That only meant I had to try harder to deserve someone so special.

We walked hand in hand down the trail that followed the little creek but she would stop occasionally and look at something for a long time before turning on her camera and taking a picture. She'd often move to the side and crouch down then lean side to side until the she actually took a picture. It actually wasn't just one picture. She'd take several and change her angle just barely before moving on.

Admittedly, it was taking much longer to get to the cabin than I thought it would, but I didn't mind. She'd show me the photos afterwards and seeing the world through her eyes was much more beautiful than any way I ever saw it. I leaned against the tree as she paused again, crouched down over the creek with one foot on each side of it slowly moving her camera seemingly centimeters and taking another photo.

"Sorry," she said, standing upright and looking through the photos she took. "You're probably regretting telling me to bring my camera at this point," she said, smiling shyly and looking over at me. "No one likes to go shooting with me. It takes longer than people think."

"I'm not regretting it at all," I said honestly. "I like watching you work. It's interesting. I'm not exactly artistic."

"Right," she said, walking over to me while staring down at her camera. "Science, right?"

"Right," I nodded. "In another life."

"Do you ever regret that you became an Alpha instead of going into science?" She asked, holding her camera out for me.

I took it and glanced down at the picture. I knew she was good but it was a different experience being in the same place as her and appreciating the beauty of our territory without every seeing it like this. The picture was of the creek and the trees but it wasn't just that. The creek curved around and led up to the green trees that stood tall with the light filtering in rays through the leaves, some reflecting off the creek and others lighting up little flowers sporadically surrounding the creek, or at least, it looked sporadic to me before but the angle at which she took the photo made them look like they followed some kind of pattern and curve. Damn, she was good.

"No," I answered. "I was interested in it but... Only to the degree in which it would help my pack. We have to make money somehow and although I hoped to take over later, after I could go to school and be able to bring some money in for us, I think I'm lucky I got the pack even though I was young."

"How does the pack make money?" She asked curiously.

"We have an entire area to the south that's farmlands," I said. "It's managed by most of the Fae in the pack and some wolves. We also have a ranch near to the farmlands where we have cattle, chicken, pigs. It's where we get a lot of income and also feed ourselves. We rarely go outside the pack for food. We also have a medical clinic in Everett that's open to humans and supernaturals alike, though obviously no humans know about the supernatural aspect. Remember how I said we function as one body? Everyone has a job. Some people handle the human side of taxes, some handle our water supply, some handle the ranch or the farmlands. Everyone has a place and we all work together."

"Wow," she said, raising her eyebrows. "I haven't seen any of that."

"That's because the packhouse is closest to our most vulnerable. Our older members, our younger members, our members with disabilities that affect them to the point they can't defend themselves easily, our members with young children. We're at the core of the territory so that if we get attacked, the ones most vulnerable aren't on the outskirts and easily taken down. The packhouse has a safe-house in the lower basements for the ones that can't fight."

"And you manage... All of this?" She asked.

"It's not just me," I said, shaking my head. "It's Kaden, Tess, Renzo, the rest of the Deltas. Everyone puts an effort in. It's like... We're a family running a business together. A really giant family."

"I see," she nodded, starting down the trail.

I followed after her, catching her hand with mine. She laced her fingers through mine like it was the most natural thing in the world and it felt like it, too. Her hands fit in mine like my hand had once been missing a piece and she was now completing it.

I wanted to answer all her questions because it was only fair. There was a lot she didn't know and if I ever wanted her to be a Luna here, she would have to learn the ins and outs. But I also selfishly wanted to know more about her and there was one thing in the back of my mind I hadn't been able to forget.

"Can I ask about your mom, love?" I asked, looking over to watch her reaction.

It was uncertain. A mixture of emotions crossed her face and it was so muddled I couldn't even figure out what it was through our bond.

"Yeah, what do you want to know?" She asked, looking over at me.

"Whatever you're willing to tell me," I said, squeezing her hand. "It seems like she was hard on you." That was a massive understatement but I didn't know how to say it.

Addie took a deep breath and blew it out, the action blowing some of the hair out of her face. "She was," she admitted. "I think when I was younger I kind of... Resented her for it. But I guess in a way it was good. I was able to use information she gave me to get out of those cells and the instincts took me out of an apartment I might not have been safe in after what happened so," she shrugged. "I don't know that I completely resent her for that anymore."

"What do you feel towards her?" I asked.

"Uh," she laughed, shaking her head. "I'm actually not sure," she admitted, biting her lip and looking over at me. "Is that stupid?"

"Of course it isn't," I said, frowning.

"It feels like it is," she sighed. "I mean, like I told you last night, I'm usually very sure of how I feel about things but with her it's just kind of confusing. Part of me feels sorry for her and understands that a lot of her reasoning came from concern. At the same time part of me is angry at her for letting it affect her so much she took it out on me. I mean, Jesus, she started pulling that shit on me when I was five. She'd lock me in closets, in the car, in the shed, in the basement. And if I couldn't figure it out, I wouldn't get free time or time to hang out with my friends. At five, I mean, come on, what five-year-old understands that shit?"

"That seems young," I said, gliding my thumb over her skin in a way I hoped was comforting.

"Yeah. And then when I went to school for art she blew a fuse," she said, rolling her eyes. "She was so mad at me. She thought I was throwing away all my potential. You could be anything you want, she said. I told her I was doing just that," she shrugged. "I wanted to be an artist. Too much of my life had been intense and the only time I felt at peace was when I was taking pictures. That backfired on her. She bought me the camera so I could get good at spying but then I started using it for not crazy things. She didn't speak to me for two years."

"I'm so sorry, love, that must've hurt," I said, walking closer to her.

"It did but," she shrugged. "What can you do? Family is complicated. At least I had Travis's family. He also had a crazy mom but his auntie took him and she's the sweetest lady. Travis and his family are the only reason I had any idea what mostly normal should look like. His auntie was the one that threw my birthday parties when I was a kid, my mom never would."

Travis. Shit. He meant more to her than I even realized. It was hard to get past the fact they'd slept together but I wasn't about to make her life harder by being jealous of their relationship. All right, maybe I was a little, but I didn't have to be a dick about it.

"I'm glad you had that," I said honestly.

"Are you?" She asked doubtfully, looking over at me.

"Yes," I nodded. "I'm glad you had someone there for you since your mom wasn't like she should've been."

"You seem genuine," she said, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "I thought you were jealous of Travis."

"I am jealous of Travis," I said. "I can be jealous of Travis and still glad you have him. I'd rather you did then go through all that alone."

"Well, good, because he's not going anywhere," she warned.

"I figured," I admitted. "That's all right. If he likes you enough to be your best friend then he and I have at least an admiration for you in common. I'm sure we can find something else, too."

"You mean that?" She asked.

"Of course I do," I nodded. "If it's important to you then it's important to me."

She smiled but said nothing, looking ahead as we walked through the forest with the only sound being the nearby creek.

"When is your birthday?" I asked.

"September eighteenth," she said, looking over at me. "Yours?"

"September twentieth," I chuckled.

"No shit, really?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Truly," I nodded. "Perhaps we should just make it a three day celebration where the nineteenth is shared."

"Three days of partying," she mused. "I'm sure I could handle that."

"I hope so," I frowned. "You're going to have to if you stay with Kaden and Tess. They never stop partying."

"But you trust them enough to be your right hands," she giggled. "They can't be that bad."

"No," I agreed. "They're not bad at all. They're the best I could ask for. Better than I deserve. I could just do without them waking me up in the middle of the night with their drunken shenanigans."

She laughed and nodded. We were almost to the cabin but there was one more question I had to ask her before we got there. I stopped and she stopped with me, looking at me curiously.

"I just have one more heavy question and then the rest of the night can be light-hearted," I said.

"Okay," she nodded. "What?"

"What about your dad?" I asked. "You said he was in prison somewhere."

"Oh," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Yeah, um..." she trailed off, running her fingers through her hair and sighing. "I honestly don't know that much about him and what I do know isn't pretty. My mom met him on the job and apparently he has a reputation of being very charming to the point it's gotten him out of a lot of things, not just with my mom but in his whole life. He just had a natural charm to him so I've heard," she shrugged. "Anyways, he won my mom over and they were together for about four years. She got pregnant with me and a few months after I was born, he left. He couldn't handle it I guess, being a dad," she said, shrugging.

She tried to say it like it was nothing, like it didn't matter to her, but I could feel it. Part of her was still very hurt about it, but I wasn't going to push her.

"Anyway," she sighed. "He was a criminal when he met my mom and she thought she could change him. She thought she did change him. Then he ran off and started up old habits again but at that point she knew him so well, he got caught easily. She kept trying to win him over for a long time but eventually gave up. I only saw him once when I was eight and then a few years later, I found out he was heavy into sex-trafficking and that kind of made me completely uninterested in ever seeing him again and he's never reached out to me," she shrugged. "So that's that. He's more like a sperm donor than a father."

"I'm sorry, love," I frowned. She didn't have either parent being a real parent to her.

"It's just the way things are," she shrugged. "I'm not sensitive about it anymore. It used to hurt a lot but life goes on. I have other people in my life to fill that void. Did you have anyone? When you lost your parents?"

"I had Kaden and Tess," I nodded. "And Ginny tried her best, too. It was hard for all of us, my parents were like parents to all three of us. Losing them was just as hard for Kay and Tess as it was for me."

"But Tess has a mom," Addie said, tilting her head to the side.

"The situation with Tess's mom is complicated," I sighed, running my hand through my hair. "They love each other but there's a little... Resentment on Tess's part about the way things went down when her dad died. Tess lived in the pack house with us for a few years after her dad died because her mom kind of... Lost it for a little while."

"Oh," she said, frowning. "What about Kaden?"

"Kaden was abandoned in our pack when he was two. My parents took him in and his situation is... Complicated," I sighed. "More complicated than even Tess's. His parents aren't very good people. My parents were much closer to real parents than his were."

"That's too bad about his birth parents," she frowned. "So you guys really are siblings, huh?" She said, smiling lightly. "Raised in the same house by the same people."

"Yeah," I nodded. "I definitely consider them my brother and sister. Right down to the annoying me just for the hell of it sibling thing," I said, rolling my eyes.

"That's how you know you all love each other," she laughed.

"I suppose so," I agreed. "Ready for our date?"

"Has this not been a date so far?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I mean, it was more like a starter to the date. Now the real date begins," I said, gesturing to the lake. "You wanted to go skinny-dipping right?"

"That's the complete opposite of what I said," she said, glaring at me.

"Oh, dammit, that's right," I sighed, grabbing her shoulders and turning her around to face the cabin. "Good thing I had plan B."

A/N:

Hey lovelies!! I've been super busy and started feeling a little under the weather last night, so I haven't gotten to responding to your amazing comments but I will! Go ahead and drop a comment to let me know how you liked this chapter :)

Got some insight into how the pack works economically, sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it?

We got a peek into Tess and Kaden's backstory here (more of which will be revealed when I start publishing their books), what did you guys think of that?

Ooof, Addie's mom and dad are kinda both messed up, aren't they? 

I don't know about you guys but I'm so ready for this date <3

See you at that date on Friday! <3