"Ask me." Ryan blurted as we washed the dishes from breakfast together.

"What?"

"Ask me why everyone hates me. I know that you're dying to find out because you won't stop glaring at me, like I did something wrong." he explained. He was carefully wiping a plate dry, but his blue eyes were locked on me, almost challenging me.

And he was right, I couldn't even begin to deny that. My father hated this man and my dad barely hated anyone. Not to mention the fact that the majority of the werewolf community wanted his entire pack exterminated. I desperately wanted to know what atrocious things this man had done to put himself in such an awful social standing with every member of his kind. But I still just shook my head at him.

"I didn't steal you away from my dad so I could do an interrogation of my own. I don't want to be a princess right now, and I don't want you to be anything other than my mate right now either, okay? I want to be able to really get to know you before I start making assumptions about your character and your actions."

"Well, then starting judging my character because I doubt we'll be able to hide out here for long before the place is ripped apart in search of the kidnapped princess." Ryan muttered.

"Please, my family will know for a fact that you did not kidnap me. I've been stubborn since I was born, they would know that if I didn't want to go with you I wouldn't even leave my bedroom. Besides, it's not like you could've broken yourself out of that prison." I plucked the dried dishes from Ryan's hands and put them away in the cabinet, alleviating the distraction. "I made the choice to bring you here, and now I'm deciding to get to know you."

"Fine, what do you want to know?" he asked.

"Whatever you want to tell me." I murmured. I took a little breath and grabbed one of his hands. I wasn't able to meet his eyes, I feared that my actions were too bold and I could already feel my cheeks flaming with embarrassment. However, holding his hand made me feel incredibly pleasant and I wasn't prepared to let go just yet so I gently pulled him over to the small living room and sat down on the worn out couch.

"That's hard. It's impossible to know where to start." He mumbled, sitting beside me.

"Well, tell me about your family. I mean, my family and how I grew up is the foundation of who I am now, I can't imagine that it would be different for anyone else."

Ryan sighed and rubbed one hand over his face, looking a little pained and slightly annoyed, though I couldn't fathom why. "My family is pretty fucked if I'm gonna be straight about it."

I immediately felt bad. My family was quite an easy topic to discuss, I had a nearly perfect childhood and I had only intended for this conversation to be little and gentle. I wanted to get to know the man whose smile could disarm me, the man whose first instinct was to make me tea during our initial encounter. I hadn't meant to jab at the dark back story that was lying beneath all the joy and happiness he seemed to radiate.

"We don't have to talk about it." I said quickly.

"Adeline, if you only want to talk about the peachy and perfect times in my life you aren't going to hear much. It's fine. My mom lost her virginity before she found her mate, she was seeing this guy in high school on and off for two years, she had sex with him a few times, and she ended up pregnant with me and my twin brother. After she gave birth she found her mate which didn't go smoothly. Basically, she was rejected by her mate, her own pack no longer existed because they weren't financially stable, and no other pack would talk in a shewolf with two half bred kids."

"So you grew up rogue?" I whispered. I could hardly believe my ears. I barely knew Ryan and even when I had tried to hate him with all my heart I became physically ill when I was without him. It seemed impossible that someone could actually reject their own mate, especially when their mate was in need. "God, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, it wasn't a bad life. We weren't completely alone like most rogues, we had each other and that made it easier to hunt and keep your sanity. It was kind of like we had the tiniest pack in the world. It sucked sometimes, but I feel like no matter what life you live it'll start to suck at some point." Ryan gave a casual shrug, as if it were no big deal but when he caught me staring at him he gave me a little half smile, "Addy, it's not that bad, I promise. I bet if you tried you could make your life sound miserable."

"Not really, if I tried to make my life sound bad I would just be whiny." I admitted, laughing a little, "It's really hard to hate your life when you have everything handed to you on a silver platter. I've never really had any challenges in my life."

"No? I can't believe that. Everyone has had something get in their way at least once. There must be something about your life that you aren't a particularly big fan of." Ryan pressed.

I shook my head, smiling sadly, "Ryan, there are only two shitty things about my life. The first shitty thing is that I live by structure and rules every day. I've never been allowed to just be a kid who didn't have a care in the world or a strict schedule with lots of tutors and instructors. The second shitty thing is that I was dying to find my mate, and now that I've found him I'm almost certain all of my subjects will hate him."

Ryan surprised me by chuckling to himself as if I had just told him a joke while he stood up.

"Oh, Addy, that sounds awful. And that last one is going to be a hell of a task to get through. But since we already started breaking rules by taking you off your schedule how about we break some more?"

"How do you intend to do that?" I questioned. My eyes followed him intently as he walked to the kitchen and began pulling open random cupboards, clearly searching for something.

Finally, after he had opened nearly half of the cupboards he grinned with triumph and held up a glass bottle. He had found my parents old liquor stash.

"Ever been day drunk, Princess?"

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