The Morning After

I had always heard the human expression, 'walk of shame', but this was the first time I had ever really experienced it.

My mouse had spent the night in the pack mansion. Raphael had set her up with numerous shirts from each one of the different guys and then put her on his pillow beside his head.

And as if that wasn't enough, the other three guys set themselves up on the floor so that the five of us were all sleeping in the same room.

Yeah, the pipsqueak was happy, but I was definitely not.

We were not at the point in our non-existent relationship for me to be walking around in their shirts and boxers. Which meant that I couldn't shift, and I couldn't get a hold of a phone to call Paul.

He was probably losing his mind by now, not being able to get in contact with me.

But my mouse brushed it all aside, telling me that it was nothing more than a human worry and that the most important thing that I could do right now was to strengthen the bond between us. She also attempted to blackmail me that she would let me go home if I stopped using the scent neutralizer, but there was no way I was willing to do that.

So I was at the mercy of a four inch mouse as she lived the highlife as her mates waited on her hand and foot.

Lucky bitch.

But it was currently 4 o'clock in the morning, and everyone inside the house was sleeping… except for the mouse.

'We need to get going. Paul is going to be freaking out,' I grumbled to my inner animal.

My mouse snorted at that idea. 'He'll be fine. You just have to explain what happened. There is no better human than him.'

'You're right; there is no better human than him, which is why I don't want him to be stressed for longer than necessary,' I replied, letting out a huff of my own. I would like to point out that there is really no other creature half as stubborn as a mouse.

It was driving me insane.

But unless I was willing to shift, which I wasn't, I was stuck going on her timetable.

'Look, everyone is asleep. You are wide awake, and we can start work in two hours. It is probably going to take that long to get back home anyways, so we might as well get a head start now.'

'If it is going to take so long anyway, why don't we just wait until one of them wakes up and drives us to work?' smirked my mouse, knowing that she was winning this argument. There was nothing I hated more than walking across the city as a human and doing it as a mouse was next to impossible.

'But I don't want them to find out who I am,' I moaned in a tone that might be considered a whine, but I refused to admit to.

'And that is why you will always be a stupid human, no matter what the other humans tell you,' shrugged my mouse, clearly digging in her heels. 'You make everything so complicated. We found our mates. Our mates want us. Now we stay at home and make babies.'

A shiver of fear went down my spine at her words. Besides the whole mate part, nothing else out of her mouth sounded vaguely appealing. Stay home? I might not care about the day to day workings of my companies, but that didn't mean that I wasn't involved with them.

I had thousands of women in the shelters depending on the money I brought in in order to survive, and that didn't even include those who had children with them.

I was about to have a breakthrough in terms of the pregnancy drug, and I had another ten patents that were about to go into production for different alarm systems, military grade weapons, robotic butlers, and even a state-of-the-art armored car never before seen.

My net worth was probably bigger than the entire Silverblood pack, and it was about to grow exponentially. There was no way I was going to give up everything simply because I found someone… or someones.

No. Not happening. I would have children when the time was right, but I refused to stay home and do nothing but be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

Feeling my anger at her words, my mouse backed off the issue.

'Can we please stay here the night and have them drive us to work tomorrow?' asked my mouse softly. 'Then I won't complain if you lock us in the lab for a few weeks to get whatever you want done.'

I raised an eyebrow at her promise. She hated being locked away in the lab.

'Deal,' I sighed. Happy, my mouse burrowed back under the nest of clothes she had made and went back to sleep.

----

Lucien woke up more content than ever. He lazily stretched his arms over his head as he rotated his neck to work out the kinks. Finally opening his eyes, he noticed that he wasn't in his room.

'What the fuck?' he asked his wolf, his human brain taking longer to wake up than his wolf counterpart.

'In Raphael's room,' replied his wolf, rolling his eyes and stretching out himself. 'And before you do something dumb like ask why, you found your mate last night.'

With those words, Lucien sat bolt upright, trying not to make a sound. He looked around frantically as the cobwebs finally parted and he could remember exactly what happened last night.

His attention was drawn to the pillow, where there was a massive mound of clothes.

Softly, so as not to wake anyone, he crept around Dominik and leaned over the bed, gently brushing apart the clothes until he could see the smallest creature he had ever seen.

Her bright eyes opened wide as he moved the last shirt, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Hello, little one. How about I take you to the kitchen, and you can show me what you want for breakfast?"

The mouse nodded frantically and scurried up Lucien's arm until she was settled right under his ear.