Jewel

19

Julie tries her best to stay awake for Adam but exhaustion catches up with her and she falls asleep. What she does know is it took a hell of a lot longer than the hour he told her. She didn't fall asleep until four hours after he left.

Adam finds her sleeping peacefully on the couch when he gets back.

"You didn't tell me about the rogue attacks or the wolves asking for our help." Aaron says with hurt.

"I didn't exactly have a lot of time to give you a run down of everything." Adam says irritatedly. It had taken longer to track down the threat to his company than he thought it would and he missed this time with Julie because of it.

Adam bends down and picks the girl up in his arms. "She give you any trouble?"

"You could say that. She told me that Alpha Mike Towsend was coming for dinner Sunday. I didn't exactly react well. She locked herself in her room." Now it's Aaron's turn to be irritated. If Adam had warned him ahead of time then he could have been better prepared.

"How'd she make you suffer?" Adam wants to know.

"She made me beg. I had to promise her that we all would be on our best behavior. You might want to let the others know the sooner the better." Aaron says bitterly.

Adam just smirks. He feels better that Aaron had to suffer a bit at her hands as well.

"Of all the women in the world you had to pick one that is so damn touchy."

"Not touchy, feisty. Mike's mate, is her best friend. I think if we are nice that she will tell us stories of our lovely Jewel."

"What, horror stories?" Aaron says snidely.

"No, apparently she protected those that were bullied."

"That's a good one, she's been bullied all her life and she protects others from it."

"Perhaps that's the reason she did it?" Adam says thinking out loud. "Did she give you any more trouble other than that?"

"No, we talked about various things. None of the taboo subjects."

"Good. Now you better get home, it's your turn to have a long day with her."

Adam takes Julie to her room as Aaron leaves the suite. He's glad that Julie is asleep, he's too tired to give any lesson's right now. He gently tucks her in and leaves the room. He does little more than remove his clothes before falling asleep on top of the bed.

"Baby, time to get up." Adam wakes Julie up. "I let you sleep as late as I dare. I'll order food while you get ready to go."

Julie reluctantly moves her body out of the lovely bed. "Do we have to leave?"

"Yes, if Aaron hadn't stayed with you last night and counted it as part of his day, we would have had to leave an hour ago to make it in time."

Julie gets up mumbling things under her breath. She's not sure how well this arrangement is going to go if she has to get up with so little sleep.

"It won't be so bad tomorrow. You'll be at the house and meet with Alex there in the kitchen.

"You can sleep in the car after we leave."

Julie waves him off irritatedly. She grabs some clothes remembering that Adam likes to watch her get dressed.

The shower helps her to wake up, at least enough that she's not completely a zombie. "Hey, Adam are there zombie's as well?"

Adam comes into her room when she calls and about spits out the coffee he was drinking. "No, why would you think that?"

"Why would I think that there are vampire's, werewolves or other supernatural creatures?"

"Right, well I'll let Aaron give you a run down on what there is out there. Zombie's are more along the lines of horror rather than supernatural." Julie just looks at him steadily.

"Fine, so are vampires and werewolves. No, there are no zombies unless the witches are using forbidden spells again."

Julie looks at him hard.

"Yes, there are witches. More than one kind actually. No, we don't have time for me to go over the different kinds. Breakfast is here and we need to leave in ten minutes."

Adam's words kick Julie into action. She can smell the food from here and her stomach is demanding to be fed.

"Breakfast burritos?" Julie smiles. She downs her juice and makes sure her coffee has a tight lid on the travel mug it's in, then picks up her breakfast as she follows Adam out of the suite.

"I'll make sure your things get back home. Just go have fun with Aaron."

"How is checking out of school fun?" Julie asks with her head canted to the side, her tone puzzled.

"It means no more school work."

"Ah, you are so right. But still that will be just a short amount of time."

"I'm sure that he has something fun planned for you today." Adam is a bit amused by her petulance. In many ways she acts far older than her almost eighteen years, other times she acts like a pouting two year old. He never knows what she's going to do and he loves it.

Liam has the limo out front and waiting for them. Adam opens the door and ushers Julie inside and then follows her in.

While she's off playing with Aaron he gets to have fun tracing rogue wolves and getting to the bottom of the threats to their various companies. He's tired of having to put out wildfires. When he finds out who is threatening them he's going to kill them, slowly and enjoy every minute of it.

Julie crawls up onto his lap and lays her head against his chest and falls asleep immediately.

As he holds her to him, his anger slowly leeches out of him and he finds himself relaxing. He never thought a human would ever be able to get him to lose his anger. There are many times he wishes that he had had her calming influence in his life.

By the time they reach the school Adam is nearly completely calm and only gives Aaron a small death glare and a warning once more about taboo subjects.

Aaron takes the semi somnolent girl and then shuts the door. He doesn't even bother saying anything to his brother.

"Hey, love, time to wake up. The bell has rung and the halls are empty. It's time to get your lovely ass out of this school permanently." Aaron says in a playful voice and it seems to wake Julie up.

"Hey, Aaron, we're here already?"

"Yep, you ready to leave this place forever?"

"More than you could possibly believe." Julie stands up and leads the way. She feels him take her hand and it makes her smile.

They enter the office and the secretary rolls her eyes. "Here again, Julie? What did you do this time?"

Julie stiffens but otherwise doesn't show the secretary how the insult affected her.

Aaron, however, isn't about to let the insult go by. He narrows his eyes and captures the secretary's. "We are here to check her out of school. You will have her grades frozen as they are, she won't be taking any finals. She will be back for graduation. I'll be paying any outstanding fees that might be owed. You will do this now."

The secretary nods and starts the paperwork that they will need to fill out.

Julie hides the smirk she feels at how Aaron put the secretary in her place.

"Is this how you were treated here?" Aaron says barely hiding his temper.

"Mostly, by the staff, yes. The students generally liked me though, since I stood up for most of them. Those that might bully one day are the bullied the next. It didn't matter to me who was being bullied, I protected them all."

"You are a good person, Jules. Far better than any of us deserve."

Julie just gives him a small smile and returns to the paperwork.