"Farren baby!"

I rolled my eyes on hearing that familiar and annoying voice of my best friend calling from behind me as I walked towards my car in the basement parking area.

"Oh God, here he comes again." Nora let out an exasperated chuckle as we both paused and turned around to see the third person in our group.

"What is it, Zeke?"

His face was glowing and he looked super excited. "I can't believe it--"

"You have been saying this since noon." Nora cut him off. "We get it, you got promoted to the head of the department but you don't need to keep repeating it again and again."

Zeke's smile fell instantly and his lips formed an adorable pout. "Sometimes I wonder if you guys are my real friends or the fake ones."

"Okay..." Nora gave in first. She can't resist his puppy face. "What do you want?"

"Let's go clubbing!" He suggested.

Now I was interested and I grinned. "Clubbing? Why not? When are we--"

My sentence was cut short by the ringing of my phone. So I excused myself and picked up the call seeing it was mom calling me.

"Hey, mom." I greeted her.

"Farren." She sounded off. "Where are you?"

"I just got off from work. Why?"

"Your dad isn't well, you should come to visit him tonight."

"What happened to him?" With dad being the head of the Calathans he kept getting hurt frequently but that didn't mean I didn't care. I always did. But this time it sounded something serious.

I never wanted to work in that line for I was interested in software engineering and that's what I did meeting Nora and Zeke in college.

Mom sighed softly. "Just come home tonight, Farren."

"Okay..." I whispered.

"Take care." And before I could reply she hung up.

"Um...guys..." I called out to them over my shoulder.

"Don't tell me you are cancelling the plan," Zeke grumbled.

"I gave him a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry, Zeke. You guys go on without me, I have to go visit dad... he's not well..."

They both knew who's daughter I was and what my dad did for a living but over the years they got comfortable with it.

"Oh..." Nora spoke. "It's okay. You should visit him."

Zeke wanted to argue but one stern look from Nora shut him up completely.

"Thank you. I will see you guys later, bye."

.

.

.

I was late for dinner. I should have reached there fifteen minutes ago as mom told me but what can I do if I get stuck in a traffic jam?

I let out a sigh of relief as I parked the car in front of the house and got out and walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

The door was opened a few seconds later by mom who frowned on seeing me. "We have been waiting for you."

"I know, I know..." I walked past her and went inside. "I'm sorry. Let's have dinner now, I'm hungry."

Mom shook her head slightly and gestured for me to follow her to the dining room. Gosh, I feel so tired and sleepy...

I stretched my arms up and let out a yawn as I walked into the dining room but my yawn got stuck mid-way as I saw three pairs of eyes on me.

Dad. Hector. And another man who was dressed up too formally in a proper suit considering I was just wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

He was handsome I have to agree with his sharp features, chocolaty eyes and curly chestnut brown hair and a stubble adorning his jaw.

They all watched me with a neutral expressions on their faces and I didn't care about dad and Hector cause I have been with them since I was small but that man, he seemed to be silently judging though his face remained expressionless.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment and I gave them a sheepish smile. "Sorry."

Mom sat down next to dad and the only seat available for me was next to that weird man. Maybe he started working here recently...

I took a seat next to him, keeping my distance but I couldn't ignore him, that would be rude. "So..." I spoke softly gaining his attention, he slightly tilted his head towards me and I felt as if he was still judging me. "Are you a recruit here?"

He subtly lifted a brow. "Excuse me?"

Does he have a hearing problem? "Are you a recruit here? Are you here to work for my dad?"

"No."

"So who are you?"

He cocked his head and blinked slowly and said in the most nonchalant and boring way, "Your future husband."

The fuck. My face blanked immediately and I fixed him with a cold stare before turning to my father. "Dad, who the fuck he is? And why the fuck is he talking like that to me?"

That man looked unamused and leaned back in his chair, averting his eyes from me while Hector looked slightly amused and dad looked serious and nervous.

"After dinner," Dad stated.

I wanted to ask him why not now. I mean who is he? But seeing the serious expression on dad's face, I became silent and served myself some food.

.

.

.

By the time dinner ended, I wasn't in any mood to stay any longer, not even interested in knowing who the fuck he was cause he was rude as fuck. I simply asked him to pass me a dish earlier and he ignored me completely as if I doesn't exist.

I pushed back my chair as soon as the vanilla ice cream was served as dessert to leave but Hector spoke up, "Farren. Sit down."

Am I scared of Hector? Maybe a little. Do I always obey him? No.

Ignoring him I made an effort to move but dad's command froze me in place. "You have no idea what's going on, Farren. So have a little patience and hear us out."

I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath and forced myself to finally sit down again while that jerk was busy enjoying his ice cream.

And I don't know how he finished his bowl of ice cream so quickly and when he noticed that I wasn't eating my ice cream which was slowly melting now, he grabbed my bowl and started to eat my share too.

It's not that I was going to eat it but still. "You jerk!" I muttered which he once again ignored.

"Don't mind him. He has a special love for ice creams." Hector told me before I could murder this man.

"And who are you to speak for him?" I questioned sharply.

"His brother."

What? I looked back and forth between them and finally noticed some subtle familiarisation in their features. Oh.

Realisation dawned on me and I nodded my head not knowing what to say.

"Okay, so..." Dad straightened up. "You must have heard of the Caligos, right?" I noticed how everyone stiffened at the mention of them.

"Yes...what about them?"

"I had a meeting with their leader the other day. And he...provoked me and I ended up killing him."

A soft gasp left my mouth, what did he do?!

Hector removed his spectacles and placed them on the table and gently rubbed his eyes. "In the short term, we are fucked up."

"It's a war now...?" I asked.

Dad and Hector nodded and that jerk was busy licking the last drop of the ice cream from the spoon.

"So...where do I come in, in all this?" Fear was slowly settling inside me. Something bad is about to happen, I can feel it.

Mom who was silent throughout the dinner gave me a sympathetic look.

Hector stood up and stuffed his hands inside his pocket. "My brother, Elysian is a well-trained man and he is going to be your bodyguard for the next how many months we will be needing to clean up the mess."

I flung a look at the so-called man who has by God's grace finally kept the bowl down and was now focused on his brother.

"Dad already has many men that can protect me, why him?"

"Farren..." Dad said softly and with caution, "it will be best for your safety if you both get married for the time being so that he can protect you 24/7."

"Marriage? Are you fucking serious right now?" I sputtered.

"Yes, we are," Hector stated firmly. "We are already short on many men and if any other man is assigned to protect you then he won't be able to watch over you 24/7. We don't trust him. Plus we don't want to draw much attention to you either at the same time so if Elysian will be your husband then no one will suspect anything."

"This is absurd! It makes no sense!" I slammed my fist on the table.

"Believe me it does." Hector gave me a stern look.

"If you don't wanna draw attention then I can just pretend he's my boyfriend! Why marry him for real?"

"There's no such things as boyfriends in our world." Dad cut me off sharply. "You will marry him by the end of this week and then you can move in with him and he will be following you everywhere, watching over you."

I scoffed mentally. If only he knew how many boyfriends I have already had. I ain't a player but I still had a couple of boyfriends and each one of them turned out to be a jerk, at one point I started considering getting an arranged marriage even.

However, that doesn't mean I will marry this... whatever weird type of man this person is. I don't care if he's Hector's brother.

I glared at the man I was supposed to marry. "And you have no objection to any of this?"

He ignored me once again making my anger flare and before I knew it, I picked up the glass of water from the table and threw it over his face.

Okay, that was stupid and it was even more stupid to walk away from there.