THE GOBLET

　　Camilla tries to remain invisible throughout the meal, she wants nothing more but to sneak into her room and sort out the stuff she was able to sneak from Ethan's house. That crazy bitch, Jessie had almost caught her earlier when she was picking out some of the things but thankfully, she kept them before the fool could cause a commotion; Camilla thinks.

　　She still needed to be extra careful around Jessie. She is a threat, Camilla will have to pay more attention to.

　　"What? is there something on my face?" Jessie snaps, glaring at Camilla. Camilla didn't even realize she had been staring at Jessie for too long. She diverts her eyes and continues playing with her food.

　　"Jessie! I am still here and you can't even pretend to be civil!" Ethan growls. Jessie is impossible to correct. She refuses to listen to him and is intent on causing trouble for Camilla.

　　"She is the one staring at me with a scowl on her face," Jessie defends herself with raised hands. "I didn't do anything wrong." She grumbles.

　　Ethan narrows his eyes at her, what is her problem? He looks to Peter who shares the same concern as to him. Jessie is a problem they will have to sort out once the issue with the pack has been resolved.

　　Peter continues eating his meal in silence, not paying attention to them. He has already told Ethan to send Jessie away yet he has refused or maybe he is finding it difficult to send her away, Peter can't tell. But what he knows is that Ethan isn't doing himself a lot of good by keeping Jessie under the same roof as his mate. Something is bound to go wrong.

　　Taking a deep breath, Ethan turns his attention to his mate, Camilla. She is too focused on her meal, yet she barely touches it. She looks distant and worried. He had asked her earlier if she was doing okay, but it seemed she didn't even hear him for she only nodded her head in reply at the time, without saying anything.

　　Now, the expression is back on her face again. "Camilla?" Ethan calls, his voice dripping with concern for his mate.

　　She jumps out of her head and stares straight into Ethan's eyes. "Yes?" She calls, her voice wavering.

　　"You look worried, is something wrong? You can talk to me..." Ethan trails. At that moment he only sees her in the room and no one else.

　　"Huh?" Vanilla asks as she starts thinking of a perfect excuse to make. She can't tell him what exactly is wrong with her. She will have to cook up a story.

　　"The thing is, I feel really tired because of my head. It aches all the time. May I be allowed to go to my room?" She blurts out painfully

　　Camilla gives herself an internal pat on the back. This is cool. A perfect excuse that is not only going to make Ethan get off her case but she will be able to return to her room early.

　　But a frown develops on Ethan's face and Camilla bites her bottom lip. Has she ruined her chances? Why is he frowning? She asks herself over and over.

　　"You should go get some rest then, I will come in later to check on you before I leave," Ethan says.

　　"Okay," Camilla answers as she makes a beeline to her room.

　　 Ethan's lips are in a tight line as he looks at Camilla's retreating. His wolf ears pick up her heartbeat, and he could feel the rush of emotions going through her from their mate bond but since he hasn't marked her, he could not tell exactly what she was going through.

　　Camilla gets to her room and rests her back on the door as she breathes out in relief. That was a close call. Thank God she is smart enough to run from every situation.

　　She locks the door and walks to her bed. She goes down on her knees and checks under the bed, where she kept the bag of goodies she stole from the house earlier. She drags out the bag and pours out the content on the floor. The sound of metal echoed in the room and she cringes inwardly.

　　"I hope no one heard that, " she whispers to herself.

　　She wasn't able to pick up a lot of stuff from around the house not because there were not enough things to take but because most of the stuff was too large for her to sneak out without it being noticed. Every item in that house is worth at least a couple of hundred in the market. They were the finest of pieces. If she wasn't paying her father's hospital bills, she'll be very rich by the time she would be out of Ethan's house.

　　She spread her spoils on the ground, checking them for prices and doing a mental inventory. She got a gold cup, a silver saucer, a small mirror with emerald on it -Camilla isn't sure how much the mirror itself will cost but she is sure she will make at least two thousand from the stone. She also got a Rolex watch from Ethan's office and she keeps that aside. She will sell it last. For now, she will have to do with what she got.

　　She repacked all the items back into the bag, except the wristwatch which she keeps in her pocket. She then takes out her phone and dials Lisa's number. Knowing they have a major business deal going, Lisa doesn't delay in answering.

　　"Hey, Cam! What do you have for me?" Lisa answers cheerfully?

　　"Well, you won't believe it but I got a silver saucer, an emerald in a mirror, and a gold cup!" Camilla squeaks in excitement.

　　"No fucking way! You got a fucking gold cup!" Lisa yells through the phone.

　　Camilla pulls the phone away from her ears in laughter. "Do not scream like that Lisa, do you want to destroy my ears?"

　　"You just mentioned a fucking Gold Cup and you expect me not to scream? Hell no! What!" She screams again and the both of them fall into laughter.

　　"Wait, why does he even have a gold cup in his house? How old is he? Is he from the Victorian era?" Lisa snickers.

　　"I don't know, maybe it's a generational thing." Camilla states. As she mentions it, she starts feeling bad for taking it. What if it is a really important artifact passed down from his fathers and he couldn't live without it. For the first time since she started pickpocketing, Camilla started thinking twice about a stolen item. "Do you think I should return it?" She asks, unsure of herself.

　　"What? Hell no!" Lisa snaps, all her laughter draining from her system. "Why would you even think that? Do you know how much that is going to cost? We might not have to steal for months!"

　　"I don't know, I just really feel bad about taking from him. I think he might miss them..." Camilla trails as she shrugs her shoulders.

　　"Why do you even care if he will miss them or not? Look, Camilla, that guy is stinking rich. I for one, don't think he will even notice any of these items are missing, okay? Trust me." Lisa says and Camilla tries to let go of her worries because Lisa has never actually advised her wrongly.

　　"Can you tell how many carats it is?" Lisa asks after they both go quiet for a few seconds.

　　Camilla turns the cup in her hands and tries to weigh it but she has never stolen something this large so she has no idea how many carats it can be. "You will have to come and take a look at this one on your own. I can't tell..." Camilla says still lost in the weight of the cup.

　　"Okay, how large is it?" Lisa asks.

　　Camilla tests the weight one more time, "if I am right, let's give or take, ten kilograms and it looks like some ancient goblets."

　　"Oh my God! Geez! Camilla! we are so going to be rich!" Lisa squeals as she imagines the money they will get from the trade of the gold cup. "When should I come for it?"

　　"You can come in by tomorrow. Please call me as soon as you leave home, so I can hang around that spot. There is a bitch keeping close tabs on me here." As much as Camilla would have loved to ignore Jessie, she couldn't. Jessie is turning out to be torn in her mission Ethan's house.

　　"Who is the bitch?" Lisa asks. Her voice is getting on a high pitch and Camilla knows her friend is already starting to boil with anger.

　　"It's some girl by the name Jessie..." She wants to say more but Lisa's gasp makes her pause.

　　"What's wrong? Did something happen? Lisa!" Camilla asks impatiently.

　　"Jessica Wilmington!" Lisa screeches.

　　"Who is that?" Camilla wonders

　　"That's Jessie! She is been Ethan's girlfriend for a while now." Lisa explains and Camilla chuckles, at least she was now sure that Jessie was Ethan's girlfriend! No wonder she acts all bossy and claims to own everything, Camilla thinks in her head.

　　"They are the cutest couple ever!" Lisa squeals.

　　"Lisa, she is a pain in my ass! I do not think they are acute, besides I don't think Ethan wants to have anything to do with her. She is cringy and too touchy! "

　　"Camilla..." Lisa calls her name slowly. "Why are you making a big deal, out of this? If they are having problems as a couple, what do you stand to gain?"

　　Whenever Lisa starts asking slow questions, she is always up to something. Camilla bites her bottom lips and tries to give a sensible enough answer.

　　"I do not stand to gain anything. I just don't like that Jessie girl because she is always all up in my business and it's pretty annoying," Camilla says.

　　"Hmmm, okay! I give up!" Lisa chirps and Camilla can already imagine her raising her hands in the air playfully. "But, Ethan is a very cute guy and I am starting to think he isn't keeping you in his house for friendship's sake."

　　"Lisa!" Camilla cries out in shock. Lisa finds romance everywhere, even in the places where she isn't supposed to. Like between Ethan and Camilla, there is no romance there at all, just weird moments but nothing ever serious.

　　"Okay! Don't scream my name like that, I won't mention this again until a more serious matter arises," she says, dragging the last syllable for emphasis. Camilla shakes her head as she smiles, Lisa is always dead on romantic.

　　"Have you gone to see my dad?" Camilla asks, getting serious.