They looked at each other again and I could see the skepticism without them having to voice it.
Was this really what the rest of the pack was thinking? No wonder no one was taking me seriously as the alpha. No wonder I was repeatedly referred to as some bitch he’s sleeping with. I guess that was exactly how I looked to them.
But what was I supposed to do about that? Just go ahead and marry Abraham so everyone would stop gossiping about it? That didn’t seem fair. Or was I being unfair to Abraham? I never wanted to hurt him in any way, and if I was, I needed to rectify that as soon as possible.
Chapter 14
I was finally able to extricate myself from Maddy’s house, but only after I agreed to stop by next week. The two of them had been fun, but being the center of their attention wasn’t. Their keen eyes picked up on too much and there was plenty I needed to hide.
As I passed Brad’s house, I gave him a wave that he returned enthusiastically. I let the positivity of a job well done fill me as I walked back up the path toward the lodge. I resolutely ignored Craig and his house as I walked by, but couldn’t help taking another peek at Paul’s. He still wasn’t home, or at least he wasn’t outside.
When I made it to the lodge, the kitchen was mercifully empty, but I hurried out of there, anyway. Who knew when Aubrey might be back?
I hustled up the stairs and over to Callie’s room where I knocked. When she called to come in, I opened the door to find her room in shambles. There were boxes stacked all over the place and papers and notebooks scattered around the floor. In the middle of the mayhem was a frazzled-looking Callie.
“Hey, Ellie. Sorry about the mess.”
I carefully picked my way through the debris until I reached her. “What’s going on?”
Callie sighed and placed both hands on her narrow hips. “I thought I’d get some packing done, but it seems I’ve just made a bigger mess.” She let out a deep breath. “I can’t wait until we get in the new office space. Abey said it should only be a few weeks. Two if we’re lucky.”
I looked around and nodded. “That’s great! So, you won’t have to work out of your room much longer.”
“Exactly.”
“Were you still looking to work with me?”
She froze and turned her wide, pale blue eyes my way. “Um, yes?”
“Then I’d love to take the position.”
Callie’s smile lit up her face. “Seriously?” she shrieked.
My grin was so wide I was sure it matched hers. “Seriously. I might not know what I’m doing yet, but I’m going to do a lot of research and make myself useful.”
Callie threw herself into my arms and squeezed me tight. “I know you will. You’re going to be awesome.” She pulled back and looked in my eyes. “I’m so glad you said yes! We’re going to make such a great team!”
I couldn’t help but let her excitement infect me. The more I thought about it, the better this decision felt. The more sure I was that I was doing the right thing.
She finally released me and spun around to the mess she’d made in her room. “I know I have contracts somewhere in here. Give me a sec.”
“Sure,” I said as I walked over and took a seat near her desk. I didn’t mean to, but couldn’t help noticing she had a thick book on top that looked like it was about werewolves. I reached over and picked it up. “Were you doing more research on fated mates?”
Callie paused in her search for a moment to throw me a look over her shoulder. “Yeah. I was working on that before I started with the packing crap.”
I pulled the book onto my lap and flipped through a few pages. The words scrambled and bled together until I couldn’t make out what they said. Frustrated, I put the book back where I got it.
“Have you found anything?”
She shot me another look, this one apologetic. Standing up, she turned to face me. “No, not really.” She scratched the side of her head. “Honestly, bitten wolves are pretty rare. Them being fated to a werewolf is unheard of.”
I tried not to let it, but my stomach sank anyway. Taking a deep breath, I slapped the best smile I could manage on my face. “It’s okay, Callie. I’m just gonna drop it I think.”
Her eyes widened and she crossed the distance between us. “You’re not going to mate Abey?”
I jerked back. “No! Of course I am! I’m just dropping the fated mates stuff.”
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. “Thank goodness.” Then she eyed me with one brow raised. “But wait, why are you dropping it?”
I shrugged and looked away. “Because I don’t think we’ll find anything. I don’t think it’s possible that we’re fated.”
“Ellie, but–”
“It’s okay, Callie,” I cut her off. “Really. We can just be two people who are in love and are supposed to be together. That’s enough for me.”
She eyed me quietly for a moment. “Are you sure? This doesn’t make you doubt your relationship with Abraham?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I know he’s who I’m supposed to be with. We’re perfect together and I couldn’t imagine a single day without him. Nothing has changed that.”
Callie’s lips tilted into a smile. “Great. So you two will have your ceremony soon, then?”
My smile fell the tiniest bit. “Um, no.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Callie, we’ve only known each other a couple months. If we’re not fated and we’re just two regular people who are in love and trying to make it work together, why would we rush into something like that?”
She opened her mouth to argue but shut it instead and frowned. A moment later, she tried again, “But Abey still thinks you’re fated. Are you going to tell him you don’t believe that?”
My stomach sank again as my eyes drifted away from her. “Um, no?”
“Ellie.”
I sighed and hung my head. “What’s the point? It’s just going to hurt him.”
“But shouldn’t you be honest? Doesn’t he have a right to know you don’t think you’re fated?”
I threw my hands in the air and stalked away from her. “I don’t know!” I took a deep breath and tried again, this time without raising my voice. It wasn’t Callie I was mad at and I didn’t want to take it out on her. I stopped in my tracks and turned to her again. “It doesn’t matter to me if we’re fated. I still love him and I’m still going to marry him. None of that’s changed.”
She sighed and shook her head. “How long are you going to make him wait?”
I bit my lip and shrugged. “I don’t know. Until it feels right?”
She sighed and walked back over to pull my hands into hers. “I think you should be honest with him.”
I shook my head. “That will just hurt him, Callie. Trust me, it’s better this way. We’ll get married in a few months or a year and we’ll never have to talk about this fated mates stuff again. It won’t matter when we’re mated right?”
She studied me as I tried to fix my features into a calm façade. Finally, she blew out a deep breath. “It’s your life and your relationship, Ellie. I can’t tell you what to do with it. But I will say, I think you should tell him. I think you should always be a hundred percent honest. Even when it hurts the other person.”
That was where we differed.
She thought honesty was the best policy when I knew sometimes it didn’t work like that. Sometimes, the truth hurt worse than the little white lies.
Telling Abraham was the last thing I wanted to do. He could just stay happy and content in the knowledge that we were fated while I lived with the reality. There was no wolfy magic holding us together. We had to work just as hard as anyone else to make things last between us.
It didn’t matter to me, though. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life deserving that amazing man. He was more than I ever could h
ave asked for, and every day I was reminded of how lucky I was.
I was perfectly happy just being his mate, I didn’t need to be his soul mate.
I shook my head and took a step away from Callie. “Anyway, let’s see if we can find a contract in this mess so we can get started on making me an official employee.”
Callie squealed and clapped her hands, and I knew the topic had been dropped for now. Unfortunately, I’d gotten to know the McCoys really well in the past few months, and I knew they never let anything lie for long. To make matters worse, I’d also talked to Evey and Del about this. It was only a matter of time before they brought it back up and I had to have this conversation again.
The only thing I hoped was that they kept it from Abraham. I didn’t need any of this getting back to him.
I spent the next couple hours with Callie while we sorted out the particulars of my employment. Excitement zipped through my veins the entire time, and by the end of it, I was ready to get started right away.
Callie laughed when I told her that. “Well, we don’t have much going on at the moment with the move and everything, but I have a few books I thought could help you in the meantime.”
She turned around and began rummaging through some of the opened boxes before pulling out a stack of textbooks. She handed them over to me and dusted off her hands.
“Those should be a good place for you to get started. If you have questions about any of it, feel free to come to me.”
I tucked the books under my arm and gave her a smile. “Thanks, Callie. I’ll start looking these over today!”
She grinned back. “Great! Let me know how it goes!”
I left her room and headed back over to our wing of the third floor. Not having anywhere to really work, I decided to head into my old bedroom and start on the books Callie gave me. I climbed onto the bed and rolled over onto my stomach to start flipping through the texts.
That was where Abraham found me a couple hours later.
“Hey, baby. What are you doin’ in there?” he asked softly as he walked across the hall.
“Oh, um, I needed a place to work in peace.” I shrugged and flipped a page. I’d already gotten through half of the first book and I was on a roll.
He closed the door behind him, and the sound of the lock echoed through the quiet room. “You could have come to work in my office.”
I raised my eyes from the textbook and shot him a look. “I wouldn’t have gotten anything done.”
He crossed the distance between us and stood next to the bed. “But it would have been a lot more fun than what I had to do the past few hours.”
“What was so bad about your morning?”
“Besides the fact that you weren’t naked across my desk?” he asked as he sat beside me on the bed.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, besides that.”
“I had a bunch of conference calls I had to be on.”
“Construction business or alpha business?”
He smiled. “Mostly alpha today.”
I nodded and smiled, my eyes wandering back to the books I’d been reading. “Are you done for now?”
A grin spread across his handsome face while the look in his eyes turned hungry. “Yep. I was just about to take lunch.”
My stomach dropped at his words and I swallowed. “Hungry?” I asked, my voice squeaking at the end.
Abraham inched closer to me, his hands finding my thighs and sliding up my legs. “Starving.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe steadily. When his fingers reached the waistband of my jeans, all thoughts of reading environmental texts flew right out the window.
“I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to eat for lunch all day,” he continued as he shimmied my pants down my legs.
I could already feel the liquid heat pooling between my legs. “Oh, yeah? What are you in the mood for?”
He growled softly as he pulled my panties down my hips. He quietly watched me for so long, his eyes tracing over every inch of skin he’d revealed. “I’m hungry for my fiancée,” he finally said, and my heart lurched to my throat.
We didn’t do much talking after that as Abraham got his fill of me. I wound up underneath him again as he thrusted me into my second orgasm of the afternoon. His cries were loud in the quiet room as he found release deep inside me.
When we were finally sated, he pulled me onto his bare chest and ran his fingers through my hair. “We got so lucky, El. You ever think about that?”
I was half asleep by that point. Between the earth-shattering orgasms and the way he was rubbing my head, I was seconds from being unconscious. “Hmm?”
He squeezed me tighter and kissed the side of my head. “Luck, El. I’m so goddamn lucky I found you.” He dug his face into my neck and breathed deeply. “A fated mate is a gift and you’ve given me the greatest one.”
My eyes shot open at his words, but I stayed as still as I could. I didn’t want to alert him to the change in me. Didn’t need him to know the fated thing was a touchy subject.
Callie’s words spun through my mind as I lay there in his arms.
Should I tell him? What would it change? What would it make better?
The answer was nothing. Him knowing I didn’t think we were fated wouldn’t do him any good, so why bring it up?
I did my best to relax back into his hold, but I was wide awake now. He continued to stroke my hair while thoughts raced around my head. Finally, he spoke up, “What’s on your mind, El? I can almost feel it spinning.”
Damn. This man saw too much.
I sighed and snuggled deeper into his hold. “Just thinking about a lot of stuff. You know I talked to Craig and Brad already?”
I deployed that distraction as soon as I could. The sooner we got off the topic of what was really going through my head, the better.
“Oh, yeah? How’d that go?”
I snorted into his chest. “Craig took it about as well as you’d expect he would. He even tossed in a you’ll regret this parting line.”
Abraham stilled beneath me. “He threatened you?” His voice was lethal, and I immediately knew I needed to diffuse the situation before Craig got another visit from an alpha.
“It wasn’t really so much of a threat as it was a warning, I guess? I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be personal and more like, you’ll regret hiring someone new.” At least I hoped that was what he meant.
Abraham’s shoulders slowly relaxed and soon his hand was back to stroking my hair.
Crisis averted for now.
“What about Brad? What did he have to say?”
I shrugged. “He was a little wary of the position, but I told him if he didn’t take it, I’d just offer it to someone else, so he changed his tune.”
“So, Brad’s our new mechanic?”
“Looks like it.”
He reached down to kiss my head. “I’ll send out notice to the rest of the pack as soon as possible. You did good, baby.”
My chest warmed at his compliment. I was really trying my hardest with the alpha stuff, so it was nice to hear I was doing a good job. That I wasn’t messing everything up like I’d thought I would.
I had a few more appointments coming up soon, and I just hoped I’d be as useful for those members as I’d been to the others. I hoped I’d have the answers they were looking for, or at the least I could find them if need be. This alpha business wasn’t as scary as I first thought it would be. In fact, I was starting to get the hang of it.
Chapter 15
Was it possible for werewolves to get migraines? Because my head was throbbing.
“I don’t understand why I can’t see Abraham. He’s the one I want to talk to.”
I pulled the corners of my lips into the best smile I could manage. “Fran, I’d be happy to make you an appointment with Abraham, but he’s booked for
the next two weeks.” I made that up. I had no clue what his schedule was like. “If you’ll just tell me what’s going on, I’ll make sure it’s addressed either by me or Abraham.”
She eyed me speculatively from behind her pointy glasses. “Why would I talk to you? You’re not the alpha.”
I grit my teeth and tugged my smile up a notch. “I realize I’m not the alpha yet, but I will be someday.”
Fran scoffed. “So, I get to be the new alpha’s guinea pig? No, thanks. I’ll just wait and talk to Abraham.” She gathered her purse and stood.
The war between wanting to stop her and wanting to let her go was so violent, it took me a moment to react.
“Fran,” I finally said, pushing my chair back as I rose to my feet. “Wait.”
She paused at the door and spun around to face me. Her dark brown eyes narrowed as she waited for me to speak.
Problem was, I didn’t know what to say.
She was the second pack member in a row to refuse to work with me. The first, Eric, hadn’t even let me finish introducing myself before he said he wouldn’t speak with anyone but the alpha. If I let Fran go too, Abraham was going to think I couldn’t do the job.
I took a deep breath and clasped my hands in front of me. “Listen, Fran, your best bet is to just talk to me. The worst that can happen is I bring your issue to Abraham myself. Don’t you think you have a better chance of getting what you want if I’m the one to talk to him about it?”
Her lips twisted to the side while her eyes assessed me. Finally, she said, “You’ll talk to Abraham about this no matter what?”
I gave her a firm nod. “I will. Whether I’m able to help or not, he’ll hear about it.”
She blew out a big breath and rolled her eyes. “Fine. I can’t imagine it would hurt.”
I wanted to say that’s the spirit but figured it might be too early in our relationship for me to start with the sarcasm.
We took our seats again, and I picked up my pen. “So, tell me what’s going on.”
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