24. Leora
Leora
I fell asleep helplessly milking Alban’s … um …
“Ooohhh, here’s a word. Cock … it’s vulgar slang for penis.
” A memory from my otherwise-innocent teen years dropped into my head: Tara’s eyes popped as she read the definition of a word she’d found in the store dictionary’s “C”-section.
“I don’t know what a penis is, but if it’s ‘vulgar,’ it has to be bad. Let’s look it up!”
The image of my sister eagerly leafing toward the P section unfurled in my head as a completely black sleep dragged me under.
Then I awoke in a familiar place: the firm bed in Alban’s town house—the same one I’d been sharing with Dorie for three weeks after she refused to move to the castle.
Had it all been a dream, then? Had my heat sex with Alban just been an incredibly inappropriate subconscious fantasy?
No, that really happened. Everything below my waist ached and groaned as I gingerly sat up on my forearms. And the lingering soreness between my legs let me know I’d definitely done every single one of the things my subconscious wouldn’t have even known to dream about.
I sat all the way up in bed and was embarrassed but not necessarily surprised to find myself naked. Also, Dorie was nowhere to be seen, and I smelled different. Like … like …
Actually, I wasn’t sure what to call him. Everything had happened so fast. But I smelled completely of Alban now—like I’d bathed in his scent.
No, definitely not a dream.
Unbutton your shirt for me … kiss me … ride me until your wolf finds exactly what she wants …
Heat flushed through me as I remembered all the unspeakable things Alban had commanded me to do yesterday and how good it had felt to obey him.
But it wasn’t heat-heat warming my skin, I realized. The space between my legs was sore—but no longer aching. And the noisy heat smell no longer clamored in the area, making it impossible to think about anything except procreating. Which meant … I’d completed the cycle.
The realization hit me with the force of a wagon drawn by two horses.
I was pregnant. Pregnant with Alban’s baby.
After showering and getting dressed in the second outfit Hamish had pulled for me from his former wife’s closet, I gingerly came down the house’s back stairs to find …
Alban opening and closing all the kitchen’s above-the-counter cabinets, just as I’d been doing three weeks ago when Dorie came down for breakfast—but a lot more angrily.
“Oh, there you are,” he said without breaking off his search. “You’ve slept nearly the whole day. I was wondering if I’d have to trumpet in your ear to get you awake.”
Everything inside me cringed, and the memory of Joshua preaching against helpmates who dared to sleep in for any reason echoed in my head. At least once a month, he’d made sure to deliver a blistering sermon on sloth.
Oh, goodness, just one day into my new relationship, and I was already messing up.
“I’m sorry,” I told Alban.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he answered, closing the last of the cabinets. “I might have left you to it. But I cannae find anything in the kitchen now. Ye moved everything around, and the spaghetti pot is hiding from me.”
“Oh, all the pots and pans were in high places where I couldn’t reach them.” I rushed over to the lower cabinet beside the stove and bent down to pull out what I would have called a stockpot. “So, Hamish put them down here for me. He said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Aye, that’s because he doesnae know how to make anything you cannae spread or microwave,” Alban held out his hand for the pot with an annoyed twist of his lips.
His surprisingly intoxicating lips. Another embarrassed flush heated my face, remembering how kissing him had made me dizzy, then sent me into a frenzy of lust.
I did not hand him the pot.
“I’m awake now, so I can make dinner myself,” I offered, heading toward the sink to fill the pot with water.
But Alban got in front of me before I could reach it. “The only thing you’ll be making is a seat while I see to dinner for the two of us.”
He tried to take the pot from me, but I held onto it tight. “No, seriously. Let me do it. It’s the least I could do, considering …”
I trailed off, figuring I’d made my point. But instead of letting go of the pot, Alban squinted.
“Considering what?” he asked.
Just when I didn’t think this conversation could possibly get any more awkward.
Instead of answering, I tugged on the pot. Maybe if I pretended like I didn’t say anything, he’d let this conversation—and the pot—go.
But he didn’t let go. Just continued to squint down at me as he asked again, “Considering what, Leora? Tell me.”
I’d been dragging my feet about sewing myself a replacement for the outfit Alban had burned. But I suddenly very much missed my prayer covering—more specifically, my ability to twist its strings when I felt self-conscious and embarrassed.
“Just tell me, Leora.” Alban’s expression became impatient. “Whatever it is. Just tell me.”
I swallowed. I wasn’t used to having a male—any male—invite me to speak plainly. But I did my best to explain the obvious. “Well, we both know what happened when we came together at the castle was more an accident of biology than anything else.”
I stopped there, hoping he would get to the point. But if anything, his face became colder and even more impatient. “Aye, and?”
Apparently, there would be no leaving the obvious unsaid for me today. “Aye, and … um, I feel bad—terrible really because I basically forced you into …”
I cleared my throat—several times before grabbing onto Tara’s label for it like a life preserver. “…helping me complete my cycle.”
Alban scowled at me from under his brow. As if he were still impatiently waiting for the rest.
“That’s it,” I told him after his expectant silence became unbearable.
His expression lightened. But only a little.
“Take. A. Seat. Leora,” he said, his voice hard as granite. And this time, there was no tugging back and forth for the pot. He used his superior male wolf strength to pluck it out of my hands. “Let somebody else cater to you for once.”
Cater?
I wasn’t quite sure I fully understood the word in the context he was using it. But I was confident enough in its meaning to say, “I don’t know if I’m capable of letting someone cater to me.”
“Well, I suggest ye get used to it.” Alban stomped over to the sink and began filling the pot with water. “Yer pregnant with my bairn, aren’t ye?”
Yes, I most certainly was. Alban’s scent hadn’t cleared when I took my shower. Neither had the one that alerted me to the change in my body’s chemistry.
He was obviously annoyed with me. I should have just gone quiet.
But I was too confused by a male actually cooking for me. I couldn’t not wonder aloud. “What if it’s not a boy?”
Alban set the pot on the electric stove and repeated, “What if it’s not a boy?” with another expectant look. As if he was waiting—grumpily—for me to finish explaining myself.
“I just …”
Memories of Joshua flashed through my mind. How gallantly he’d treated me—before I delivered a girl. How that initial goodwill had turned into a cancerous resentment after Tara rejected his brother and Dorie turned out to be toothless.
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed or upset that you gave me better treatment than I deserved if I …” A heavy lump lodged in my throat, and I had to swallow it down to finish. “… if I don’t give you the child you want.”
“Hold on, are you ?” Alban turned back to me with his brow furrowed and shook his head as if he’d surely heard me wrong. “Are you under the impression that I give one feck whether we have a boy or a girl?”
“I …” I didn’t know how to answer that.
And Alban continued to frown down at me. “I ken my Da loves to run his mouth more than anything. Did he not tell you what happened between Gail and me, then?”
Prior to this, I’d managed to tamp down the slight flares of jealousy I’d felt for the gorgeous red-haired teacher who’d been engaged to Alban.
But at the unexpected mention of her name, it flared like a green fire inside of me.
And I once again had to press it back to answer, “He told me she broke your heart. And that you swore off she-wolves after that.”
“She dinnae break my heart. She broke my ego,” Alban answered, folding his arms over his barrel chest. “I’d just come back to Faoiltiarn, where I thought I’d be treated like a hero and finally be able to settle down and raise a family after engaging in those mostly pointless human war games.
But first, she dragged her feet about coming back up here from Glasgow, where she was getting her teaching credential.
Some nonsense about not having a weekend to spare before Christmas.
Then when she finally arrived, she smelled of a bottle of soap—but I could still scent another male on her. One who wasnae me.”
I’d known that Gail had left him for another wolf—probably Evan if Glasgow was the city scent I’d smelled on him. But I still found it hard to believe. I couldn’t imagine a female cheating on Alban, much less lying about it. How could anyone not be grateful to have him as their male?
“I can’t believe she did that to you. I’m sorry,” I told him. “That must have been really upsetting.”
“Upsetting is an understatement,” Alban answered with a chagrinned grimace.
I might have found a way to forgive her.
I was mostly gone for years, and it was understandable she might get lonely.
But she wouldn’t admit to what she’d done or tell me his name, and that set me off.
I threw a rocket of a temper tantrum—near about tore my office apart.
I ended up showing her the worst of me, and that gave her the perfect excuse to run back to her city wolf in Glasgow. ”
Alban dipped his head with a shameful look but then raised his eyes again to meet mine.
“You didn’t leave, though, Leora. You saw my violence.
Saw what I’m capable of when I’m determined to tear a male apart.
And you stayed. Even more, you made it easy for me to calm down, to regain control of myself.
You think it’s you who doesnae deserve good treatment from me? Don’t you ken?”
His irritated gaze softened, and suddenly his voice was Inside my head.
“It’s me who doesnae deserve you. So, I’ll tell you what I told your sister when I woke up to find her standing over me with murder in her eyes and a Lochaber axe in her hands: I will do anything for the rest of my life—anything to prove myself worthy of this chance you’ve given me. ”
He told me all of that over our mate bond. Then he cupped my face in his meaty hands to command out loud, “Now sit down, you stubborn lass, and let me make you dinner.”
I have never—I have never in my life felt so … it took me a moment to land on the word. Appreciated. Yes. I’d never felt as appreciated as I did by this male, and that feeling made my heart puddle in my chest.
My embarrassment forgotten, I pressed my forehead into his and spoke into our mate bond as well. “Thank you. I’ll do everything I can to be deserving of you too.”
“No, thank ye, Leora,” he answered. “Thank ye so much.”
For a moment, we let all of our emotions vibrate over our newly formed mate bond, breathing each other in—two wolves humbled by the chance we’d been given to make a fresh start.
But then the rest of what he’d said made its way to my conscious brain. I frowned and pulled back. “Hold on, did you say Tara tried to axe murder you?”