Chapter 11
Wolfe
I heard silence and then fumbling and then her voice. “I didn’t remember to hold it up to my ear,” she admitted sheepishly.
I smiled at the admission, my wolf almost purring in contentment at hearing my mate. “So Thalia gave you her phone?”
“Yes.” She sounded worried. “But she asked you not to tell Cody. Well, she said I had to delete messages about sex so Cody didn’t get suspicious.”
I frowned and then, knowing Thalia well, I knew exactly where her mind had gone. “Nothing you sent me will upset Cody,” I assured Rowen. “And…this is your first time with a cell phone?” I sat back on the couch, getting comfortable.
“Yes.” I heard her move and wondered if she was also getting comfy. “Another thing for you to mock me for.”
I gave a slight huff in response. “While technology may lead to the downfall of the human race, it is beneficial to have a few of its perks.” I hesitated. “I don’t think not knowing how to use a phone is a bad thing.”
“You think I’ve betrayed you.” Her voice was a low whisper, and I heard the echo of pain within it.
I didn’t know what to say, so I told the truth. “At this point, I’m only confident of a handful of shifters who haven’t.”
“Am I one of them?”
“Should you be?” I countered, my eyes on the door as I said things to my mate I hadn’t said to her in person.
“No.” It sounded like she was moving again, and I imagined her sitting up straight, the tiny line on her brow furrowed with frustration.
“You’ve not made the transition easy,” I told her.
“Because it hasn’t been easy,” she countered a little louder. “The pack has been in upheaval and needs time to settle. But the attacks aren’t allowing that to happen. Just because I’m supporting how my pack feels does not mean I am trying to kill them. Or you.”
“Sherry is a traitor.”
I heard the absolute stillness on the other side of the phone and wondered if I had been rash or should have kept that to myself until I could see her reaction.
“And I spent the day with her before you sent me away.” Rowen’s voice was dull and hollow. Resigned. “Is that what sealed my fate to be sent here?”
“No. I found out after you were gone.” She was quiet again, and I didn’t push, not sure how to.
“My pack is my life, Wolfe,” Rowen finally spoke. “And whether we wanted it or not, you are my mate, selected for me by the Goddess herself. To hurt you is to hurt myself.”
I nodded, although she couldn’t see me. “You never suspected her?” I asked softly.
“No. That day I spent with her, I thought she blamed me,” Rowen said bitterly. “What did she do when you confronted her?”
“She’d already gone. Not long after you had.”
“Oh.” Rowen’s laugh was bitter. “She might as well have painted a target on my back; no wonder your betas here hate me.”
I frowned. “They told you that they hate you?”
“No,” she corrected me. “But it wasn’t easy when I got here. It’s gotten better.”
“Nothing worth winning is ever easy,” I reminded her.
“My dad used to say that all the time,” Rowen murmured, emotion choking her voice.
“I know.”
The silence engulfed us once more, loaded with unspoken feelings, but the bond wasn’t silent. It was thrumming between us, stronger than ever.
“I’ve covered the territory,” Rowen suddenly said, and I heard something under her tone, a plea to let her change the subject. “Killian has been teaching me to change my direction without losing speed.”
I smiled as I heard her excitement. “He’s an excellent teacher.”
“He’s very direct.”
I laughed. That was one way to describe him. “He is. What else have you learned?”
Rowen told me about the days she’d spent training and the pain she’d felt the next day. She didn’t sound upset; she sounded like she was enjoying it, and that gave me hope. But as always with Rowen, her attention never strayed too far from her pack.
“How is the Hollow?”
“Axel and Brand are making great progress with the pack and training. They’re…subtler in some ways than Killian or Cody.”
I could almost hear her frowning. “Brand is not subtle.”
“He’s a good teacher,” I reiterated, but I agreed with her; Brand’s delivery could sometimes be better. However, he got results, and that’s all that mattered when speed was a priority.
“How did the druid take to Diesel?” Rowen asked, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
“I don’t think I’d want to repeat their first encounter,” I told her honestly. “I didn’t take a full breath until I was sure blood wouldn’t be shed.”
Her peal of laughter made me smile widely. “Did the druid internally combust?” I could hear her glee. “When Diesel left, my first thought was that the druid was going to hate him.”
“Your first thought?” I asked teasingly.
Rowen cleared her throat. “Well, my first thought was good riddance,” she admitted. “Um…did he tell you I punched him?”
“He did.” I knew I was smiling. “But I knew he made the first move and put his hands on you.”
Rowen scoffed. “That’s not why I punched him,” she said firmly. “He said…” She cleared her throat again. “It doesn’t matter.”
I sat forward. “What did he say to you?” I asked her, my voice soft but firm.
“Tell me.” I heard her shuffling and could imagine what she looked like.
She’d be chewing her lip, her eyes would be narrowed, and she’d be running a hand over her thigh.
She constantly fidgeted when she wasn’t comfortable with the conversation. “Rowen?”
Her sigh was loud. “He said something about my ability to please you in bed, and that he hoped I was good enough to distract you from the fact I had a…a whiny voice or something.”
My eyes closed as I listened to her. I could only imagine how crude Diesel would have been. “He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
“Can I ask you something?”
It was the way she asked me that caught my interest. “Mm-hmm?”
“Why does Killian dislike me so much? What is it that they think I did to you?” She hurried on. “Apart from the making you leave the pack when you were younger and the fact that they think I’m a traitor.”
“Apart from that?” I couldn’t help but chuckle, and I heard her soft laugh too.
“Okay,” Rowen conceded. “Maybe that’s enough.” She paused. “But I feel like it’s more.”
“I would prefer to see you face-to-face for this conversation, Rowen.”
“Wow…that bad?”
I heard her move again, and I wondered if she was lying down. “Are you in my bed?”
“Yes.”
The bond pulsed, and I wasn’t sure if it was me or her. “Sleeping okay?”
“It’s a big bed for where it is.” I heard her swallow. “But yes, I sleep okay. The…the um…pillows…smell like you.”
My wolf rumbled in my chest. “And that helps you sleep?”
“I was going to change them, but my wolf likes it.”
I smirked. Her wolf, not her. Bullshit. She missed me, and I felt smug. “You miss me?”
“No.”
“I think you do.”
“Then you think wrong,” she said, and I could practically hear her eye roll. “Do you miss me?” she countered, and I heard the familiar sass in her voice.
“I miss waking up to you curled into my side, thinking I don’t know you curl up to me every night.”
“Oh…”
“What? You think I wouldn’t know you were pressed up against me?” I ran my hand over my hair as I settled back in the chair. “You think I wouldn’t feel those breasts pushing into me?” I could feel her now. “Wouldn’t smell the change in your scent when I touch you?”
“Wolfe…”
“Mm-hmm?”
“If I asked to come home, would you let me out of here?”
“Diesel is needed here,” I answered honestly. “And I’m needed here—”
“I’m needed there too!”
“Rowen, give me—give Diesel the time he needs. He’s very good; he won’t take long.”
She remained silent, and I prepared for her anger, but instead of ire, I received curiosity. “Is he a druid?”
“No. He’s…he’s just…different.”
“An alpha?”
The question surprised me. I’d never thought of it before, but as I thought about it now, I knew he wasn’t, though I could see why she thought that. “No.” I pursed my lips as I considered it more. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never asked.”
“How could you not ask?” Rowen asked in disbelief.
“Have you asked the druid if they are male or female?”
“Wolfe!” Rowen sounded scandalized.
“What? How have you not asked?” I teased. “Why is it different for Diesel?” I asked her, turning serious once more. “If he wanted me to know if he was anything more than just a badass shifter, he’d tell me.”
Rowen was quiet, and then she grumbled. “You never used to be this reasonable.”
I let out a low laugh. “Well, I still locked you in my territory to keep you safe, so perhaps reasonable is a stretch.”
“To keep me safe? Or because you didn’t trust me?”
“Maybe both.”
We fell silent again until Rowen spoke softly. “I like this. You’re more honest with this distance between us.”
I nodded in agreement. “And you’re more willing to listen.”
I heard her thinking. “Maybe…maybe we should both try to be better when I come home. We are married after all.” She tsked softly. “Mates, I mean. We are mates.”
“We are. And it’s a long time to live together without trying,” I said quietly.
“Yeah.” Silence stretched. “I think…I think it might be good for us to try to be better.”
My wolf fell quiet as I listened. “I think so too.”
“I wanted to kill you when I realized I couldn’t leave. I was so angry with you.”
I nodded, Killian had told me, and I’d expected it from her. “And now?”
“Still kind of pissed, and I won’t say I understand why, because I think we needed to have this conversation then, but what’s done is done.”
“So you’re still pissed?” I asked with a grin.
“Shut up.”
Definitely still upset about it, but I heard the warmth in the rebuke, and it gave me hope.
“Oh.”
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up in alarm at the surprise in her voice. “Are you okay?”
“The phone made a beeping noise. What did I do?”
Thalia. Only Thalia would sneak my mate a phone and not check the battery level.
“It likely needs to be charged,” I explained to Rowen. “You need to sleep anyway, it’s late.”
“You don’t need to sleep?”