Leora
I could have said no. Yesterday, when I was still the innocent she-wolf who’d been raised to be humble and polite, I would have said no.
But that was yesterday.
Today, sitting across from the wolf I’d dared to choose, I nodded. Then followed him up the stairs without even bothering to wash the dishes first.
The answer to my wondering supposition stopped my breath.
A bedroom lay behind the door—one so perfectly preserved, if not for the dust, I’d think it was inhabited by someone who actually still lived in the house. It belonged to Alban’s mother.
I knew, not just because of the graceful white canopy bed that didn’t match the rest of the house. But also, because it smelled a bit like Alban—the softer parts you would never guess were there unless you got to know him on the most intimate levels.
After a few moments of silence, he confirmed my guess. “This is my mother’s bedroom.”
He came to stand beside me in the room. “She was the first daughter of the fairest maiden, so she was promised to my father at birth—just as Gail was promised to me.”
As purposefully old-fashioned as Wolfennite culture was, I couldn’t imagine actually being promised to another wolf the moment I was born. “That sounds like something out of a storybook.”
Alban released a low chuff. “Our wolf clan is verrae auld, mo ghràidh. Much of what you hear told in stories and legends comes directly from our real history. And, that fairest daughter of the fairest maiden rule goes back as far as the Scotswolf line has been on the throne. Before we started running out of she-wolves, there was a pageant and everything. Gail’s mother won the year of my birth.
And if Iain had been born before me, then Gail would have been promised to him instead. ”
I’d only been able to meet Tara’s best friend after what everyone in town had taken to calling the Second Irish Invasion. But, judging from her American accent, I knew she couldn’t possibly have been promised to Iain.
So, I asked, “What happened to Iain’s bride?”
“There were no girl she-wolves born that year,” Alban answered. “The beginning of a trend, as it turned out. I doubt the rule will ever be enforced again at our current numbers. But that came too late for Gail and my mother. Both of them would have chosen differently if they had a choice.”
I nodded, understanding a little bit more clearly now why the new teacher would have left a wolf as great as Alban for someone as terrible as Evan. It had been about choice, the freedom to make your own decisions, even if they were the wrong ones.
Looking at the untouched room, another bit of insight occurred to me. “Your mother … I’d assumed she was dead. But she’s not, is she?”
A grim shadow passed over Alban’s face. “Nae. She’s not dead—at least not anywhere but in my heart.
“Is it okay to ask where she went?”
Alban stilled, and I braced myself.
He’d said I could ask him anything, and I wanted to know—I wanted to know everything about my new mate.
But my body still remembered how dangerous it was to bring up any topic Joshua didn’t want to talk about.
I hadn’t even gotten the full story of what happened between my sister and his brother until a decade later when Tara told me herself.
My extremely personal question could make Alban push me away. Or worse.
But after several moments of silence, he began talking.
“She used to take shopping trips to Edinburgh all the time. It was the number one row she and my father got into—I can still hear him screaming murder about the bills. But he could never stop her, ‘running through the family money like it’s river water’ as he called it.
And one day, right before I was set to go on my first military tour, she … ”
Alban shook his head, his jaw grinding underneath his beard.
“She went to Edinburgh and dinnae come back. Just rung up the house and told me to tell Da she’d done her duty, given him a son, and raised him.
According to her, that meant she was allowed to leave and never come back.
Then she rang off. No forwarding information. She was just done.”
“Oh no, Alban.” My heart broke for him. Not just because he’d lost a mother but also because “She made you tell your father?”
“Aye, and Da took that news about as well as you’d expect.” Alban rolled his eyes, but the cynical gesture struck me as sad. I could see the young male doing the best he could with the parents he’d been given.
“That’s the real reason we don’t have a landline, by the way,” he told me.
“We used to, but he tore all of them out. And that’s why the town still calls him Mad Hammy.
Anyroad, he ran off to the Brother’s Cottage, and I deployed.
I figured he’d be over it by the time Magnus called me back to Faoiltiarn.
I never asked, but I’m fairly sure they were wolf-mated.
For as long as I can remember, she didn’t carry his scent.
And as you can see, they slept in separate beds.
But when I went to see about him at the Brother’s Cottage, I found him living mostly as a wolf off the land.
And even after I dragged him back here, he wouldn’t let me clear out this room. ”
Alban’s eyes once again swept over his mother’s abandoned but still waiting space. “Wolves are supposed to mate for life, and males especially don’t take it well when their she-wolf leaves. My uncle Lachlan never got over his wife after she divorced him, and my father didn’t either.”
“Poor Hamish …” I shook my head, seeing the odd man I’d been living with and cooking for over the last three weeks in a new light. “I wish there was something we could do to help him.”
Alban looked over at me, his expression as confused as mine had been downstairs.
“What?” I asked, not understanding his response.
“Do you really not ken?” he asked back. “You’ve already done it.
Helped him more than anything else I could have tried.
He’s eating something other than Marmite sandwiches.
And he’s actually leaving the house on a daily basis.
I didn’t have to ask him to clear out of here and go to the castle with Dorie for our bairnmoon—he insisted.
Making this place a home again while I was gone, providing him with a granddaughter—someone to look after and guide.
You gave him something to live for, and you’ve … ”
Alban was the Kingdom Defender and a veteran besides that—a true Scottish hero.
But he dropped his gaze to his feet, and his deep voice shook a little as he confessed, “You’ve given me a reason to live. You asked what you can do. The answer is simple. Stay. All you have to do is stay. If you do that, my Da will finally be happy, and you’ll …”
He finally looked up to meet my eyes as he told me over our mate bond. “You’ll have my heart forever.”
I waited. I waited for the old distrust to rear its head, for the negative voice inside of me to say this couldn’t possibly be true. I had to be dreaming.
But the dream didn’t dissipate as they so often do once you realize that’s what you’re in. And the only voice inside my head was the echo of Alban saying, “You’ll have my heart forever.”
Instead of dark distrust, my chest filled up with its opposite. Light. The pure light of an emotion I’d never felt before.
“Any more questions?” Alban asked over our mate bond.
“No,” I answered happily. “That was all I needed to know.”
We went back downstairs and cleared the table, and washed the dishes the same way we’d made dinner. Together.
But then, instead of following me to the kitchen’s back stairs, he said, “I should touch base at work. After three weeks, I’m sure my inbox is fuller than a tick that’s found itself a fat horse.
And I know you still have some recovering to do, so I’ll sleep downstairs in the office and leave you to it in the room. ”
His words were reasonable—honorable even. But they hit me like a punch in the gut.
And, as it turned out, a new question did arise. However, it was way too embarrassing to ask out loud.
“What is it?” Alban demanded inside my head. “What do you want to ask me?”
How did he know?
The answer came to me like a long-ago memory. The mate bond.
Because I’d been wolf-mated to Joshua, I’d almost forgotten about it.
But I had distinct memories from childhood of my father saying things like, “Your mother’s tired and needs to go to bed early tonight,” even though she’d said nothing at dinner.
And my mother telling us our father was furious about a crop lost to mites—even though his outward mood hadn’t changed at all.
I remembered now that they didn’t just have entire conversations inside their heads, thanks to the special bond that allowed heated mates to communicate with each other mentally. My parents could feel what the other was feeling.
And maybe Alban could “hear” my big feelings too—maybe even read my thoughts. I realized that—then I immediately tamped down the question I didn’t want to ask him.
Proving my guess right, a stern look came over Alban’s face. “Tell me.”
Oh, dear. Oh, dear. My face burned hotter than the wood stove at Alban’s cabin. “It’s too embarrassing to ask.”
Alban considered my answer with a thoughtful look, then replied inside my head. “Then don’t say it out loud. Tell me here where it’s safe.”
Safe …
The word wisped through my mind like the loveliest spring breeze.
Maybe that was why I somehow found the courage to ask, “If I’m pregnant, why am I suddenly … ah, milking again? Shouldn’t that have stopped by now? And why do I still smell faintly of heat? I would have thought that it would have disappeared.”
He stilled. Then asked out loud, “I made it all the way through dinner with you. Are you trying to make me forget my vow?”
I didn’t understand. “Why was it so hard to get through dinner with me? Also, what vow are you talking about?”
“The vow not to hurt you,” he answered between clenched teeth. “I already put my bairn in your belly this morn. I have to …”
He bared his teeth as if he were withstanding some kind of pain I couldn’t see. “I have to let you rest.”
“Let me rest?” I repeated, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “But don’t you understand?”
He wasn’t reading my mind now, I sensed. In fact, the deliberate quiet made it feel like he was purposefully locking his thoughts away.
“Understand what?” he gritted out, confirming my suspicion.
“It does hurt,” I whispered into his head. “The milking hurts, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”
He stilled, his face going from strained to a look I could only describe as dangerous. Worse than dangerous. Completely feral.