Chapter 3
THREE
Olivia
Islammed my bedroom door behind me and wanted more than anything to sink down to the floor behind it. But I couldn’t let myself do that now, could I? Because then I’d be exactly what he thought of me: an infant.
His thoughtless words had played on repeat since the second I heard them.
There’s no way you and I could be a match. It’s absurd.
No wonder he hadn’t noticed me at the pack castle; he thought I was barely more than a toddler. Fury mixed with the humiliation pulsing through my veins.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been written off; not even close. I dropped onto my bed instead of slipping to the floor, determined to prove him wrong in the tiniest of ways, even if he wasn’t here to see it.
Yes, I was only twenty-four, but age was just a number for most of a wolf’s lifetime.
We physically matured as quickly as humans, which meant I was a full-grown adult, and he didn’t look a day over thirty, no matter how old he actually was.
Wolves got mated with large age gaps all the time, so it wasn’t even unusual.
Which meant it wasn’t that we would be physically incompatible. No, he must sense some greater defect, a personal flaw he didn’t like that made him think I was too young for him.
Immature.
Screw that noise.
Restless, I jumped back off the bed and paced around the room. It wasn’t until I spared a glance at the clock on the bedside table that I groaned.
It was after three in the morning.
I was exhausted, blood smeared, and royally over it all. And that was before you considered the fact that a nu like me mated to an alpha like him was always going to cause trouble, even when he didn’t think she was an infant.
How old was his grumpy ass, anyway?
It was a question for tomorrow. All of it can wait until tomorrow, I decided with a bitter edge even in my thoughts.
I climbed into the shower and then into my latest borrowed bed. But despite the weariness seeping all the way to my bones, it wasn’t really a surprise that sleep didn’t come for a long, long time.