Chapter 28
SADIE
Ibit the inside of my lip as I sat atop the island in the wolves’ cottage kitchen.
This kitchen was like something out of my dreams, the cabinets dark jade green, the counters made of the same wood as the natural beams on the ceiling.
Amber accents were picked out in the long rug between the island and the utensils that sat in jars on the windowsill.
Even though it was freezing outside, this kitchen was warm, inviting.
Like everything else about the cottage was inviting, even if one of the wolves who lived here hated me.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I said, glancing out the small picture window as Verne moved from cabinet to shelf to cupboard, getting together ingredients for the world's most disgusting recipe. The herbs, plants, and the pestle and motor that waited while Verne got down a glass vial from one of the highest shelves, didn’t inspire a confidence that this thing was going to be palatable. “The burns, I mean.”
“It will hurt if the silver reaches your heart,” he replied in the same stony, non-nonsense tone he’d used since the wood.
Lainsz and Leander hadn’t returned yet, so it was just the two of us and this awkward silence.
Verne didn’t look at me as he spoke, but there was wrath in his voice when he asked, “Who poisoned you?”
I sighed, not wanting to admit it. But when Verne turned to face me, I muttered, “It’s my own fault. I didn’t exactly mean to, but when you’re a wolf in hiding and your lessons involve turning water into silver…”
I shrugged, helpless, a little caustic.
“If you’d remained here,” he said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Yeah well,” I dropped my gaze to the floor, trailing over the rug and the warm floor boards beneath. “Why would I stay with three men I don’t know?”
“Three mates,” he corrected. “And even if we weren’t your mates, we would still be pack.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” I said, and a lump formed in my throat when I saw him flinch.
“None of this means anything to me,” I explained.
“Not the vampires. Not the wolves. Not the training. The only reason I’m here at all is because my gran sold me, and I’m trapped in this place until I find a vent and an amulet. ”
Now it was Verne’s turn to sigh. “Of course you wouldn’t know what it means to be a wolf,” he said, his tone apologetic. “I’m doing a poor job of teaching you.”
“Don’t make this about you,” I said playfully, even if I meant it deadly seriously. “This is my pity party, thank you very much.”
I straightened my shoulders, and eyed the mass of ingredients he’d gathered. “So what are my chances of survival? Should I start making arrangements now, and plan a lavish funeral I don’t have the money for?”
“You are not going to die,” he said, and suddenly he was in front of me the same way he’d moved so quickly in the forest. His hands found my face, lifting so I was forced to meet his unyielding stare.
“You’re not going to die, Sadie. Contrary to what the leeches at the academy believe, silver isn’t fatal for a wolf in small quantities.
If you’d dropped your body into a whole vat of it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
But the packs have remedies for silver burns”
“Hence, the pestle and mortar,” I mused, giving it another suspicious look. He was still touching me. I should probably push his hand away. Soon. “How disgusting is this going to be? Give it to me straight.”
“Oh, it’s going to stink,” he replied, dark eyes dancing with amusement. His thumb swept my jaw and I tried to hide how much I melted. “And it’ll be hell on your sharp senses. But luckily you don’t have to eat it.”
“Oh thank God,” I groaned. “That root over there looks like actual dog shit. I think I’d rather keep the burns than eat it.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said quietly, making my heart jump when he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered over the shell of my ear, a cool shudder racing through me, tipping me closer to him.
“Stay,” he said abruptly. “Stay here where we know you’re safe. If you go back to that academy…”
“I’ll get paid for my time and become a wealthy woman?”
“You have everything you could need here,” he said, and he was pleading now, his brown eyes big and desperate, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Except freedom,” I said quietly.
“We would never cage you”
“No, you just expect me to be the perfect little wifey, to give you kids and keep your house in perfect condition, all the while keeping all my silly little opinions to myself”
Verne blinked, taken aback for a moment. “No.” The word was deep and guttural. “You would be an equal, not a subordinate. You are our mate, and our packmate. Your opinions aren’t silly, they’re important to me. To all of us.”
I laughed. “Now I know you’re just lying to my face.
Lainsz doesn’t give a shit about me, so don’t tell me what I say is important to you.
Don’t tell me that I would be listened to instead of silenced.
That school,” I said with scorn, “trains killers, and every class is a risk to my life. But I can be myself. I can speak my mind there. Here… I don’t think you’ve looked at me and seen me one single minute since we met. ”
“I have,” he protested, but I was already shaking my head.
“I had concerns, and you distracted me with sex.”
“No, no, that’s not how it happened.”
“Fine, it was mutual. You said the mating instinct was driving me, and I don’t even know what a mating instinct is. If it’s not designed to get me pregnant, to mate in the very basic sense of the word, then what is it?”
Verne had no response for that. I could see it in his eyes. So that was what the instinct was. A biological urge to make babies with these people that I just met, and apparently had a fated connection to. It was bullshit.
And yet…
Something had eaten away at me all day, urging me to come back here, and it was finally quiet. An itch that plagued my skin all day was soothed. And there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave, even if I knew it was madness.
“We’re not the men you think we are,” Verne said, adding herbs and liquids and God knew what else into the mortar and grinding them up. “I swear we’ll prove that to you over time, just give us a chance.”
I’d heard that before. That was the problem with pretty words. I’d heard them all before and I knew exactly how this ended up.
“Over time,” I relented quietly. “I don’t deny that pull here, something urging me to come back to you when I leave. But I just feel—out of control. Like none of this is my choice.”
“Then what do you choose, Sadie? We’ll take things one choice at a time, and you’ll be in full control.”
I looked at him a little strangely. “Aren’t you supposed to be the big powerful Alpha who tells us all what to do?”
Verne smiled, but there was something strained and sad about it.
“It’s not really my style. The three of us are family.
I don’t have to keep them here by force, because they want to be here.
I won’t keep you here by force, either. If you want to leave, I’ll let you leave, but don’t expect me to leave you unprotected. ”
“So, what? You’re gonna follow me around like a bodyguard. Shadow me while I’m at the school led by teachers who would kill you in a heartbeat?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep my mate safe,” he agreed. “If that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”
There was a distinction I hadn’t realised I needed. To be wanted, protected, not just because of this bond I couldn’t begin to understand, because of me, and who I was.
That was the hurt that made me cold, kept me at a distance.
I wanted to be here. I’d been drawn back here all day, but I didn’t want to be here as their mate.
I want to be here as Sadie, and welcomed anyway.
Wanted anyway. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way they spoke to me, took care of me, but how much of that was just because of the bond and how much was for me?
“Show me the burn site,” he said, bringing the mortar over to the kitchen island and watching me roll up my sleeve. It had completely healed, unblemished, but the way Verne was acting and the way the others had reacted made me think silver burns were dangerous even if they couldn’t be seen.
“Your skin can be healed,” he said, laying his hands over my forearm, fingertips grazing the sensitive inner elbow until I had to fight a shiver. “But the poison remains under the surface, insidious because the moment it reaches your heart…”
“No more Sadie?” I guessed.
“Exactly,” he confirmed, a little faint.
“Oh, it smells lovely,” I said, trying not to choke as he began to smear the green concoction on my skin. “You should bottle this as perfume. You’d make a killing on the market day.”
Honestly, if this wasn’t a whole different world—one at war, training kidnapped people as soldiers—it would be cute and quaint with its rolling hills and cute little villages.
I knew, somewhere, there was a market selling fresh produce and hand crafted items. I might even like it here, if I hadn’t been abducted and forced to come.
I was still smirking, I realised when Verne finished smearing the salve on my skin.
“It looks good on you,” he said, his eyes dark and exceptionally soft.
“Sarcasm?” I asked
“Amusement. I think happiness would suit you even more.”
I shrugged, irreverent, and said, “I wouldn’t know,”
He sobered, a furrow between his brows. “You’ve never been happy?”
“I’m sure I have,” I replied, already regretting the remark. “Years ago. So long that my memory of it has degraded. You know how adults get, obsessed with the daily grind, forgetting childhood innocence and happiness.”
“No,” he replied seriously.
“Well.” That was a mood killer. “Thank you for the green goop. I assume this will save me before the silver can attack my heart?”
“It will,” he confirmed, still in that soft, serious voice. His thumb skimmed a slow path across my jaw, sending warmth through my face and a charge through my heart.