Chapter 5
Jade
My phone buzzed with a text beside my bed.
Rafe-Meet in the war room for lunch.
The war room? Was I missing something? I texted back a big ‘Huh?’.
Rafe-Never mind, I’ll come to your house for lunch.
I didn’t bother with replying. He would come whether I wanted him to, not that I didn’t want him to. I was beyond confused by what had happened between us the previous night. I hadn’t wanted him to leave and when he did, I felt the emptiness in my soul. Nalia had chuckled and gone back to sleep like she knew all about these feelings.
“Have you ever been mated before?” I asked out loud as I got dressed for the day. Based on the snores coming from the room next door, Lucas was still sleeping. I wondered what he would think when he woke up to find Rafe’s scent all over the hallway. He had paced in front of my door for a while before he had decided to enter. His scent was too thick for it to be anything else.
Nalia hummed in my head while I brushed my teeth. My eyes flashed yellow in the mirror.No, I have never been mated and I have never wanted to be mated until I scented Rafe. Being mated is a soul commitment. Rafe’s wolf hasn’t known a mate either.
I spat the toothpaste in the sink before I kicked the shower on. “Is that how every wolf is?” Lucas would probably wake up to me talking to myself.
Nalia rolled over in my head like a puppy. Her face seemed to transform in my head to a look of disgust at the comparison.No, some wolves are put into new bodies when the old ones die and they have to find their mates again and again.
“How exhausting.”
The water was scorching on my skin but I didn’t want it any other way. It made my mind go blank. It took away all of my worries. By the time I got out of the water, my skin was a bright pink and my back no longer ached.
I clicked on the coffee pot for Lucas and sat down at the table waiting for my toast when he finally opened the door to his bedroom. He gave me a grin as he scratched his chin. His scar on his neck was too visible today like it was begging for attention. He grinned when he saw that the coffee was running already and poked his head in the fridge for his yogurt.
“Did you have a good night with Rafe?” I had been waiting for it but it still made me blush to hear him ask it out loud.
“Nothing like that happened,” My toast popped up and I rushed to retrieve it.
His face was unreadable as he opened his yogurt and dug right in. “I know, his retreating scent was one of shame and disgust.” A grin widened his mouth as he leaned forward. “Did you fart? Was it a nasty fart?”
My hands smacked him away before I sat down at the table. “You’re disgusting. No,” I chewed on my lip. “I don’t know what happened. One minute we were talking about my snoring.”
Lucas interrupted me. “Your snoring is pretty bad.”
I rolled my eyes and ignored his comment. Pot meet kettle. “Then he admitted that the worst sound he had ever heard was him ripping his hand through his father’s chest. He was gone before I could say anything else.”
Lucas’s face turned sour. “Yeah, that explains the scents left in the house. I thought it was because you turned him off and I was right but damn.”
My shoulders slumped. “How do I fix this?”
“You let him tell you what happened. You let him trust you enough to fill you in. Granny told me a little of what happened while I was gone but his personal reasons are still unknown. Axel, Alice, and Rafe are the only ones that know what happened that day.”
There was no way I was going to get comfortable enough with Axel to ask him and there was also no way I was going to approach Alice about one of the most painful experiences of her life. I couldn’t imagine the pain she was going through. The clock on my phone reminded me that today was my first day back at the manor. I didn’t know if I was ready to get work done, but I needed some kind of normalcy in my life again. I needed a routine as magic buzzed around the Pack Land.
“Do you have anything planned for today?” The toast was dry in my mouth as I shoved the rest down my throat.
Lucas leaned back in his chair. The front two legs on the chair hovered over the tile. “Granny wants to offer me a job but I’m worried that the little menace will make my life a living hell.”
“Children are difficult creatures. Maybe she just needs some love?” I wrapped my fingers around a water bottle in the fridge before I tossed it into my bag.
“She needs a straight jacket and her magic taken away. We didn’t talk about what happened last night.” Fear took over his features. “Her magic is out of control. She took over my mind. I couldn’t do a damn thing. She had me dancing around the kitchen like a freaking monkey!”
As horrified as I was, I couldn’t stop the laugh from escaping my lips. “Yes, her mother did the same thing to me for Damian.”
The front legs on the chair slammed to the floor. “He didn’t?”
