Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I find myself shedding a tear of relief. This is everything I never dared dream of. I had come to expect life to hurt, and to be empty of everything I need. I never imagined there was a place I belonged.
Getting up and dressing in the simplest of the dresses in my new wardrobe, I go and explore the place. There are wolves everywhere, but the chateau is by no means crowded. It is full of little nooks and secret spaces, each of which I want to come to know.
As I wander, I hear the unmistakable sound of someone crying. I am drawn to it, just as I was when I lived in the orphanage. If someone is hurt, I want to help.
I turn a corner and stop, realizing who it is.
The woman from last night. The one whose husband lost his head.
“I’m sorry,” I say, apologizing for intruding on her. And maybe slightly for the other thing, but probably not.
She looks up at me with a tearful gaze.
“I’ve lost my mate,” she says. “He was a good man.”
I know you’re not supposed to argue with sad people, but I can’t help myself. I care, I really do, but I have a hard time talking like I do.
“He was demonstrably not a good man.”
“He was my mate,” she sobs. “He was all I had in this world.”
“You should consider getting more things. Maybe a hobby. Maybe stamp collecting.”
My words do not hit the way I want them to. They don’t help in the slightest. Actually, they make things a lot worse, because they turn her sadness into anger. Her face screws up and her eyes narrow with vicious anger, and she looks at me with true fury.
“You’re a little bitch. You’ll see. The alpha is sweet with you now, but over time he will treat you just like my man treated me. And maybe one day someone will kill him, and then you will know the pain I feel.”
“If he ever treats me the way Duplante treated you, I will kill him myself.” I pause, realizing that isn’t quite fair. “I might kill him anyway, you know.”
Her eyes widen.
“You’re a monster!”
“We’re all monsters. It’s our whole thing. We’re people who become wolves and devour human flesh.”
“We don’t devour human flesh!”
Another faux pas. I’m really racking them up today.
I try to reset the conversation a little.
“I am sorry you’re hurting. I really am. But that guy sucked, and if Armand hadn’t killed him, I think I would have sooner or later.”
“You?” She laughs bitterly. “You’re a female. You’ll be used to breed and nothing more. Me? I’ll never have another mate. I’ll never be bred again.”
“That’s up to you. Why don’t you try one of the younger males?”
She laughs, more out of shock than amusement.
“They’re a decade younger than me.”
“You could be a cougar as well as a wolf.”
She smiles weakly and shakes her head. “We get one mate.”
“I don’t believe that. I think we have special mates, but there’s nothing in life where there’s only one. I don’t believe your fated mate would curse at you in mixed company and get his head cut off.”
She starts to cry even more, and I slink away, feeling guilty and unable to help. Wolves put a lot of stock in fated mates and lifelong bonds, but I think sometimes a lifelong bond is better burned than endured. If I was talked to like a piece of shit and treated the same way, I’d rather be alone. I don’t care about the fucking mate bond. As much as I might be attracted and attached to Armand, I won’t be suffering for it.
Fuck that.
“There you are!” Armand steps around the corner, and his appearance makes my body flush with excitement and arousal. Looking at him is a chemical experience, like I’m doing a drug of some kind.
“Hi,” I say, instantly shy. This time yesterday, I didn’t know this man. Now, when I look at his handsome, angular, elegant face, I am internally set alight. It’s unsettling as much as it is exciting.
I wonder if Jenny felt that about the man who died, if she thrilled to him before he called her a curt name, or otherwise abused her.
“I wondered where you’d got to,” he says, with just enough concealed concern in his voice to tell me that he thought I’d run away. It’s not a ridiculous thought. Running away was my thing, for a while, until I realized that terrible things happen outside an orphanage, and sometimes awful walls can keep you safe.
“I was just looking around. Is that not allowed?”
“Of course it is allowed, this is your home. I am just cautious. I waited my entire life to find you, and now that I have found you, having you out of my sight creates a pain I didn’t know was possible to feel.”