The Wolf Lord's Mate

Chapter Eleven

 Isa was bustling with excitement all morning.

"Marcus is coming back today," She chattered away as I helped her fold laundry linens at the table in the common room, "It'll be such a help to have him back – We'll finally be able to get that damn fireplace fixed in the Lord's study. You'll like him, I think," Isa tucked the stacks of linens into a basket, pushing them down and smoothing them over until they all fit neatly.

"You said he was off helping Captain Leo?" I took one end of a long sheet as Isa took the other, drawing the corners together to fold it.

"Just with repairs," Isa set the last sheet on the top of the basket, "The Lord has a cabin out by the Captain's home—it's very private, and he doesn't allow anyone to go there with him. From what I understand, the Lord built it himself, as a hideaway for him and his future mate. Of course, he hasn't found her yet, so he's been using it on his own—But," Isa dropped her voice, leaning in towards me with a conspiratorial smile, "I overheard from Tom—right before his Lordship asked Marcus to go out the cabin—that he wanted it to be 'prepared'." 

Isa pulled back, a glint in her eye as she shrugged. "Surely he must mean that he wants it prepared for his mate right? So he must have found her."

His mate. My stomach twisted at the thought, my hands frozen and useless as Isa finished folding the last of the linens, still chatting on and blissfully unaware of my discomfort. And yet, what right did I have to be uncomfortable? What right had I to his Lordship's affairs? Gods, affairs—that was the wrong word, or at the very least the last word I wanted to imagine.

I didn't want to imagine him with someone else, doing all of those unspeakable acts he did to me in my dreams every night, of another woman earning the pleasure I had been robbed of for days. Only she wouldn't be a woman, not really—whoever she was, I was sure she was a Wolf. And he was her's, not mine.

The hours floated away in a haze as morning turned to afternoon, and I found myself unable to focus on my work. My stitches kept coming loose, my lines untidy and my cuts uneven. It was as though I wasn't quite there, my mind somewhere far away from my body. 

My fingers kept wandering to a handkerchief that Nathaniel had left on my workbench, the cloth deeply saturated with that delectable scent of cinnamon and cloves. Eventually I gave up on my work, unable to focus, and wandered out into the garden to clear my head.

It was a pleasant day, but not even the fresh air and sweet scent of lavender could fix my sour mood. Wandering through the dirt path of the garden, I found my way through the hedges to a small fountain. 

The spigot in the mouth of the statue was broken, and turbid water sat stagnant in the cracked basin. Gathering up my skirts, I sat on the ledge, a cool breeze winding through the hedges and shifting my hair.

Pulling the handkerchief out of my pocket, I raised it to my nose and inhaled like a woman starved, flooding my senses with Nathaniel's scent until my body relaxed; my shoulders loosening, my knees bending, the knot in my stomach uncurling. But the moment I removed it, the nausea returned, an unescapable sorrow wrapping around my heart. If anything, the handkerchief was making it worse, teasing me with what I needed.

Needed. I had not thought about it like that before, but that's what it was. It was a need, a hungry desire to be wrapped so fully in his masculine scent that I drowned in it.

"No." I blurted allowed to myself, standing up and squeezing my eyes shut. It was his flirtations, his glances and comments that had inspired this insanity in me, and it was not my fault. I would not succumb to it. I would not suffer for something I had not caused. I would tell him, the next time I saw him that he must stop all of this at once. Both for the sake of his mate and for my own. I would allow myself a moment to wallow, to feel foolish and sad, and then there would be no more of it.

I was no stranger to suppressing my basest feelings. After Mother passed, I lived for months in an odd sort of malaise. Rising, working, sleeping—over and over again until the pain faded into a dull ache. I was stronger than I gave myself credit for, and I would not lose myself to the ridiculousness of desire.

"Are you quite alright?"

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