Compromise

Chapter 5

Lifting the heavy mug of coffee to my lips, I took a careful sip as to not burn my tongue. I didn't care much about pain. I just hated not being able to taste due to my burnt taste buds.

I looked down at the ton of paperwork that had been left on my desk. I missed one afternoon and a morning and already I was way behind. Finishing it would be easy, but I still didn't like all the writing I would have to do.

Setting my mug back down, I picked up a gel pen and began writing back to a man by the name of Elijah. I knew the man well, but it had been quite some time I'd seen him and what I can recall of him were images of him holding me as a kid and laughing with my dad. Eli had been a great family friend for a long time. He was a lone wolf, but he liked it that way. He was quite old so he was strong enough to stand alone and survive. He also happened to be my mother's cousin.

I hadn't seen the man since my parent's funeral, but that was just him. He, like the rest of my ancestors, liked staying in the dark.

To be honest, writing to Eli wasn't exactly pack work, but I didn't care. I always felt something that almost resembled happiness when I received or wrote letters to this man. I just needed a break from work sometimes.

I was midway through writing the first sentence when I was interrupted by the opening of my office door.

I growled looking up, ready to tell off who had interrupted when I saw it was only Claude.

I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair. "Can I help you, Claude?"

The irritation was clear as day in my voice, but he chose to ignore it as usual. "Just came to leave you this."

He set down a small stack of more mail from who knows what financial companies wanting to rob me of my millions in the bank.

Olivia was usually the one to bring me my mail seeing as she was my personal assistant. This is what led me to believe that Claude wanted something else. "What are you going to lecture me on now?"

He gave a soft grin. "Nothing gets by you, huh? You're so alike your parents."

I rolled my eyes. "Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want, Claude?"

He sighed and tried to avert his gaze after a couple of seconds of my drilling holes into his head, he finally gestured the nearest chair in front of my desk. I stared him down a couple of seconds longer before giving the briefest of nods. He slowly took a seat. The gesture might have seemed wary to others, but I knew he was only taking time to think hard about what he was going to say. I knew Claude more than most people did. He worked better under pressure. That's why before any meetings, he did not plan any of it and just went to the flow. I would usually think it was stupid, but it worked for him. Let's see if it works right now.

He made himself comfortable. At least, as comfortable as you could get with your Alpha staring you down. "You already know why I'm here and what I want to address, but I'll say it anyway." He paused, finally meeting my eyes. "Your mate."

Yes, I knew this is what he had been planning on hitting on, but it still made a shock run through me. "Very well."

He took that as an invitation to continued. "You know I would probably say something along the lines of, 'accept your mate and he'll accept you'. I'm going to be very blunt here and say that accepting him isn't the right thing to do. I know that's what you were planning on doing anyway, but I just thought I'd let you know that I support you."

I can honestly say I was surprised. I had been waiting for him to beg me to accept my mate and try to be happy with him. Two things wrong with that: one, I seriously doubted a sane she-wolf would accept him, let alone an insane one such as I. And two, I don't think I could achieve happiness with anyone accept my sister or maybe Claude. Elijah was close, but he didn't exactly stir a joyful feeling inside of me. All I really felt towards Eli was respect, loyalty, and even a bit shy around him. I mean, if I spent more time with him, I'm sure I'd feel the same way I did around my sister. Already, I felt something in me when I wrote him. It wasn't happiness, but it was close.