Page 31 of Warwick

I snapped my fingers. “Yes, that. What does he need to be happy? How can I give that to him?”

Lev smiled. “Cecil is simple. All you have to do is love him. He’s happiest when he’s around those that love him. He enjoys spending time with the family. He loves to bake cookies. He only wants to be loved. That’s it. I think anything else to him is just an extra bonus. We’ve discovered that he wasn’t really loved growing up, which makes his desire to find love make sense.”

Love. I opened my mouth and closed it. I didn’t know what love was. How did one fall in love?

“You’re thinking entirely too hard, Warwick,” Chin said. I looked at the dragon omega and shook my head.

“I’ve never known love,” I told him.

“You might not have known or felt it personally, but you’ve seen it,” Chin told me. “You’ve seen Sergei and me together. Edison and Wallace. Daegal and Mael. Several of the others. And even your own packmates. They show love and affection toward one another.”

I thought about that for several moments. I thought about the silly looks that came over Atticus’s and Damien’s faces. When they were teased about it, they often just mentioned how they were talking to their mates through their bonds. They mentioned how something as simple as going home and finding their mate at home made them smile. Or cooking together. Going for runs together. Showers, long nights together. Those, of course, came from Atticus and Damien because neither of them seemed to have any reservations about sharing what they did with their mates. Not that the rest of us didn’t already know.

But thinking about Reinhold and how he was so gentle with his little wolf shifter mate. Or Ramsey with his little fox shifter.

“I think he’s realizing that he sees examples of what love looks like all of the time,” Lev said.

I nodded absently. “How will I know when I love him? I just met him. And I know Cecil doesn’t love me. He smiles but then looks sad when he looks at me. That has to make me think that he’s upset with his mate—with me.”

“You’ll know,” Chin said. “You’ll be looking at him, or you’ll be at work, and it will suddenly hit you. I fell in love with Sergei almost instantly. But my situation was vastly different than yours is. But when you can’t wait to see his smile or get home to him.”

“Or for him to come home to you,” Lev added. “Or you find yourself doing whatever it takes to get a reaction from him. You find yourself making funny faces so he’ll smile. Or giving him puppy eyes so he’ll bake you cookies.”

I thought about that. I could make my own cookies. But would Cecil want to bake them with me? For me?

I nodded. “Thank you. You have both given me a lot to consider. I need to go find Cecil and see if I can make him smile.” I stood.

“Warwick?”

I looked at Lev, who was standing now. “Yes?”

“Be kind to Cecil,” Lev said. “Talk to him, and listen to him when he talks to you. Communication is very important when it comes to making a relationship work.”

“I can do that. I happen to be very good at listening. I’ll have to work on the talking part. Most people don’t want to talk to me though, so I don’t usually talk to them.”

“Perhaps that will change,” Lev said.

I shrugged. If it did, all right. If not, it wouldn’t bother me. I was used to it because it had always been that way.

“Thank you again. I appreciate your time.” I nodded to both Lev and Chin before I used magic to pop me back at the new house that I was going to be sharing with Cecil. I figured it would be easiest to track him from here. What I didn’t expect was to find my mate sitting on the back step, staring out at the forest. Had he been there the entire time? Only one way to find out. I opened the door to start that communication thing that Chin and Lev had mentioned.

Chapter 12

Cecil

Iheard the door open behind me but didn’t bother to look. It could only be Warwick. Nobody else even knew we were in the house yet. It was still the middle of the afternoon, and everyone around here was still at work. Not only that, but we only had one neighbor, and I’d been told they both worked for the council.

When Warwick moved to sit next to me, I glanced up at him. I had long since stopped crying. I’d had my cry, and that was that. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get through life with what I’d been given. I’d always told myself that they were parents, and mine sucked, but my mate would be different—better.

“Did you have a good run?” Warwick asked.

I grinned. “I didn’t go,” I told him as I sighed. “I probably should have, but I just decided to sit here, and then I started thinking about things.”

Warwick was quiet for a long moment. “About what? Care to share?”

I glanced at my mate. “Just life in general, I guess. I try really hard not to let it get me down too much. I know I’m incredibly fortunate in some regards, but in others, I can’t help but wonder and question why.”

Warwick stared at me before slowly nodding. He went quiet again, and after a while, I looked back out at the trees. They were swaying gently in the breeze. It was still early October here, and the weather had already cooled somewhat, but summer seemed to want to hold on a little longer. That probably meant we’d be buried in snow soon enough. I scoffed at the thought. That was usually how it worked.

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