Page 32 of The Alpha's Bullied Pregnant Mate

“I’m sorry.” Fannar rubbed his eyes. “My mother has been asking about you, Isla. She sent her apologies for the… madness that happened your last visit. She would like to meet with you again. She also wanted me to inform you that it would just be us this time.”

Isla frowned and shook her head. “Sounds like something she would say.” She drummed on the counter top with her fingers, her smoldering gaze hanging steadily on Fannar. It was a look that terrified him more than he could admit. “Fine. When?”

Fannar blinked. “Err, now? We’re supposed to have lunch together.”

“Alright. Give me half an hour to get ready.” She washed her mug and hung it on a hook. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why you couldn’t just call me to give me some prior notice.”

She walked up the stairs without giving Fannar a chance to respond. As he watched her leave, he wondered the same question, and he came up empty. He took a sip from the mug. There was no way she would be ready in half an hour. He stretched his legs and got comfortable.

***

He found his mother in the drawing room. The weather was warm enough and a table had been arranged with three chairs on the balcony facing the driveway. His mother sat alone, as she had promised, thumbing idly through a book.

She looked up and smiled at Fannar and Isla. “My darling! How nice of you to make it!” She got out of her seat and wrapped Isla in a hug. “My, but are you a beauty. You look wonderful. I trust Fannar here passed my apologies, but I’d love to say it again. I’m sorry for all that nasty business. Today, it’s just us. You have my word.”

“Thank you,” Isla said, smiling. “You’re too kind. Water under the bridge, really.”

“Good, good. I suppose you’re right. Please, have a seat.” She turned to Fannar and hugged him as well. “My boy. You look so good. Love looks good on you, you know.”

Fannar shot a glance at Isla and their eyes met for the briefest moment and he turned back to his mother and cleared his throat. “Uhm, right. It’s quite the experience.”

“And I can’t wait to hear all about it,” the former Luna said. At some gesture he didn’t see, servants poured into the drawing room and filled the lunch table with food.

He watched his mother talking to Isla while insisting on preparing a plate for her. A part of him wished it was real. That Isla was really his mate and this beautiful scene was not just an elaborate lie concocted by him. He hated that he was lying to his mother, but what other choices did he have?

“So, Isla. I’d love to know all about you,” his mother said, soon as everyone had settled. “I have heard a thing or two, but not a lot from you directly.”

Isla glanced at Fannar and he nodded encouragingly. He tried to look calm on the outside, but within, a violent storm was raging in his mind. Isla set her fork down and dabbed at the side of her mouth with a napkin.

She took a sip of wine from her glass and let out a low exhale. “Let’s see, where to start? There’s not much to tell, really. I have lived here all my life, and barring short trips to the neighboring towns, I’ve never really left.

“I’ve always wanted to see what the world is like beyond the ice and snow. I know it can be dangerous for our kind, and I know that no place would ever really feel like here, but I’d love to see what lies beyond the mountains. Seeing how I can’t do that yet, I try to do so in the books in the library. It’s not the same thing, but I can be pretty imaginative.”

“Charming,” his mother said after a long pause. “You’re such a charming young woman. When you speak, you have a way of showing your soul. It’s special and it’s something that’s not very common with wolves of our pack. I see why others would feel threatened by you.”

Isla frowned. “Threatened? It’s quite the opposite, seeing just how much they put me through every day.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe they are threatened.”

Fannar’s mother laughed and shook her head. “That’s just the thing, isn’t it? People fear what they don’t understand, and that fear makes them act irrationally. They do the things they do because they are threatened.

“You do something we are too afraid to do. You live, and you dream. These are things we do not understand. Our very instinct is survival. Dominance. Preservation. You are so different, its all we can do to be threatened by it. I’m sure my son here went through the same dilemma in high school. Why else will such a sweet boy act so poorly to a young girl?”

Fannar was listening but his mind was far away. His mother was right, of course. She’d always had a way of seeing right into the heart of things. It was one of the most amazing things about her, her ability to thoroughly understand a situation with next to no effort on her part.

He remembered the first time he saw Isla and just how uncomfortable everything about her had made him. It was a battle of extremes within him. One part pulling him constantly towards her, and the second part fighting against how different she was.

Isla’s conversation with his mother continued quietly and he watched both women quietly, as if a veil separated him from them. For what it was worth, they had probably forgotten that he was even sitting there with them.

One thing stood out as he watched Isla go back and forth with his mother. She was brilliant. For someone who didn’t come out much, she had a mind sharper than many people he’d ever seen and he saw his mother nodding appreciatively every time Isla opposed something she said, or expressed a different opinion.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as he heard someone stumble beside him. He turned in surprise and saw it was one of the servants. She had a tray of drinks in her hands and she was stumbling towards him, the drinks already tilting as she fell.

He moved quick but not nearly quick enough. He couldn’t escape the drinks and catch the woman at the same time, so he made a call. The drinks spilled all over him, with the glasses smashing on the concrete floor. He reached around the woman and steadied her before she could fall on the broken shards littering the floor.

He righted the woman even as she started apologizing profusely. “Stop it, Lisa. Are you hurt?” He held her shoulders and eyed her up and down.

“No, sir, I’m not,” she replied, crying. “I don’t know what happened, but I just slipped and made a mess.”

“Nothing to be worried about, Lisa. I can just get a new set of clothes. It’s alright.” He turned to the two other women. “Please give me a moment. I need to wash up and change out of these clothes.”

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