Page 162 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Home. To be with Rachel. My wolf is calm now that he knows his luna is safe, and we’ve had some time to bond. And she’s with you, so there is no reason for me to be here.”

“But—”

“Put your big girl panties on and talk to your mate,” Nolan said through the mindlink. “I’m not going to hold your hand for this. No one is.”

I gulped, then nodded.

“Bye, Haven!”Nolan called. Then he left.

I frowned at his casual use of her name instead of her title. I had ordered him to call her luna instead of Haven. But I would have to deal with his ass later because I needed to finish groveling.

I walked back into the kitchen, where Haven sat on one of the barstools, staring over towards the window above the sink. I put the spatula in the sink, then picked up the plate of grilled cheese sandwiches.

My head pivoted between the food and Haven, who wasn’t even looking at me or paying attention to me. She was still blocking me from her emotions, too, although I was positive that was unintentional.

I walked to the trash can and dumped the sandwiches inside, then tossed the plate in the sink. My lycan whimpered at the loss of food and at how our plan was failing, but I wasn’t ready to give up.

Phase one was a bust, but I still had phase two. The part that would be the real winner. I hoped.

“What else did you and Nolan do besides eat pizza?” I asked as I leaned against the counter.

“We walked around. Talked. Talked a lot. He took me to the packhouse, and I took a shower,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

“I noticed that,” I said with a soft, dry laugh through my nose. “Well, since you already ate, can I show you something?” I asked.

She glanced at me and shrugged again. “Sure,” she said as she stood from her barstool.

I tried to keep my giddy, eager smile off my face as I turned and led her down the hall to the newly remodeled room in my house. Our house. Or at least, I hoped it would be our house.

I opened the door and let her step inside first, watching her as she looked around the room. My stomach bubbled, and there was sweat on my palms as I waited for her reaction.

She was quiet as she walked around and examined everything. Her bare feet padded on the hardwood floor as she moved towards the line of narrow, hanging mirrors I had placed along the far wall. They stood one right next to the other, varying in height and width, but together resembling a full wall mirror. Almost.

The wall opposite that I had left empty. But on the wall opposite the window, I had hung framed photos of her dancing that Peter had emailed me, as well as framed copies of some of her letters to me. She ran her fingers over one, her head tilting to the side as she looked at it, a small frown on her face.

“How’d you get these? You gave them all to me a few weeks ago.”

“I made scans of all of them before I moved in here,” I admitted, rubbing my neck. “Just in case something ever happened to the house.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything else, just stayed silent as she continued to take in the room I had created for her.

“I’m going to put a barre in over there,” I said, gesturing at the wall opposite the mirrors. “And I ordered a nice speaker system for you. And I’ll put in a real wall mirror too. But that’s all I could do on short notice.” She nodded again. “It’s a dance studio,” I added. “For you.”

“I figured that out,” she said, glancing at me with a twitch of her lips. “It’s small,” she observed.

“Yeah, I know. Eventually, I want to build you a real studio, but I want you to design it and pick out everything so it can be exactly how you want it. Plus there wasn’t really enough time to build an entire building in one day. But I want you to have your own space here, somewhere you can practice ballet or whatever, so you can keep your position in the company for as long as you want. I won’t make you give that up, I—”

She pressed her lips together and looked at the floor, her eyes twinkling, and I groaned and cut myself off. Always with the fucking rambling around her. I didn’t even know if she knew I only did that when she was around.

“This works fine,” she muttered.

I breathed out a sigh and relaxed a little, stepping into the room with her.

“I know I dumped a lot of information on you this morning,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets.

“Yeah, it was kind of a lot,” she agreed, crossing her arms and lifting her head to look at me. “Nolan explained a bit more, too.”

I was getting more and more frustrated that I couldn’t feel her emotions or sense what she was thinking, and my lycan didn’t like it much either. He wanted to be connected to his mate, because the bond was one way we could protect her.

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