Page 48 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Ouch.” Sebastian winced.

“She didn’t show up, and when I went to their apartment to find out why… She said she wrote to me. She said she gave me her new address, and when I never wrote back because I never got the letter…” I shook my head. “She thinks I abandoned her,” I said, my knee bouncing up and down.

“But you didn’t,” Sebastian said.

“Didn’t I though?” I asked. “I may as well have. I should have tried harder. I should have realized sooner something wasn’t right. Then maybe we’d have had enough time to get her before someone else did.”

“Wes, you didn’t give up on her. You went to our parents and told them something wasn’t right. You checked every day—no—everyhourfor an update on her.” I shrugged at Sebastian’s words. “Did you tell her that? Did you tell her Nolan’s parents tried to adopt her?”

“No,” I grunted. “It wouldn’t have mattered. She made her mind up. She thinks I’m a bastard, and she’s right.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“What?” I asked.

“Why do you care so much?” Seb repeated.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—I mean you fucking SHIFTED when you found out someone else had adopted her and that you would not get to see her. That you wouldn’t be able to reach out to her unless she contacted you first. When you thought you’d failed her. Shifted. At twelve years old.”

“What’s your point?” I asked.

Seb threw his hands in the air, then gestured to Nolan as if to say, “You try.”

“What Seb is trying to say,” Nolan began, “is you’ve never cared this much about what a girl thought of you. No girl has ever affected you like this. Then Haven comes back into your life, and one comment, one negative opinion from her, has you tearing yourself apart. Why? What makes Haven so special?”

His question, combined with his words from the previous night, had my spiraling thoughts halting in their tracks. There it was. The answer was staring me right in the face, taking the form of a nine-year-old girl with blue eyes and messy red hair, morphing into the beautiful woman who took my breath away the night before.

All this time, I hadn’t even realized it. But the impossible, imaginary standard I subconsciously compared every other girl to wasn’t impossible or imaginary—it wasn’t even a standard at all. It was a person. Her. Haven. “I-I don’t know, but—”

“Do you think she’s your mate?” Nolan asked.

I considered his words. She was human. Human mates weren’t unheard of, but there would be no way to know for sure yet. The mate bond didn’t appear until both mates were twenty-one.

“It’s too early to know,” I said. “Her birthday is still a few weeks away.” And then the next words left my mouth before I even had a chance to think about them, as if they were the words that had been on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be said for eleven long years. “But even if the Goddess doesn’t give her to me, I’m going to make her mine.”

I declared my intent with a determination I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wanted her. Damn it, I wanted her. And not just because of her looks, although that was part of it, but because of who she was.

I had already fucked up once in my life and almost lost her, so I would not let her go this time. Not without a fight. I knew what kind of man I was. I knew I could be the type of man she needed. My lycan stretched in satisfaction at my words and my thoughts, and I didn’t miss the smirk Sebastian gave Nolan.

“I’ll only say this once, but you’re right,” I admitted to Sebastian, and his smirk morphed into a grin. “I’ve never felt this for anyone else, and I don’t want to let it go. Let her go. I want her.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and leaned back against the porch swing. Shit. “I don’t know.”

“You should tell her,” Sebastian said.

“About what happened?” I asked. “About the adoption?”

He nodded. “And everything else, too,” he added.

“She’s not ready for that,” I said. “And I doubt she’d believe me. She didn’t even believe me when I said I’d never gotten her letter.”

Seb sighed in exasperation, his eyes rolling so far back all I saw were the whites.

“Fine. Fine,” he said, lifting his hands in surrender. “Do it your way. See how it goes. I have a training to help run, so I’ll see you later.”

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