Page 46 of Promised in Blood

He shakes his head. “Pack life was never really for me. At least not the life my father imagined. My brother was much more suited to it, so I stepped aside after our dad died. I prefer life here on campus. Teaching new wolves, an endless supply of fresh warm bodies.” He nudges my arm. “And you’re here. Even though you’ve barely spoken a word to me in the past sixty years.”

“You never tried to speak to me either. You never apologized.”

He laughs. “Maybe because whenever I so much as looked at you, Axl and Xavier threatened to rip out my heart.”

A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. I can just imagine the hard time they gave him, and he fucking deserved it too. “I guessed they might do that.”

“And I knew what I’d done. Our kinds were never meant to be together, and I knew that if and when I met my fated mate, I would have to break your heart again. I couldn’t do that to you.”

He’s right, but that doesn’t make his rejection hurt any less. “We could have been friends.”

He cocks his head to the side. “I’ll remind you of the aforementioned ripping out of my heart.” His smile fills my head with so many memories. So many good memories that I buriedbeneath the pain of him leaving. A pain that I realize I no longer feel when I look at him.

“You were right to end it,” I admit.

“But not to ghost you the way I did. I took the easy way out, and I’m sorry.”

Wolves are obnoxiously strong-willed and guarded, but Osiris’s openness with me now is all too apparent. He’s letting down his walls, and I know how much it takes for him to do that. “Thank you.” I already feel a little lighter. I have carried this hurt around unnecessarily for too long. And yes, I loved him, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for Ophelia. Unlike me, Osiris understood all along that a bond would be different. That it would separate us eventually. He has numerous children with various wolf mothers, but he’s never settled with a single one of them. “I understand the whole fated mate thing now.”

“I see the way you are with your girl. Why do you think I finally plucked up the courage to speak to you?” He winks, further dissipating the tension.

“I see you still haven’t met yours yet.”

He shakes his head. “Perhaps I don’t have one.”

I frown. My research tells me otherwise. “Don’t all wolves have them?”

“Maybe she died before I got a chance to meet her. Who knows.” He shrugs. “I’m happy as I am though.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Fucking anything that moves?”

He bumps his shoulder against mine. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta, right? Especially as Axl and Xavier are off the market now too.”

“Yep. Now you have no competition at all.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth, his eyes flickering with a hint of yellow. “They were never any real competition.”

I shake my head. “You never had any problem with confidence, did you?”

He shrugs. “I was blessed with good genes. Why not take full advantage?”

I dip my head so he doesn’t see my goofy smile. He’s so much deeper than he pretends to be. In fact, he is one of the smartest men I know. It feels good to have cleared the air, and I only wish we’d done it sooner because I’ve missed his friendship more than I’ve missed his perfect abs. “Wait until you meet your fated mate, buddy. You’re going to be in for a rude awakening.”

“Nobody will ever tame me, Malachi. You know that.”

Even he knows that’s not true deep down, but I don’t call him on it. Now that I have Ophelia, I can’t imagine having to wait around for my soulmate to show up or enduring the agony of not knowing if they ever will.

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Axl and Xavier were—” Ophelia stops talking when she notices Osiris standing on the other side of the bookshelf, previously out of her line of sight. An adorable blush spreads over her cheeks.

Osiris arches an eyebrow. “They were…”

“Um, hi Professor Brackenwolf,” she says coyly.

He smiles. “It’s a pleasure to formally meet you, Ophelia, although I have heard many good things about you.”

I slip my arm around her waist and pull her to me, burying my face in her neck and growling when her scent floods my senses.

“Malachi, stop,” she whispers. “Not in front of the professor.”

---