Page 55 of Shadow Wolf
We walked into the kitchen together, we could hear Clare talking with Lyell. I wanted him to go away, but I didn’t want to look like an asshole. I growled low in warning, but he just looked at me and shrugged. Clare was wearing jeans and a blue tee. Her hair was down, and the dark silky strands made my fingers itch to run through it.
“Is college life fun?” He continued his conversation with Clare, but she could sense us there. It took her a few moments to turn around and look at us. But when she did those bright blue eyes widened just a fraction and I could hear her slight intake of breath.
“Hi,” she gave a half smile. It didn’t reach her eyes and my wolf called out to make a joke, do something to change that, but I didn’t have any. I was stunned to silence just from her being here. Mekhi could do all the talking because nothing was coming out of my mouth.
“Hi, Clare. Can I get you anything?” her eyes darted away for a moment but then we could scent her. She was happy. Whatever Mekhi was doing was working.
She chuckled nervously and pushed her hair behind her ear.
“Ah, a chocolate cookie and milk?”
My eyes widened and I smiled. That was such a Clare thing, she used to ask for them when she was having a bad day. Then my smile dropped. She was having a bad day. She only just got here.
“Sure thing, Pooh—” Mekhi cut himself off. He was going to call her Pooh bear. He smiled at her and quickly went into the pantry.
“Did you want to talk out here? Or maybe in the theater?” Where we used to spend most of our time.
“Yeah, actually. That would be nice.”
She got up and fidgeted with her hands as she waited on Mekhi. He held out a plate of cookies, she took one and thanked him softly. He held her drink and the plate and followed us to the theater room. A lot of make ot sessions were held there too.
She moved down to the front, to the spot we always sat and planted herself in the big cushions. She giggled as she sank deep into one and couldn’t get back up.
I laughed and held my hand out, she took it and I pulled her forward. It felt like old times, until she looked at me and her smile dropped, and she realized where we were.
“Thanks, I think I forgot they were so soft.”
Pain hit my chest at those words.Forgot. They hit Mekhi hard too.
“Milk?” He handed it to her and she took a sip, before putting it down on the floor.
She looked to me, then to Mekhi. Then let out a deep breath.
“I don’t know where to start, I have questions. Lots of them, and I was hoping you would answer them for me.”
We nodded, staying silent so she could ask. I needed to stay calm here, I didn’t want to overwhelm her and beg for her forgiveness. That wasn’t what she came for. She had questions and we would answer.
“Well, first one was why? Why did you do it?” I looked at Mekhi and he looked at me. Fuck, he said he would do the talking and I knew I would fuck this one up. He finally settled down beside me.
“Firstly, we want to say how deeply sorry we are. It was wrong of us to do that and we never should have. It’s just… We were heartbroken for you, we only wanted to make you and your parents happy, and we made a mistake. We were crying and upset over the fake break up. One of us mentioned that we wished that Galen could take away all the heartbreak, all the memories we had together, so it wouldn’t hurt this bad.
“But then we saw you at school, how much it was breaking you, and we knew that was how we could help you. We were stupid and impulsive. I don’t know how we even convinced Galen to do it, to be honest.”
I watched as she took it all in, she nodded and didn’t speak as she took a sip of her milk. I wish I had some chocolates for her. They would make her happier than cookies.
“Don’t worry, Lexi had a good talk with him, so did Alpha. We also had a good talking too. We now have all the worst shifts on security for the next six months.”
A good talking was my father taking away all my car privileges, then he kept me grounded for a week. He couldn’t spare me much longer on security, but I had no TV, phone and I was crawling up the walls at the end of the week. Mekhi didn’t get the same, but his parents were disappointed in him. And I think that hurt worse than anything for him. He never wanted to disappoint them. So he learned his lesson too.
She let out a small giggle, and my wolf wanted to lay down and have her stroke him behind the ear. I gripped my knees to keep from shifting.
“Six months, that seems a little extreme?” She then looked down at her hands and shook her head.
“Actually, that sounds fair. I had no memories for almost a year. So, it could have been worse.”
My heart was bleeding, we hurt our mate so much. There was nothing we could say to repair that damage, but I hope that her being here was good. She said she would see what happened with us, but that panther shifter was her mate and she wasn’t giving him up.
If we had to share her with him, I didn’t care. I would. He could join us as a packmate, it was a little unconventional, but then Lexi had a vampire and three wolf shifters as mates.
