Page 38 of The Wolf's Bullied Pregnant Mate
When we pulled away, his eyes searched mine. He looked just as confused as me, his dark brows pulling together. But those green eyes remained bright, and a small smile tugged at his mouth.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“Hi,” I whispered, scared of this difference, not knowing if I wanted the rough Zephyr back or needed more of this soft man. Both. I wanted both.
“Do not ignore me again after this,” I whispered.
“I won’t.”
And I believed him.
Chapter 14 - Zephyr
I wanted to talk to Alex and tell him everything I had felt in that pool earlier that day.
I wanted to ask him how he felt to have feelings for a non-shifter woman. As shifters, we were told what it was like to meet a mate—but that wasn’t how it had been between Adalyn and me. I hated her—I had tried to kill her and would have had Alex not stopped me in the woods that night. She couldn’t… She couldn’t be anything more than my enemy.
Sex was nothing for me. It had to remain that way.
And yet sex with her feels like everything, I thought to myself.
We were sprawled on the bed, Adalyn coveting a bowl of pasta heated up from a container in the fridge. I had begun making my way through rice drizzled with some sort of creamy spinach sauce. I looked at her, and when those dark eyes found me, I looked away.
I still didn’t know what had possessed me to kiss her after we had climaxed earlier, nor why I had let myself get lost in the kiss and not retreat from her completely.
Don’t be going soft for a witch now, Zephyr, I thought.She is a Lindell.
I looked back at her again.
Lindell witches were often blood-thirsty, vengeful women who stalked across the states in hunt of their enemies, tearing throats and hearts out. We had hunted each other across the country. I wasn’t the only shifter with revenge to settle with the Lindell coven.
“What?” Adalyn asked.
“How many witches are in your coven?” I asked her. The question took her off-guard. I watched the surprise flicker over her face before she furrowed her brows.
“Well, I’m not the matron of it, nor the leader, either, so I don’t entirely know.”
“What about an estimate?”
She shrugged, forking pasta into her mouth. A spot of sauce smeared on the side of her mouth and I wanted to lick it up.
Get a hold of yourself, Zephyr.
But everything in me was tangled and messy, wires crossing and sparking all wrong. Even now, just looking at her, I felt nervous and awkward. I had never felt like that.Fuck, I cursed myself.She’s done something to me. Spelled me or some shit.
I hoped she hadn’t.
“An estimate,” she mused, “Maybe one-hundred-fifty. We’re spread out across the state. We have the main bloodline—mine, Greta’s, etc—but then we have the witches sworn into our coven. Anyone can be a part of it if they swear loyalty and bring us the heart of anyone the Matron instructs.”
I went silent, waiting for the punchline, but she carried on eating.
“I know you rip out hearts, but…That’sliterally your initiation?”
“It’s not initiation,” she snapped. “We’re not some damn college sorority.”
Ah, there she was, the sharp-tongued witch I loved to rile up. This was much safer ground
than the Adalyn, who looked at me like I had just turned her world upside down in a soft way.
