Page 67 of Arranged Wolf's Nanny
“She is kind,” Rosalia said softly. “She has a smile that makes you feel safe. And she always believes the best of people. Even when they don’t deserve it.”
Eva tilted her head. “Do you still see her?”
Rosalia swallowed. “No. Not since I left. But…she writes to me.”
“You mean letters? Like with paper and ink?”
“Yes.”
“That’s so old-fashioned!” Eva giggled, covering her mouth.
Rosalia allowed herself a small laugh.
Old-fashioned indeed. They’d had to be creative with her father’s continued refusal to allow her a phone growing up. Rosalia had fallen in love with the process of putting pen to paper. She was halfway through a letter to her friend, and she intended to finish it later in the privacy of her room.
She wasn’t naive enough to think Rick would have arranged them to have a room together. They may have grown closer, but he still guarded his privacy ferociously. Their bedrooms were still in opposite wings of the house, with no indication at all that there would be a move in the future.
Katie reckoned he was just moving slow so as not to alarm her. Ever since the first night they had spent together, she had turned to her only friend for advice on a topic she was, admittedly, still so new to. Katie didn’t have much experience of her own, but her insights were invaluable.
When she wasn’t making crude jokes, that was.
She was so reassuring. Every worry that Rosalia had, every insecurity, Katie would take and lovingly reshape into something positive and hopeful. The separate bedrooms were for him to be respectful of her space. The infrequent sex was him allowing her to get used to something new and intense. The small details he gave her about his work, him opening up about his plans and plots and clever tricks against their enemies, that was himfinallyletting her in.
Rosalia didn’t want to let herself hope blindly. She liked to think herself too sensible for such things.
But still…there was more. She could sense it. There was so much more that he could give her. She had had a taste, and now it lingered just out of her reach, and she found herselfhungry.
Time drifted in the lounge, the distant murmur of negotiations seeping faintly through the walls. Eva’s questions tumbled one after another. Did Rosalia like dogs or cats? What was her favorite color? Did she know how to bake cakes? Each answer drew another story, another memory. Slowly,without realizing it, Rosalia found herself speaking of the Green Mountain Pack in ways she had not allowed in years.
She spoke of the woods in autumn, when the leaves turned gold and the air smelled of apples. She described sneaking into the kitchen with Katie to steal honey cakes, and how they had hidden beneath the table, giggling until the cook found them. She told of summer nights chasing fireflies, of braiding flowers into one another’s hair.
Eva listened with wide-eyed wonder, asking questions, laughing in the right places, sighing when Rosalia paused.
And with each word, the knot inside Rosalia’s chest loosened a fraction.
It was dangerous, she knew, to let herself remember with fondness. The Green Mountain Pack had never been home, not truly. Not with her father looming over every joy. But Katie had been real, her friendship untainted, and Rosalia could not, would not, let that slip away entirely.
Eva yawned then, curling against Rosalia’s side. Within minutes, her breathing evened, her small body warm and heavy. Rosalia stroked her hair absently, eyes fixed on the door Rick had disappeared through.
She wondered what was happening beyond it. She wondered how much longer she could live suspended between past and present.
And she wondered, not for the first time, if she had the strength to carve a future of her own.
Eva was still warm against her side, breathing softly, when Rosalia first heard it.
At first, she thought it was simply the swell of voices beyond the lounge walls, another flare of argument containedby the thickness of oak doors. But then came the sharper notes, shouts that carried through marble corridors, chairs scraped violently across tile, the low rumble of male voices raised in challenge.
The air shifted. The scents that had already been thick in the hotel now sharpened, spiking through the corridors like knives: dominance, fury, the musk of alphas bristling toward bloodshed.
Rosalia stiffened. Her wolf stirred uneasily beneath her skin, hackles prickling. The other people in the lounge, humans mostly, but a few wolves too, stirred and looked to the door with anxious expressions.
Eva blinked awake, rubbing her eyes, “What’s happening?”
“Shh,” Rosalia murmured, brushing curls from the girl’s forehead. “Stay close.”
The noise swelled. And then, like a dam bursting, the double doors of the meeting chamber slammed open. Wolves, bears, lions, humans, every kind of shifter poured out, their voices a thunderous tangle, their suits rumpled, eyes flashing gold and silver with suppressed shifts.
The scent of anger hit like a physical blow. It clawed down Rosalia’s throat, acrid and choking. She curled an arm protectively around Eva, instinctively turning the girl behind her as the tide of bodies swept into the lobby.
