Page 57 of Ruthless Wolf

Adeline and I grin at each other, slipping away to the bedroom. Our future is hanging between us, sweet and beautiful, as we prepare for bed and climb in.

Adeline slips into my arms like it’s natural. As if we’ve done it a hundred times before, and nestles into my chest. I stroke her arm gently, a peace I didn’t know existed wrapping around my heart.

"We will have beautiful cubs," she says dreamily.

"Yeah,” I chuckle, already imagining a little girl with dark hair and mischievous eyes. “I want three. You?"

Adeline chuckles. "Well, three isn't bad. I want a girl, though. I want to be able to name her Summer after my mom."

"Summer is a really beautiful name."

We don't speak for a while. It's still raining outside but the heavy pattering it had been making on the roof had now subsided. The smell of the rain floods the room, the tang of wet pine trees and cold night.

"Luke?" Adeline breaks the silence.

I drag my gaze from the door of the room, hating that I’m waiting for her brothers to break it down and steal her from me. Whenever something good is about to happen in my life, something else storms into it and ruins it. A few hours from now, I'll be on the road with Adeline, our past behind us, and I'm hoping, just hoping, that nothing will ruin the hours we have left.

Please let the curse that’s hung over my life be broken.

I tighten the embrace and try to banish the thought out of my head. "Yes?"

"I want to hear about your family."

My gaze drops to her. But all I can see is her beautiful hair where it parts to frame her face. She trails her fingers on my chest, as if scribbling words on them.

"Really?" My voice is tainted with pain.

"Yes,” she says, her voice hushed. “I want to hear how it happened."

The memory sneaks into my mind again. It's not something I want to welcome but for the sake of telling Adeline, I have to go over it. I shut my eyes and hear the fading drumbeats of my pack's festival, a celebration that had been taking place before the High Ridge wolves turned everything to an aching silence.

The smell of booze tingles my nostrils. It's not coming from the room but from that night, when I’d brought the beer to my nostrils and nodded to my mate that it was alcohol.

She didn't want to get drunk but her brothers kept passing off alcohol as nonalcoholic drinks to her because she couldn't smell. My mate had been born that way. She was the only wolf I knew who had no sense of smell.

"We were celebrating my brother's return," I explain to Adeline. "He left the pack for a while and came back. My dad saw the need to throw a party for him."

Adeline doesn't cut in. She listens with quiet attention, her steady heartbeat a soothing cadence against my body.

"That was when it happened. The High Ridge wolves came and crashed the party. They killed everyone, including my mate."

Adeline stiffens in my arms when she hears the word 'mate' and her heartbeat races, a little more than before. I stroke her hair and kiss her head.

"You had a mate?" she asks, trying to sound neutral even though her voice is strained.

"Yes."

Adeline raises her head to look at me. She studies me for a few seconds and then smiles. "You light up when you talk about her." The smile grows into a sad expression. Then she adds, "I'm sorry."

"I light up when I talk about you, too."

It's the truth. I'm not trying to make her feel less jealous or sorry for me. Jacqueline had made a comment about my face glowing whenever I talk about Adeline. She has this effect on me and has no idea how strong it is.

She puts her head back on my chest. "Tell me about your father. Did you love him?"

"I respected him. My father was this fearless wolf who didn't like people breaking his rules, not even his children. He was that strict. I'm not going to say my relationship with him was cordial but I feared him and he molded my brother and me into strong wolves."

"I don't know if my father still loves me." Adeline's voice quakes with ache. "He did, but he's different now. I was locked in a cellar for days and he didn't even..."

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