Page 15 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

He blinked at her, and she returned his shocked gaze unflinching. “Humor me for a moment, here. You’re really suggesting that we lie? To Lorekeepers?”

“Of course not,” she said sharply, setting down the croissant. “I would never lie about something so important. But three months from now…” A slight shrug of her shoulders. “It’s not as though an embrace or a kiss would count as a consummation. What difference would a single night make? As long as we can both agree that this was a one-off mistake that won’t happen again, I don’t see why anything has to change.”

“Right,” he said faintly. Trust Lyrie to blindside him yet again. “A mistake, a one-off. A blip.” She looked a little puzzled at that last one, but she nodded anyway. “That’s all it was, huh?”

Those eyes suddenly felt so cold it almost hurt to hold her gaze. “Do you disagree?”

Reeve hesitated for a long moment. The truth was he’d never had a night like that in his life, and if this was any other situation, he’d be thinking some pretty serious thoughts about whether he’d just found his soulmate. But this wasn’t any other situation—this was Lyrie. This was a woman who’d come to live with him out of sheer dogged duty to her pack and to the protection of wolves everywhere. Whatever they’d felt for each other last night, it certainly seemed to be gone now. And so he just shrugged his shoulders and sipped his coffee. She seemed satisfied enough with that response, which only served to make him feel worse.

“So, for clarity,” he said abruptly, not liking how harsh his voice sounded. “What happened last night—didn’t happen. And if it did happen, it didn’t mean anything. Is that about right?”

Lyrie held his gaze coolly, then took a sip of her own coffee. “That’s about right, yes.”

“Great. Glad that’s sorted,” he said through gritted teeth. And then, feeling the awful inevitability of his oldest habit closing around him like a fist, he got to his feet and walked out of the room.

Chapter 10 - Lyrie

Three months, Lyrie kept telling herself. Less than that, really, if you took the first week into account. Eleven weeks, then. Ten weeks and six days. She headed back to her own quarters as soon as Reeve had left her alone in his dining room, flinging his borrowed clothes into a far corner as soon as the door closed behind her. They smelled like him. Everything smelled like him—herskinsmelled like him. Gritting her teeth, she marched right into the little bathroom attached to her room and turned on the shower. She was grateful that she’d taken the time to familiarize herself with this piece of new technology, at least… though she refused to allow herself to grow fond of the convenience or the quiet pleasure of being able to soak herself in hot water any time she chose.

It was half an hour before she was satisfied that she’d scrubbed every last trace of Reeve from her skin, and she climbed out of the shower with an eerie kind of peace settling over her like a shroud. Whatever had happened to her last night—whatever horrible force had taken hold of her—it was over now. Just a brief diversion, that was all it was. What had he called it? A blip. Just a blip, when she’d briefly gone insane and entertained the possibility that Reeve, of all people, was her—no, she thought firmly, narrowing her eyes at her pink-faced reflection in the steamy glass of the bathroom mirror. She wasn’t even going to dignify the idea by thinking about it. She’d made a mistake, and now she was going to forget that it ever happened.

Three months, three months, three months. She could survive three months. First things first, she needed something to keep her mind occupied. Lyrie took to spending her days on the mainland, rising before dawn so she could arrive on the construction site at the same time as the workers. She’d been relieved to learn that her idea of mixing up the work teams had been acted on, and though they were some awkward interactions, she could tell that the wolves were already beginning to warm up to one another. After all, it was hard to regard a fellow wolf with suspicion when they were playing an elaborate game of Charades in an effort to describe what needed to be done next. Lyrie paced the construction site, listening in to the halting multi-lingual conversations she could hear taking place, smiling when she heard her old packmates attempting English, smiling wider when she heard her new pack’s wolves speaking in a halting, strangely accented version of her own ancient tongue.

It wasn’t going to heal everything overnight, she knew that. But it was a start, and a more powerful one than many would give it credit for.

She found herself avoiding Darion. Ever since the disastrous night she’d spent with Reeve, the night she was determined to forget (no matter how vividly the images seemed burned into her memory) she’d felt a toxic combination of panic and shame whenever she thought about Darion. What would he say if he knew she’d fallen into the arms of his hated enemy? What would he do if he learned that she’d actually consummated the pairing, consigned herself permanently to a life at Reeve’s side? Besides, some irrational part of her couldn’t help but think that she’d betrayed him somehow. For a long time, she’d nursed a strange, secret suspicion that her true soulmate was Darion, after all… that at some point in the future, he’d look at her and she’d look at him and they’d suddenly realize that they had always been destined for each other.

Now, she was certain that that had just been confused hero-worship on her part. It would have been a relief, putting those pieces together, if the realization hadn’t come on the heels of the sudden escalation of her relationship with Reeve.

Reeve, at least, was easy to avoid. He seemed to be doing his level best to keep out of her way, too, and they passed each other only very rarely, and always with a kind of stiff, halting formality that made her roll her eyes as soon as she was out of his presence. For a while, she entertained the idea of talking herself out of her attraction to him. She dwelled on his appearance at length, trying to find reasons that he wasn’t as handsome as he thought he was… the silvering of his hair, maybe, the faint lines around his eyes, the way his smile was just a little crooked sometimes… but she quickly gave up on that particular project when she realized it was only making her dreams more vivid.

The dreams… the dreams were tough. She’d spent the whole day distracting herself, working hard on the construction sites or coaching the wolves from her new pack in their pronunciation of words in the old language, but as soon as she fell into bed and let her mind rest a little, the memories of that night with Reeve would come creeping back into the forefront of her mind. Every time she fell asleep, her subconscious set about immersing her in a horrible mixture of memories of their night together, and fantasies about other things they might do together, until she was awake in a sweaty heap of blankets, unable to remember exactly which parts were dreams and which parts were memories.

It felt good to keep busy, at least. She finally felt like she was actually doing something, contributing something of concrete value to the island. When she ran out of things to do around the construction site, she’d head over to the old library. Syrra was always in need of a pair of extra hands, with the restoration of the archives, the ongoing repairs to the battered building, and last but certainly not least, a pair of rambunctious twins underfoot. The little ones had just started walking when Lyrie had arrived on the island, and they were growing more and more confident every day—not to mention adventurous.

It was nice, too, getting to know Syrra a little better. She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the standoffish way she’d treated Kurivon’s head lorekeeper in her early days on the island, but when she attempted an apology Syrra had only laughed, those enchanting blue eyes crinkling up with amusement.

“Are you kidding? With everything you were going through, you could’ve gotten away with being a hundred times ruder.” It had been a few weeks since the ceremony, and the two of them were taking advantage of the twins’ afternoon nap to have a quick cup of tea out the back of the library. There had once been a vegetable patch here, built by the islands’ previous residents when they’d been using the library as a last defense against the demons that had been slowly but surely overwhelming the whole island. Syrra spoke only occasionally of those days, and always with a deliberate, quiet care that told Lyrie not to ask any more questions than necessary. “How’s it going, by the way?”

Lyrie looked over at the question, pulled from her rumination by the rather serious tone in the woman’s voice. “You mean with Reeve?”

Syrra nodded. “Renfrey mentioned Reeve had said the adjustment period had been… a little intense. He was worried Reeve was putting his usual positive spin on an absolute trainwreck. But you seem alright.”

Lyrie smiled faintly, grateful to hear that she was at least putting a good front on the situation. “It was never going to be easy,” she said carefully, reminding herself with an uneasy twinge that she was talking to Kurivon’s most senior lorekeeper. Cozy little tea party or not, she had to keep her wits about her. If Syrra figured out that the union had been consummated, she’d be in deep trouble. “The early days were pretty awful, I won’t lie. But… we’ve been getting to know each other, slowly but surely, and I think we’re starting to see eye to eye a lot more. I mean, the situation with the construction site’s been coming along in leaps and bounds.”

“So I hear,” Syrra agreed with a smile. “Making them work together, forcing them to figure out a way to communicate themselves… so simple, but so brilliant. I’m glad you were able to make them see the sense of it.” She leaned forward. “But I wasn’t just asking you how things were going politically. I mean personally. How are you handling it?”

“Me?” Her heart thudded against her ribs, and she felt an irrational burst of fear as she remembered the old childhood rumor that lorekeepers of a sufficient skill level could read your thoughts. Nobody can read your thoughts but you, Lyrie, unless you let them show on your face. That was what Darion had always told her. She took a deep breath, turned her gaze to the thick vegetation that lay just beyond the library building. “I’m—fine.”

“Yeah, you sound fine,” Syrra said wryly, and Lyrie was surprised into a soft huff of laughter. “You’re in the weirdest situation I could imagine, Lyrie, and I’ve been in some deeply weird situations. It’s okay if you’re struggling. I know I would be.”

For a moment, she wavered on the precipice of coming clean to Syrra about everything that had happened… not only how much she was struggling with her new life, but the night she’d spent with Reeve, too, the strange, chaotic feelings for him that she was working her hardest to suppress. But she tightened her jaw and reminded herself, yet again, of Darion’s most fundamental lesson. Be strong, Lyrie. Weather this storm, like you’ve weathered every other storm in your life.

“Reeve’s an asshole,” she said finally, after a silence so long she was half convinced the twins would wake from their nap before it broke. Syrra burst out laughing, a surprising though charming sound, covering her mouth with one hand and waving apologetically. Lyrie found herself grinning reluctantly, too. “What?”

“I mean, you’re absolutely right,” Syrra choked out. “Sorry. Sorry, I don’t mean to… you just surprised me, that’s all.”

“He’s a good man, deep down,” she said softly, once the other woman’s laughter had subsided a little. “I can tell he means well. But the two of us…” She hesitated for a long moment, trying not to think about the way he’d looked at her when she’d woken up in his bed from the most restful sleep she could remember. “We’re not compatible, at the end of the day. That’s what I’m struggling with the most.”

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