Page 23 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“Far be it from me to get in the way of swords time,” Reeve said gravely, inclining his head in a theatrical little bow that made Claire giggle. Darion did his best to keep the scowl off his face, trying to remember the last time she’d laughed like that at something he’d said. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself firmly. She didn’t need to find him clever, or funny, or witty, or even interesting. She just needed to learn to use a sword so he didn’t have to lie awake all night worrying that she was going to stumble into a nest of demons and—

“Darion? You still with us?”

He cleared his throat. Lyrie and Claire had left, and Reeve was looking at him from the other side of the table with one eyebrow raised.

“Yes. Fine. What do you want?”

Reeve sighed. “No teasing, okay? Lyrie made me promise. I am saying this not to get under your skin, which I’ll admit that I do enjoy, but rather in the spirit of…frank, brotherly communication. You’re an idiot.”

Darion narrowed his eyes. “Try again.”

“She’s your soulmate, Darion,” Reeve said, throwing his hands up impatiently. “I saw you using every bit of your willpower not to spend the whole meal staring at her. I saw you smilethrice. Thrice, Darion. She’s a delight, and you’re an old fool if you’re genuinely still fighting this—”

“She is just a nice person,” Darion ground out, reminding himself that his niece was sleeping only a few rooms away and it would be preferable not to break any furniture over his brother’s head until her nap was done. “We have been getting on reasonably well, given the ridiculous circumstances of her arrival on this island. That’s all it is.”

“She’s been living in your house. You have let her live in yourhouse, this entire time. Darion, you barely survived sharing a room with me when we were kids. You get restless if you’re in the same building as another person for more than an hour or two—”

“She’s amenable! Amenable to a fault!” Darion protested. As annoying as Reeve’s jokes and barbs could be, this sincerity from him was somehow a lot more unnerving. “She keeps out of my way, she’s quiet, she’s tidy—”

“She told us over lunch about how you two have been watching werewolf movies together. That doesn’t sound like she’s keeping out of your way. That sounds like you are spending time with her on purpose, Darion. You have to admit, the evidence is damning. And this is all without factoring in my supernatural insights.”

“I’m not interested in your supernatural insights,” Darion snapped, hearing his voice rising despite his determination to stop himself from waking the baby. “I don’t care what your so-called soulmate expert lorekeeper said. How in the world is someone supposed to glean something like that from a blasted webbed site, anyway?”

“I want extra points, later, for the enormous amount of restraint I am showing by not making fun of you for ‘webbed site,’ Darion,” Reeve said, his eyes sliding closed as he steepled his fingertips together in front of his forehead. “I’m really, really trying, here. And I don’t claim to understand what lorekeepers do. Ask her yourself, if you’re that interested. Her name’s Anessi—”

“Raske’s apprentice?” Darion rolled his eyes. “She’s not even a real lorekeeper yet.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Reeve insisted. “Anessi could be a total fraud—which she’s not, by the way—but that wouldn’t change what I’ve seen here today. You’re soulmates.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“She’s a human!” Darion roared, losing control of his temper. Reeve’s eyes widened and they both froze, glancing toward the closed door to the hallway, behind which lay the sleeping baby. A few frozen seconds passed, and they both relaxed a little, though Reeve’s frown had deepened considerably. “She’s ahuman,” Darion repeated in a half whisper.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Humans don’t have soulmates.” He’d been paying closer attention than Claire gave him credit for while they watched her movies. Humans were always falling in love with each other and then back out again, making mistakes, pledging themselves to the wrong people, realizing at the last moment that they should be with someone else…it was amazing they ever got anything done at all, with how much time they seemed to spend on romance. “I mean, look at where you found her, Reeve. A mail order bride?” Even the foreign words felt unpleasant on his tongue. “Pick a soulmate, move in without even meeting?”

“It worked for Lyrie and I.”

“That was a fluke, and you know it,” Darion growled. “Now, I’m as grateful as anyone that it turned out well, but you know as well as I do how badly that would have gone if the two of you hadn’t been meant for each other all along.”

“You call it a fluke, I call it destiny,” Reeve said, and Darion was surprised to hear how much passion there was in his voice. His brother usually hid his feelings under layers of irony. If he hadn’t been so angry with him, he might have been touched at how much this matter clearly meant to him. “But whatever you call it, that woman is perfect for you. And if you’re going to let her being a human get in the way of that, you’re a damned fool. I’d like to hear you make that argument to Syrra and Renfrey, by the way,” he added. “Maybe I’ll bring it up at the next Council meeting—”

“Don’t be a fool,” Darion interrupted. “Syrra’s from Halforst, she’s basically a wolf.”

“I think she’d disagree—”

“Um, hello!” A loud voice from the adjoining kitchen broke Reeve’s focus, and Darion realized in that moment just how loud their voices had gotten. Claire slipped through the door, her face bright red as she lifted her bag from the seat she’d been sitting in and slipped out again. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No trouble.” Reeve shot Darion a worried look as he got to his feet, then muttered something about checking on the baby and slipped out of the room. Darion spent the rest of the afternoon in solitary, brooding reflection, trying to recall exactly what he’d been saying when they were interrupted—and more importantly, trying to work out how much it might have hurt Claire’s feelings to have overheard. Had he claimed that humans were incapable of love, or just heavily implied it? How emphatic had he been, exactly, when he insisted that Claire couldn’t possibly be his soulmate? And if it was actually true, why was it bugging him so much? He cursed himself for being so careless, cursed his brother for getting him into the lazy habit of speaking English even with other wolves, even cursed the architecture of the house for not keeping their conversation more private. None of it seemed to make him feel any better.

At least Claire didn’t seem too upset when she came in from her lesson with Lyrie. She was still breathing hard, her dark hair damp with sweat and sticking to her forehead. Lyrie, who looked fresh as a daisy, had a faint smile in her eyes when she followed her newest pupil into the house, and though she said a number of stern things about having a long way to go, Darion knew her well enough to know that Claire had done very well indeed. Lyrie even suggested Claire take the wooden practice sword home with her, something Darion recognized as a high honor, even if Claire accepted it with a cheery indifference.

He’d almost let himself hope that the sword fighting lesson had put his conversation with Reeve completely out of her mind when she turned to him on the walk home. “So, what exactly is a soulmate?”

It was all he could do not to stop dead in his tracks. He took one slow, methodical breath to settle his suddenly racing heartbeat, then shrugged. “It’s what Lyrie and Reeve are. Why do you ask?”

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