Page 29 of Pregnant Wolf's Mate

“What exactly is there for you to thank me for?” Ray asked, looking at her with his eyebrow still raised. He closed the distance between them and Macie felt her heart beginning to race. Her head spun with the desire to be close to him and suddenly she couldn’t think of anything else.

Instinctively, she stepped forward and placed her palms on his chest. Stepping close so that her body was pressed flush to his, she looked up into his eyes and said, “I wanted to thank you for what you did for my sister.”

Though he continued to smile, it looked far less cocky on his face now and as he shrugged, Macie got the sense that he was going to say something that she definitely wasn’t going to like.

“I wouldn’t thank me just yet,” he said with a deep sigh and a shake of his head. “Somehow, I think I may have just caused more trouble for Lottie.”

At that, Macie took a step back, unable to even blink as she demanded, “What do you mean?”

Her heart raced even harder for a second, though this time it most definitely wasn’t desire that caused it to be so. Had he gone to Dash after the meeting and told him something in private? Was she wrong to have trusted him? Fear gripped her as she imagined all the ways that things could go terribly wrong.

“What I mean is, if there is an alliance made between the demon wolves and the Silverdale pack, where exactly do you think that demon wolf will look for his alliance?” Ray said, looking her dead in the eye as though he was trying desperately to get her to hear exactly what it was that he was saying. At his words, bile started to rise in the back of Macie’s throat. She shook her head quickly and viciously, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“You can’t be serious,” she hissed at him angrily. “Lottie would never actually marry a demon wolf. She…she just has a stupidly kind heart. He manipulated her. That doesn’t mean anything.”

Ray crossed his arms over his chest then and cocked his head to one side, looking at her as though he wanted to think harder about it, as though he was just waiting for her to finally come to the same conclusion that he had.

“You are being ridiculous!” Macie insisted, feeling her anger rising once more. For once she felt as though her wolf might actually spring forth without her need to be touching him, without the need for him and his own wolf to call her forth like they had the night before.

As though he sensed just how infuriated she was, Ray lifted his hands in surrender and shook his head. “I’m just warning you not to thank me too soon, especially if Dash learns who helped the demon wolf escape.”

Macie shivered at that. Would their cousin really use Lottie as a way of brokering peace if he was to learn what had happened between her and the demon wolf?

“Nothing even happened between them,” Macie protested, shaking her head firmly. The thought of her sister being anywhere near a demon wolf in that way, in the same way she had been with Ray, made her feel sick to her stomach. Lottie would never betray her pack that way.

Just when she was beginning to think that she should leave before he said anything else to upset her, Ray broke the distance between them and reached for her hands. Gripping hold of her fingers in his, he held her hands up to his chest and looked down into her eyes with such longing that it made her heart race all over again.

“Enough about your sister and that damned wolf. We should be thinking about us,” he insisted. Holding both her hands in one of his, he reached up with his freed hand to stroke several strands of hair away from her face. “What do you say we take a walk back to Dash’s office and have a private word with him?”

The lump in Macie’s throat hardened, though this time it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling. In fact, she was quite thrilled at the thought, especially when she realized that it meant Ray was actually taking whatever this was between them seriously. After seeing how he had already stood up for her in front of the entire pack, she was certain that there was no doubt left between the two of them.

“You mean, you want to go and tell him our intentions?” she asked, hoping that she had not misread his meaning. A thrill ran through her at her own words and she struggled to keep herself from hoping too badly.

“I mean to go and tell Dash that we want his permission to be mates,” Ray said, sighing deeply. He glanced down for a moment almost as if he was ashamed. Then he added, “The way we always should have done it in the first place.”

Macie cringed at that. The thought of having to ask her cousin who she could and couldn’t be mated with made her feel all kinds of wrong inside. Though her parents had always tried to tell her what to do and who to be, she had never really let them get to her, not really. Deep down she had always been the same Macie, not Macie Silverdale, just Macie. Yet it didn’t matter whether she was a Silverdale or not, she was a member of the pack, and by rights she and Ray should have gone to Dash first.

“Do you think now is a good time?” she asked, her skin crawling at the idea of having to get it over and done with.

“I don’t think there would ever be a right time but after what we just did in front of the whole pack, it’s probably best if we do it, even if it’s only for a little damage control.”

Macie couldn’t argue with that and so she nodded.

“I’m ready when you are,” she said, glad that her tone was much more confident than she felt.

Standing outside the door of Dash’s office was even more nerve-wracking than standing outside Ray’s bedroom had been. The only thing she had to ease her nerves was Ray’s hand in hers, and she squeezed gently until she heard her cousin call, “Come in!”

With only a glance at each other, both smiling in a reassuring fashion, Ray pushed open the door and the two of them stepped inside together. Hand in hand, they remained just inside the doorway as Ray bowed his head and said, “Alpha, we want to speak with you privately.”

Macie looked at her cousin sitting behind his desk and saw the way he glanced down at their entwined hands. He scoffed for a moment and shook his head. “I think I can guess why you’re here. You had better close the door.”

Macie didn’t need to be told twice and still gripping hold of Ray’s hand, she used the other to click the door closed behind them, hoping that nobody else in the pack was close by to overhear the conversation. Walls and doors weren’t all that much use in a manor filled with werewolves, but they at least gave the illusion of privacy when needed.

“Why don’t you both have a seat?” Dash suggested, gesturing to the armchairs that were placed opposite his desk.

Though she felt a little reluctance from Ray, he didn’t offer any protest and together they crossed the room to sit in the two chairs. It was only then that Macie’s hand broke away from Ray’s, the seats too far apart to allow them to hold each other any longer.

“Go ahead,” Dash said when neither of them made any attempt to speak. He sat behind his desk with his hands clasped before him, looking every bit the expressionless alpha that his father had been when he was in charge. The only difference was that Macie wasn’t anywhere near as scared of facing him as she had been his father. She had grown up with Dash being nothing more than her big cousin. In some ways he was even like a brother to her. But for the first time in her life, she was face to face with him and she wasn’t sure which way their conversation would go. She looked him deep in the eye, trying to figure out what kind of mood he was in, but it was next to impossible.

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