Page 43 of Rejected By Wolves

“She’s sleeping?” My mother sounds astonished.

“She must be very tired,” I mumble, knowing it is more than that.

My brothers definitely did something to relax her, and she seemed very comfortable in my arms afterwards. True mates have instincts about each other that help them to bond much more quickly than mates who are not fated but chosen.

“We work long hours,” she says with a sigh. “It can be a little gruelling.”

My mother moves back, going into the house and holding the door open so I can bring Lita inside.

I crouch and step inside, seeing the table has been pushed back against the cabinets.

She must have done that while I was gone. I move forward a few steps and she closes the back door.

“What work is it that you do?” I ask, knowing she was on the Alpha’s board of advisors before I was discovered and exiled. I suspected she would be demoted after that happened. There is no way the Alpha could have any trust in her after that deception.

“I’m in charge of the cafeteria, and Lita works with me there,” she admits as she moves past me to open the door that leads into the hallway.

I blink at her. “The cafeteria. But isn’t that …”

“The worst gig in town?” she laughs. “That’s what happens when someone keeps pissing the Alpha off.”

I grind my teeth together. The Alpha is going to regret many things when I am done with him. He has hurt all the people I care about. I could torture him until the end of time, and it would never be enough.

My mother sighs as she leads me out into the hallway and into the bedroom that looks out over the back yard. The room that was going to be mine one day, when it was safe. That day never came for me, but I am glad Lita was able to have this room.

She pulls the sheets back. “Close the drapes, would you? They’re too far for me to reach.”

I put Lita in bed and cover her sleeping form with the sheets carefully, not wishing for her to be cold.

Then, I lean over her and close the drapes.

I ignore the urge to nuzzle against her cheek. It rises and falls sharply, an instinct that’s imbedded deep. I don’t want to do anything that my mother might think is inappropriate. She doesn’t know yet that Lita is my fated mate, and it feels like something Lita should know about before her guardian is told.

I spot the stack of books by the side of the bed as I am moving back.

My gaze moves over them as fond memories return of my mother reading to me as a child.

I bet that’s why Lita has these now. She will have read to her, too.

She looks wistful when I turn back to her. “She loves stories as much as you always did.”

It takes a moment to realize what that means, and it makes me wonder if some things changed when I was gone.

“The Alpha allowed you to raise her?”

She hid me because I would have been exiled. This girl’s mother died, but children are not supposed to be raised by their parents in Nightshade. There is a nursery that is also a sort of school, where the children are raised until they are old enough to live in groups without supervision.

She moves out of the doorway, gesturing for me to come out of the room.

I follow her, even if it does not feel right to leave my mate alone so soon after finding her.

I knew what I was doing bringing her back here, and I know the separation is temporary.

Even so, closing the door on her causes a strange sense of loss within me.

I do not believe I would cope well if I were never to see her again.

It is a relief that I will be coming back.

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