HAVEN
Wesley stomped to the front door, and I picked up my blanket and backpack and took them back into our bedroom with me. Even though Wesley’s shirt provided more than enough coverage, I still felt awkward talking to his dad while wearing nothing else. Especially since we’d only met one time.
I slipped on a pair of the pajama pants Wesley had grabbed for me that belonged to Maddie, then I made my way back into the kitchen. I found Harrison sitting at the counter on a barstool and Wesley washing dishes at the sink, avoiding his dad’s gaze. Annoyance rolled off Wesley in waves, filling the room with tension as thick and sticky as tar.
My head swiveled back and forth between the two of them, observing the similarities in their body language, the way they wouldn’t look at each other, and the fact that neither wanted to be the first to speak. I had to hold in my laugh because even though I found it amusing, I knew my laughter would only have a negative effect on the situation.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked Harrison instead, hoping to diffuse some of the awkwardness.
Wesley sighed, but through the bond, I felt a small flicker of pride. I wasn’t sure why, but I made a mental note to ask him about it later.
Harrison lifted his gaze from the counter, where he watched his fingers as they tapped against the white marble. “Oh. Um. Yes, thank you,” he said, giving me a stiff smile.
I smiled back and turned to get a mug down from the cabinets. I had taken the time that morning to open every cabinet in the kitchen so I could learn where Wesley stored everything and take an inventory of what he had or didn’t have. And he had just about everything.
As I poured Harrison his coffee, I asked over my shoulder, “What would you like in it?”
“Just black is fine,” he replied.
I nodded and set the pot back down, then slid his mug to him across the counter. I felt Wesley’s eyes on me the entire time I moved around our kitchen, so I walked over to him after handing Harrison his coffee.
My hand grazed his bicep, and he turned to look down at me, his eyes softening as they landed on me. He sighed and leaned down to kiss my forehead, my eyes closing at the warmth and tenderness behind the simple gesture.
I smiled at him as he pulled back, then grabbed a dish towel and began drying the dishes he had already washed as we waited for Harrison to speak again.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.
Wesley tensed, and I reached over to rub his arm again, reassuring him.
I rolled my shoulder around, testing it, even though it hadn’t been giving me any issues. “Aside from the scarring, it’s completely fine,” I said.
“And you? How are you feeling?”
Before I could even think about how to answer that question, Wesley growled, dropped the pan in his hands, and gave his dad a sharp glare as he gripped the edge of the sink. “How do you think she is feeling? Her ex attacked her after he turned into a lycan. He tried to mark her in his lycan form. She almost bled out on the ground in a dirt alley and Sebastian barely made it here in time. We’re lucky he and Nolan went around your order and went to the club that night, otherwise—”
He stopped himself, pressing his lips together and looking up at the ceiling to hide the pain in his face, in his eyes. His whole body vibrated as he tried to not blurt out whatever else he wanted to say to his dad as he fought against the anger racing through his body.
He lowered his eyes to his dad again, his gaze icy and unmoving. “Why are you really here?” he asked. “Because I know it’s not to check on my luna. You haven’t even called or mindlinked me to see how we’re doing since you left the hospital that night.”
“I was giving you space. She was healing, and you needed to speak with her and explain everything. You needed time to bond and accept each other,” Harrison answered.
“Wes…” I whispered, covering his hand with mine. “I am okay. I am okay,” I repeated, looking at Harrison, my hand still on Wesley’s. “Mostly, I’m just trying to wrap my mind around everything still. It’s a lot to take in, you know?”
Wesley’s hand rotated, his fingers lacing with mine as he gave my hand a tight squeeze. “Has Sebby found Lennox yet?” I asked Harrison.
He shook his head, and I took a deep breath, my hand returning Wes’s squeeze. He stepped closer to me, and his arms came around my waist, his head dipping down to my ear. “Sebastian will find him, Sugar Plum. We won’t let him get away with hurting you,” he murmured, placing a kiss right next to my ear. “And I won’t let him near you. You’re mine to protect and protect you, I will.”
I nodded, my arms crossing over his to hold him in place around me. I needed his touch and his support to keep from crumbling, to keep the fear away. Even with his promise to protect me, I couldn’t help but still be worried about Lennox somehow getting to me and finishing what he intended.
“I did come to ask Haven something, actually,” Harrison said. “If you’re feeling up to it, the royal council member, Frederick, would like to ask you some things about Lennox.”
“Dad…” Wes warned, his voice low.
“Frederick just wants Haven to tell him what she can,” he assured Wes. “He won’t force you to talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable. He just figured, since he’s here, it would make sense to get the information from you so the council can then work on figuring out where he came from and how he was unregistered. And maybe it can help us find him as well,” he added.
“But—”
“It’s fine, Wes,” I said, my hand rubbing his arms soothingly. His grip on me relaxed a little, and I turned to Harrison. “I’ll talk to him before he leaves. Thank you for letting me know, sir. Alpha.”
He chuckled a bit. “I told you before, Harrison is fine.” “Right,” I said with a small smile.
He looked down into his mug and fidgeted with it. Wesley rested his chin on my shoulder, and I leaned back into his chest. Had I not known about the mate bond, the way my body always sought his would have struck me as odd. But with my knowledge of our newly forged connection, I realized the bond provided me with security, with comfort.
It was probably why I’d been so drawn to him from the start. That had bothered me before. To think the only reason he’d wanted me was because of some magical connection telling him he had to be with me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there must have been some instinctual part of our souls that recognized the other before we knew we were mates.
Harrison lifted his eyes to us again. “I also wanted to apologize. For ordering Wesley to not contact you at all. It was poor judgment on my part.”
“It’s all right,” I said, even though I could feel Wesley did not agree.
“No, it’s not. I should have realized—but I didn’t. I didn’t understand…” He sighed and shook his head. “We should have realized you were more to him than just a friend when you were younger. We should have tried harder to bring you here after they took you away from Jack and Shirley. I realize that now. That I was wrong. And I’m sorry.”
“You did what you could,” I said. “And you did so much more for me after, even when you didn’t know if you’d ever see me again. That means more to me than you can ever know. Plus, we found each other. Everything worked out.” I looked up at Wesley, and he gave me a small smile.
“But you could have grown up together, and I stole that away from you. From both of you,” Harrison continued. “I can’t give that time back to you. And for that, I am truly sorry.”
I pictured it then. Growing up in Crescent Lake, spending my days on the shore near the water, having Wesley and his friends around all the time to
protect me and be my friends too. I wondered if we would have stayed friends the whole time or if our friendship would have turned into something more as we grew.
Wesley’s face dipped down so his mouth pressed against my shoulder, and the bittersweet sadness I felt through the bond told me he was thinking something similar, thinking of all we could have had together. His deep inhale told me he was using my scent to calm himself, as he’d explained earlier. I wanted to melt into him, to turn around and finish what we’d started before his dad arrived, but our conversation with him was not yet over.
I had to giggle to myself as I watched Harrison sitting there, his face serious and his gaze unwavering as he waited for me to say something. His brows furrowed together in a way I’d seen so many times on Wesley’s face, and I laughed even harder.
“I’m sorry,” I said through my laughter. “I was just remembering Wesley’s second letter to me when he wrote his apology to me for his first letter. And now, imagining him sitting and waiting for my reply, looking exactly like you did just now,” I told him.
Wesley froze, and his arms tensed around me. Harrison’s brow shot up as his eyes moved from my face to the top of Wesley’s head over my shoulder.
“His apology for his first letter?” Harrison asked evenly.
Wesley let out a sigh as I answered. “Yeah, you know, the one that said ‘I’ll be honest, I am only writing this letter because my teacher said we have to. She said if we don’t, we’ll get an F, and I am not about to fail an assignment and ruin my track record of perfect grades. Plus, my dad would probably ground me or something.’”
“You memorized it?” Wesley groaned, turning his face to look at me.
“Did he really say that?” Harrison asked, clasping his hands together on the countertop.
I looked between the two of them, at Wesley’s grimace and Harrison’s look, which was a mix of amusement, interest, and censure, and realized something. “You didn’t know about the first letter?” I directed to Harrison, and he shook his head.
“Twinkle Toes…” Wesley warned as I looked at him again.
His eyes flickered with a little sparkle as he waited for me to finish telling his dad about his first letter since he knew no amount of him growling or scolding me would stop me. I raised my brows at him, and he just shook his head and stood up, leaning back against the sink with his arms crossed and his eyes up at the ceiling as I finished my story.
“Well, he then proceeded to say ‘You’re probably a really nice person, and I’m sure that you, just like me, have plenty of friends at your school and don’t need a friend who lives hundreds of miles away in a different state.’ And he signed the letter with ‘Thanks for letting me write you this letter so I can get an A. Sincerely, Wesley Stone.’”
“He said all that?”
“Yep,” I replied, putting my hands on my hips and nodding. “And what did you say back?”
“I told him it was okay because I was an orphan and used to no one wanting me, and I hoped he got his A.” I glanced over at Wesley, and he had his head in his hands with his shoulders shaking.
“Well, you certainly have your hands full, don’t you?” Harrison said to Wesley.
“You have no idea,” Wesley’s muffled, laughing voice replied.
He peeked at me over his fingertips, and I smiled at him. “Sorry, Pal.”
“No, you’re not.” Harrison chuckled. “Wesley, you’ll be doing laps today.
Until I tell you to stop.”
“What?!” Wesley exclaimed, snapping his head in his dad’s direction. “Why?!”
“For being so harsh to this lovely young lady who ended up being your mate,” he replied.
“Dad! I didn’t know she was an orphan or that she’d end up being my mate! And I apologized!”
“Well, that may be true, but you also lied to me. For twelve years. If you had been honest with me, it would only be twenty laps. But I have to add interest and all that, so you’ll be running probably most of the day,” Harrison said with a little twinkle in his eye and a wink at me. “Frederick is leaving this afternoon. Wesley can bring you to the packhouse before he starts his laps. I’ll make sure Nolan is there,” he added to Wes. “See you later!”
He laughed again and shook his head, then walked out of the house, leaving Wes and me alone. Wes lowered his hands to grip the counter behind him, staring me down with a look that sent a shiver down my spine.
He pushed off the counter and stalked towards me, walking me backwards until I was against the wall. His hands landed on either side of my face, his arms caging me in, his face stopping only centimeters from mine.
“You are something else, you know that?” He smirked. “What am I going to do with you?”
I swallowed and opened my mouth to speak, but his hand cupped my breast, and a moan came out of my lips instead of words. My body arched up into his, seeking more of his touch. His hand squeezed, his fingers
moving towards the peak of my breast, which he gave a small pinch as he reached it.
Just like every time he touched me, my body was more than willing to become pliant in his arms, more than willing to accept any pleasure he was willing to give me. I was so focused on his hand on my breast I didn’t notice his other hand moving to the waistband of my pants.
He slid it inside, moving it down to cup my core, one digit slipping inside my entrance and gliding through my arousal.
Another moan escaped me, my chest heaving with my inhales and exhales and my hands clutching his shoulders to keep my body upright. His hands stilled, and I rolled my hips, seeking some form of movement or friction from him, and he chuckled, then removed his hands and stepped away from me.
“We’ll finish this later, Sugar Plum,” he said over his shoulder as he left the kitchen. “I have laps to run.”
