Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“I noticed that,” I said with a soft, dry laugh through my nose. “Well, since you already ate, can I show you something?” I asked.
She glanced at me and shrugged again. “Sure,” she said as she stood from her barstool.
I tried to keep my giddy, eager smile off my face as I turned and led her down the hall to the newly remodeled room in my house. Our house. Or at least, I hoped it would be our house.
I opened the door and let her step inside first, watching her as she looked around the room. My stomach bubbled, and there was sweat on my palms as I waited for her reaction.
She was quiet as she walked around and examined everything. Her bare feet padded on the hardwood floor as she moved towards the line of narrow, hanging mirrors I had placed along the far wall. They stood one right next to the other, varying in height and width, but together resembling a full wall mirror. Almost.
The wall opposite that I had left empty. But on the wall opposite the window, I had hung framed photos of her dancing that Peter had emailed me, as well as framed copies of some of her letters to me. She ran her fingers over one, her head tilting to the side as she looked at it, a small frown on her face.
“How’d you get these? You gave them all to me a few weeks ago.”
“I made scans of all of them before I moved in here,” I admitted, rubbing my neck. “Just in case something ever happened to the house.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything else, just stayed silent as she continued to take in the room I had created for her.
“I’m going to put a barre in over there,” I said, gesturing at the wall opposite the mirrors. “And I ordered a nice speaker system for you. And I’ll put in a real wall mirror too. But that’s all I could do on short notice.” She nodded again. “It’s a dance studio,” I added. “For you.”
“I figured that out,” she said, glancing at me with a twitch of her lips. “It’s small,” she observed.
“Yeah, I know. Eventually, I want to build you a real studio, but I want you to design it and pick out everything so it can be exactly how you want it. Plus there wasn’t really enough time to build an entire building in one day. But I want you to have your own space here, somewhere you can practice ballet or whatever, so you can keep your position in the company for as long as you want. I won’t make you give that up, I—“
She pressed her lips together and looked at the floor, her eyes twinkling, and I groaned and cut myself off. Always with the fucking rambling around her. I didn’t even know if she knew I only did that when she was around.
“This works fine,” she muttered.
I breathed out a sigh and relaxed a little, stepping into the room with her.
“I know I dumped a lot of information on you this morning,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets.
“Yeah, it was kind of a lot,” she agreed, crossing her arms and lifting her head to look at me. “Nolan explained a bit more, too.”
I was getting more and more frustrated that I couldn’t feel her emotions or sense what she was thinking, and my lycan didn’t like it much either. He wanted to be connected to his mate, because the bond was one way we could protect her.
I clenched my fists in my pockets. “Well, did you have any more questions you wanted to ask me?”
“Just one right now,” she said, and I gestured at her to continue. “When is the next full moon?”
My stomach dropped. The only reason she would want to know that was if she planned on rejecting me. I swallowed to keep the growl or whimper—I’m honestly not sure which one was working its way up my chest—inside. “Next month,” I said.
She nodded. “Are there any special words I have to say?”
“You just say, ‘I, Haven Kenway, reject you, Wesley Stone, as my mate,'” I said quietly, not meeting her eyes.
“And what if I want to be your mate?”
I didn’t dare to look at her or even hope. “Same phrase, just ‘I accept you’ instead of ‘I reject you’. And it doesn’t have to be under the full moon. Only a rejection has to be done under the full moon,” I replied.
Every word felt heavy on my tongue as it left my mouth. I didn’t want her to reject me, but if I didn’t tell her how to do it, that would make me even more of an ass. And I deserved it. I deserved her rejection for not standing up to my dad when he ordered me to completely ignore her.
I heard her take a deep breath, and she came and stood in front of me. She held my face in her hands and lifted my chin so I looked her in the eyes.
There was a determined set to her jaw and a tiny sparkle in her eyes. “I, Haven Kenway, accept you, Wesley Stone, as my mate.”
I dropped my forehead to rest against hers as I took in a shaky breath, tears pooling in my eyes. My hands came out of my pockets and my arms wrapped around her, pulling her into me, clinging to her like I was a drowning man and she was a raft. Her arms came around my neck and I breathed in her scent, her scent that told me she was mine.
It was what I had hoped for. Her acceptance. But I had not expected it so soon. I had thought she’d make me work for it more, make me suffer, and beg on my knees for her acceptance. It was what I deserved, after all.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured as I buried my face in her hair, my voice thick as my tears fell without restraint. “I’m sorry for everything. I wish there was a way I could take it all back. I was a big, ugly meanie, and I was stupid. So, so stupid.”
“Yes, you were,” she said.
I breathed out a weak laugh, relief flooding through me at her teasing. If she was teasing me, then she hadn’t been all that mad at me to begin with.
“But I’m sorry I made you think I would reject you,” she added.
“I would have deserved it if you did,” I admitted.
She shook her head. “No. You didn’t deserve that. After everything you’ve done for me? Even the things you did for me when you didn’t know if you would ever see me again? I could never reject you. There was no way I could have done that. The thought of it made me physically ill. I’m too—I’m too much in love with you. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
I wrapped my arms even tighter around her, a choked sob coming out of my chest and my hand gripping the hair at the back of her head as I clutched her to me. “I love you too, Sugar Plum.”
My body shook with my cries as we hugged in her little dance studio. Only with her would I allow myself to be vulnerable. Only she would ever get to see this side of me.
Her body melted into mine, fitting seamlessly against every hard line of me. She was a perfect fit with me, truly my other half. She was my everything, and I resolved myself to do everything I could to keep her.
HAVEN
Wesley’s arms tightened around me as we stood in the makeshift dance studio he had put together for me. It was far from perfect, but that somehow made it even more special. Because he had put the time and effort into creating it just for me.
He brought his head out of the crook of my neck, his nose trailing along my jawline as he pulled back to look me in the eye again. His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, his face open and vulnerable, revealing the depth of his emotions to me.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?