Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“I made breakfast,” I say, turning towards him as he leans against the counter near the sink, a glass of water against his lips. “It’s a spinach pie.” He takes several long sips, his striking hazel eyes locked on me, his face emotionless, and his arm muscles tense, crossed over his bare torso. “I saw you on a run, so I figured you would be hungry when you returned.” His brow arches at me. “I wasn’t watching you. Spying on you or whatever. It was…” I trail off as I search for a word or a way to explain it to him in the simplest of terms. “It was a vision. Kind of.”
He swallows and sets his glass down, his eyes not leaving my face. “I already ate. Before I left for my run, like I always do.”
“Oh.”
His arms both cross over his chest again, biceps bulging right next to his pecs. I force myself not to stare, to keep my eyes on his face and not his chest.
“Didn’t you see that, too? When you saw me go for a run?” he asks.
I laugh and shake my head, opening the flatware drawer and taking out a knife and a fork. “That’s a common misconception,” I say, cutting into the pie. “My abilities don’t work that way. I—“I pause, glancing at the cabinet behind him, the one I’d have to press my body against his to reach. Part of me wants to know how that would feel, wants to get close enough to make out what the tattoo is on his chest. But a larger part of me recognizes the predator in front of me who is already holding his patience together with a fraying strand of rope, and I decide ruffling his feathers isn’t a good idea right now.
“Can you hand me a plate?” I ask, pointing at the cabinet.
He stares at me for a moment that feels like an eternity, that same stoic, unreadable expression on his face. I grit my teeth and keep smiling, waiting with endless patience for him to grab me the plate I need so I don’t learn firsthand how our bodies would feel if we pressed them together in a close space. He’s made it very clear how he feels about having me as a guest, and based on what’s on the table behind me, I can’t say I blame him for not wanting a strange female to stay with him in his house.
He finally turns around and grabs the plate, handing it to me. His fingers brush mine, and my lycan lifts her head off her paws from where she relaxes in my mind, cocking her head to the side in a curious examination of his touch.
I swallow and turn away from him to dish up my food, ignoring my lycan. “Anyway, no, I don’t ‘see’ everything. Or much of anything, really. We can’t become a true oracle until we’re marked by our fated mate, and only then will we know all our gifts and be able to use them.”
“So you haven’t met yours yet?”
I pick up my plate and shut the still-open flatware drawer with my hip, leaning against the cabinets and counter as I prepare to dig in to my spinach pie. “No. I have not.”
“What can you do then?”
I slide my fork through the pie, scooping the piece onto the tines as steam wafts into the air. My lips purse and I lean closer, blowing on the piping hot dish to cool it down before I take my first bite.
“I can see small, random snippets of things. Either before or as they are happening. Occasionally after they’ve happened. All of us can, but only a handful of true oracles have full visions. I can also manipulate, suppress, or hide auras from other beings,” I say.
I pop the bite into my mouth, chewing as I wait for him to reply, to react to what I said, holding in a moan at the taste of my food. And I swear to the goddess I see the exact moment the lightbulb in his head blinks on.
His tense body relaxes a hair and his eyes lift to my face. “That’s why you’re here,” he says, straightening. “To help Haven with her aura.”
I nod, holding eye contact with him. His wolf is in the forefront of his mind, drawn forward by our discussion of his luna. I keep my movements minimal and my body language unthreatening, and I push my lycan to the back of my mind, even though his wolf draws her forward slightly, so he knows I mean no harm to his luna.
I definitely don’t need him to view me as a threat. He already doesn’t want me here. No need to add fuel to the fire.
“Yes,” I say after I’ve swallowed my food. “I’ll be working with you for the remainder of her pregnancy.”
He nods slowly. “So you’ll be coming to her rehearsal with us today?”
“If that’s what’s on her schedule, then yes.”
He nods again. “Good.” He pushes off from the counter and stalks across the kitchen towards the exit. “I’m going to get cleaned up before we have to leave.”
I follow him and veer off to my left as he goes to the right so I can sit at the table, and that small black box catches my eye again. I pinch my lips together and glance at him over my shoulder before he walks through the doorway. “Who is the lucky female?”
He freezes and catches himself with his hands on the archway, the veins in his forearms bulging and pulsing, and his back muscles tensing and rippling. A tattoo stretches across his shoulder blades and down his spine, one that wasn’t there when they came to the island. The wings span the width of his shoulders, attached to the hilt of a sword that extends down his spine. I tear my eyes away from his muscles and the magnificent tattoo as he turns, not wanting to be caught ogling him.
“What?” he spits out from behind clenched teeth, his eyes narrowing on me.
I point at it with my fork. “The ring on the table. I’m assuming it’s for your… girlfriend? Mate?”
His narrowed gaze shifts from me to the unassuming box on the light brown wood table, and he stares at it. His shoulders rise and fall in incredibly slow, measured breaths, his eyes closing and his hands curling into fists.
Ten seconds pass. Ten long, almost painful, tension-filled seconds, where I don’t know if he’ll erupt in a violent backlash like he did yesterday or if he’ll hold it all in, tucking it away to save until it all builds and explodes from him again.
I hold my breath and back up a step as he strolls to the table and snatches the box into his fist, then he whirls around and speed walks out, leaving my question hanging in the air unanswered.
I let out my held breath and move to the table, excited to relax and eat the rest of my homemade spinach pie, but my excitement is short-lived.
“What the fuck?” Nolan’s voice echoes back to me from near the front door. “What is this shit?” he asks, and I set my plate down and poke my head out of the kitchen to see what he’s talking about.
He stares at the shiny black baby grand piano in his living room, where I placed a vase of fresh-cut yellow and white daisies. “Oh. I picked those up from the little market in the pack’s town last night when I bought the ingredients to make my spinach pie. I thought the place needed a little… brightening up.”
“And you chose to put them on top of my piano?”
“I did. It’s the perfect spot for them. Do you see how the natural light filters in through that window there?” I point to the beams of light shining across the surface of the piano. “It will highlight them beautifully almost all day.”
He crosses his arms. “Hmm.”
“It’s an exquisite instrument, by the way,” I say, nodding at the piano. “Do you play?”
His head turns, a slow swivel from the daisies to me. He stares at me, unblinking and unspeaking. Then he turns on his heel and heads up the stairs to his bedroom. “We’re leaving for the city in one hour, and you’d better be ready,” he says without turning around, his bedroom door shutting before I can respond.
NOLAN
“I’m taking your truck.”
Wes lifts his eyes from the legal pad next to his laptop as I enter his office in the packhouse. “Excuse me?”
“I’m taking your truck to the city,” I repeat.
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?