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He turned on me. “No… Why would I be?”
“You’re making enough food to feed an army,” I made sure to let the amusement show through my tone so he wouldn’t misconstrue my meaning. “Why did you bring so much up here?”
He pointed a knife at me, letting his gaze wander down my body. “I eat a lot, and to be your size, you should have to as well. But I expected to stay awhile. Until I figured some things out.”
“I do, but not usually before noon.” There was an amusing quality to his motherly behavior, like I’d turn to skin and bones if he didn’t force-feed me eggs and French toast. “What did you need to figure out?”
“No wonder you’re getting skinnier.” He clenched his teeth and pulled a face. “We’ll get you all fixed up.” He winked at me. Actually winked at me, before returning to his work. I thought he wasn’t going to answer my question, but after a moment, he sighed. “How not to return to your penthouse.”
I laughed and set the juice next to him before taking a seat on a stool. “Is this what domestic life feels like. My mate force-feeding me breakfast before sending me off to work.”
“Mate?” He drew out the word like he wasn’t sure about the taste.
“We are mates, Dominic.” My tone was, of course, dripping with exasperation.
“I guess we are.” He didn’t look up at me. “I prefer soul tie. It helps convey how against my will this is.”
I gave him a flat look. “Does that make you that uncomfortable?” Was there more yet to work out? I knew there would be things, there had to be, but this was something so simple.
“I spent too many years denying it was the case, Vinkettin.” He paused, and I opened my mouth to argue, but he went on, “For a long time, I truly hoped we were both wrong, and we only shared a sort of strange sexual chemistry that would burn itself out.”
“What were you hoping for? That I wouldn’t matter when you met your actual mate?” I asked, jealousy edging into my voice.
“I don’t want a mate and never did.” His words might have been meant to be blunt, but they had an edge to them. One that could slit my throat if I allowed it.
“How do you expect us to be if you don’t want a mate, Dominic?”
He finished his chopping and moved to crack eggs into a bowl. He added vanilla and cinnamon and almond extract, then sugar before whisking. I wasn’t sure I would ever get words out of him or the emotions I craved. But this was the hand I was dealt, and I wasn’t going back to denying it. There was no changing who he was, only seeing if I could live with what we both were.
“Just because I don’t want something doesn’t change what it is. I’m well-versed in dealing with what the Gods have given me. I will adapt, but I won’t lie to you and pretend this was ever the path I would have chosen for myself.” He moved to the sink and washed his hands, his shoulders tight and head low. “I think that’s one of the mistakes many mortals make. They believe they forge their own path and destiny, but we don’t. We are forced at knife-point down the path we are given, and we either make the best of it or we fail. Free will may change aspects, but we don’t get to pick how or where we are placed on this earth. We don’t get to pick our race or kind; we don’t pick our station or relations. We don’t pick our wealth or our bloodline. We get handed even our names when we take our first breath in this perilous life. This is the path, and acceptance is the first step to making the journey the best we can.”
He turned, drying his hands on a towel. I didn’t interrupt. I knew the wheels in his head were still turning.
“I didn’t choose to be born, fed, and bred for human amusement. Caged and bled dry like the coward who led before me. I didn’t choose to be shouldered with the responsibility of hundreds. That was my bloodline.” Dominic believed, like his people did, in the magic of blood and its ties to the earth. There were truths there. He was bound to this land by blood, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t leave it.
“But surely you chose to break the chains and kill the human captors.”I’d had to learn his history the hard way. By paying people off who knew it. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact year the humans had figured out there were wolves among them, only that two generations ago, when the wolves were badly reduced in numbers after a horrible decade of the war, the humans had captured them at their weakest and used them for sport.
Humans had bred them and fought them like dogs in a kind of sick sport to bet on, from what I understand. Dominic led the rebellion to kill their captors and take his place as alpha. And instead of ending the twisted fight club, he kept it. It was what they knew. Only now they ran it themselves and profited from it. He’d turned it into a source of revenue to feed the pack.
After all he’d lived through and a war still to fight, no wonder he was already tired.
“I’m not sure I did.” He tossed the towel at me. “I think it was pre-written. I was a product of the quickening. A product for profit. They bred me to be strong, as it would suit their games. Eventually, they had to realize the creatures they kept would be stronger than the captors.”
“Fair.” I wasn’t sure I agreed with him. I’d done enough digging to figure out where he’d come from. He belonged to this land. The wolves had owned it before humans walked the earth.
So I knew what humans had done to him, and it would have been much easier for Dominic to choose to stay in a cage, fed by humans, drugged by humans. Worshipped as a fighter and one of the best of his kind. He could have ignored the wolves being abused and bred around him. Ignored his kind, dying from poverty and hunger. He had a good life granted by the position he was born. He chose to free himself and take these people under his wing, but maybe his worldview made his sacrifices easier. He had people to take care of, and the mother Goddess told him so, and thus, he couldn’t run away with his mate. But we would always see the world differently. Nothing would change that. Only recognizing our differences would mend the rift between them. “So if all of this was the plan, what does it mean for you and me?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet.” He lifted his eyes, meeting mine. They were the loveliest shade of blue I’d ever seen. There was depth and turmoil there.
“If you don’t want a mate, why do this with me?” It was a simple question. Would I have the power to leave someone who had decided to be with me but didn’t want to be with me? Was the distinction silly? Was it wrong for me to want someone who wanted me as I wanted them?
“I don’t want amate. I wantyou. I’ve always wanted you. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I wanted to drag you here by your hair like a fucking barbarian. I wanted to chain you to my bed and keep you, no matter what you wanted. I fought those primal urges every day. Every minute. Every second. I’ve stopped myself so many times from barging my way into your penthouse and telling you who you fucking belong to and making you stay with me because that’s how wolves do things. I only stopped myself because we didn’t make sense. I couldn’t love you enough for us to make sense. You might have been a test from the Gods or a punishment—I don’t know.” He snapped the spatula in his hands and ground his teeth. “Wanting a mate and wanting you are two different things, Vinkettin. Loving you was never a choice. Being bound to you was never a choice, but I chose every single time I went to you, and I chose to let you sleep next to me last night.”He was more wolf than man at that moment. A snarling beast, not fit for society.
“I’m a hot-tempered, jealous asshole who has no choice in a lot of things but don’t you ever doubt that if I didn’t want you here with me, I would have thrown your ass out last night. You shared my bed because I want you, which is much different than loving you and being mated to you. Sharing my bed is me trusting you. I’m tired of not giving in to whatI wantbecause of what’s good for everyone else. I’m tired of fighting my death for the good of my people, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t mychoice.”
Tentatively, I slid my arms around his neck, which, to my kind, was the weaker position. Opening oneself for one’s mate, exposing vital organs, freely giving him the dominant position for this embrace. “Thank you for explaining it to me, Dominic. I trust you, too.”
He leaned into me, and it was a gift. I recognized it for what it was.
