You do not“tumble” with a mate.
You cherish her.
You claim her.
You keep her.
I groaned.
“I should be far more concerned,” I muttered, pressing my palms to my eyes,“about a wolf dwelling inside my skull.”
I supposed it was back to the library.
Back to scheming, back to concocting a new plan to ensnare Euphemia MacDonald without driving her into the hills screaming.
You will leave that to me, Wulfric grumbled.
“Absolutely not,” I hissed.“If anyone is doing the ensnaring, it is me. I am the human. The gentleman. The—”
The fool, he supplied.
I clenched my fists at my sides.
“Don’t be insufferable. You sound like my father.”
Your sire sent you to your fate, Wulfric murmured, his tone maddeningly steady.
Our mate’s proximity woke me from an eternal slumber. We are bound—
He stopped.
A strange flicker of disorientation rippled through my chest—like someone stumbling in the dark and brushing past my bones.
“I am not bound to anyone,” I snapped, shoving to my feet as though posture alone might reassert control.“Not a maid, not a Highland superstition, and certainly not—”
You will understand who we are the day we run together, he said.
Then he vanished.
Silence hollowed out the space beneath my sternum, leaving it abruptly… empty.
I let out a slow breath.
Wonderful.
Now I had upset the beauty and the beast.
? ? ?
The wolf remained present but silent—an observer lurking just beneath my skin. He only stirred when Euphemia was close, or when her scent drifted into my space—uninvited, maddening, intoxicating.
Days turned into weeks.
The roof was finally secured for the inevitable snow and ice. Callum shifted his efforts indoors, hammering and patching the places most neglected. Flora and Euphemia transformed the manor room by room; nearly every hall now smelled of fresh lemon or sharp lye, as though they were purging centuries of decay from its bones.
Euphemia snubbed me at every turn.
Each daily update was curt, clipped, barely professional.
