Outliers

Twenty Four

"I don't know how it is you are so familiar to me - or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before - in another time, a different place - some other existence."

Lang Leav

By the time I had finally returned to the main house, the sun had still yet to rise. The house was awfully quiet, and I couldn't hear a single wolf awake. On the second floor, my bedroom door remained wide open, and I could clearly see the empty bed that awaited me.

My stomach was in knots, and though I knew Thane wouldn't be there, the disappointment was all the same. It had only been two nights that we'd slept together in the same bed, and yet the thought of returning to my bed alone seemed wrong given the circumstances.

Not because I now knew us to be mates. The fact of the matter was that that information seemed inconsequential in relation to my feelings for him. It hadn't been the mate bond that drew me to the powerful Alpha Male. It had been the male himself. I hadn't needed the mate bond for my attraction towards him to spark. I had been able to appreciate him without it.

He had known we were mates, presumably since our very first meeting, and yet he hadn't said one word of it to me. He'd kept a respectful distance, stopped his advances when it was clear I hadn't wanted that from him, and had continue to train me, support me, all the same.

I needed little time to think over my next actions, as I began to climb the small staircase that led to the top floor of the house. Where Thanes bedroom was situated. I was grateful for the privacy it would give us. Already, in our anger, we had revealed too much to the rest of the pack.

It would have been smart of me to allow us more time to cool off, allow sleep to settle the ferocity of our argument. I certainly didn't want a repeat of before. But I couldn't wait so long. I needed to see him now, needed to talk through what had been said.

My mate.

It was an impossibility. Or so I had always believed.

Most wolves barely made it to twenty without finding their mate. I was twenty-three, soon to be turning twenty-four. And Thane... Thane was almost four-hundred years old. For what possible reason had it taken him so long to find a mate? For what reason had he been condemned to be alone that long?

It made no logical sense.

Yet I knew he wouldn't lie.

I found myself pausing in front of his door. It was firmly shut, but I knew he was in there; could faintly hear his even breaths.

I hadn't been inside his room before, hadn't even seen it. Would I be welcome? Perhaps I should wait until morning to seek him out instead.

My fist hesitated before the wood, frozen in the air as I debated whether or not to knock.

Would he be angry with me?

I had left so abruptly, so unwilling to listen to him. Would he want to listen to anything I had to say? Was he now furious that I had left him behind amidst a conversation so important?

But had I stayed I knew my frustrations would have only grown, to the point where I would have no doubt spoken too abruptly and without thought, more so than I already had. And the panic, the anxiety I had felt - whether leaving had been the right thing to do or not, it had certainly been what I needed. So I couldn't allow myself to feel guilty for such.