The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 19

I wake on a plane of warm dark fur, but it is not Alexei's wolf. I lift my head off one of many pillows and find a fire burning in a large, smooth-stone fireplace across the room. I am in a bedchamber, and I can only assume by Alexei's heavy scent that it is his.

Three arched windows on an exterior wall show a darkening sky caused by oncoming storm clouds. We made it back well before sunset, but that will begin in due time. I slide off the bed and sneak about, stopping at the bare dressing table and touching the surface. Its design is large but intricate — heavier than new dressing tables yet sculpted with extraordinary craftsmanship. All the furniture is like this: old, beautiful, and well taken care of.

My mother was excited each year to enliven the keep with new fabrics and furnishings, but with so many things, nothing was truly appreciated. Everything here is cared for besides their Alpha; the Goddess has bestowed that responsibility on me.

Behind two more windowed doors is a spacious washroom with a wide copper tub. There are pails for servants to heat the water and fill the tub, and I am sure Alexei has plenty of people helping elsewhere in the apartment. Servants warm sheets, bathe skin, brush hair, dress bodies, tend fires — which I refuse. I also restrict housekeepers from entering my chambers whenever they deem necessary, but Alexei may have people stripping the bed, scrubbing the floors, and repairing leaking pipes at any hour of the day.

The sound of doors from the front room of the apartment propels me out of the washroom and back to the bed. I lay where I was and wrap my cloak over myself like a blanket to mimic how it was when I woke up, then I wait until the bedchamber doors open.

Alexei enters, and I rise again as though the commotion woke me, wiping my eyes and arching my spine. "I take it that we made it in one piece," I say and settle.

"Yes," he says and walks over. "Senet is well."

"I wasn't expecting to wake here."

He sits on the bed in front of me. "If you're in these chambers, then we are not apart."

"That is what I requested, isn't it?" I glance around the room as though I didn't just creep about. "I suppose I had yet to consider what such a request translates to in detail."

I glide my palm across the blanket of black fur. "Why did you change your mind?" He asks while scrutinizing my hand, so I draw it in.

"My mind didn't change. I simply made a decision that I have been trying to make since that night on the battlefield."

"Yes—I made that decision already."

"When?" I wring my wrists under my cloak all to keep my expression clear.

"The night you were running down the hall in your shift. Your words maintained your little attitude, but your defenses had been stripped, and I saw your truest self yet standing in front of me. You were afraid, and I felt guilty letting you walk off alone. I wanted to stay with you."

"I wouldn't have let you," I reason.

"You needed time and space to make your decision. I thought you had come to a conclusion yesterday before your advisors pulled you away—your declaration at the courtyard this morning was quite the surprise."

"Well, thank the Goddess for your delay, or I would have had to shift and chase after you."

"No delay. I couldn't find it in myself to leave." He unfastens the brooch of my cloak, and it slides off my shoulders, a welcome relief. "Although, you did take longer than I had hoped."

I squirm and drape the cloak between us on the bed. "Oh, yes, it was the wine last night. Gaius requested some ancient bottles from the cellar, and so we drank amber glass wine from the East Islands. But you—you were gone so late."