My Forbidden Mate

Chapter Three- The Den

Alessandra's POV

Aaron Conall was not a man who could be easily forgotten. Mostly, because he wasn’t just a man. He existed under the guise as such to conceal the raging beast within. Something from a tale from the Grimm’s brothers or a horror story parents tell to keep kids in check. But to me, he was simply the name given to me the night we met. Thirteen years ago, and not a day had passed that I didn’t think of those eyes finding me again one day. And now since they had, I realized nothing and everything had changed.

What was it you were supposed to say to someone after thirteen years? Gas prices? A recent celebrity break-up? How did they deal with existing in a world that wanted them dead? It wasn’t exactly light conversation, and especially not something deserved after saving my life. Instead, all I could do was analyze him. The silence between us memorizing those small changes. The boyish features now pulled into the masculine lines making up his chiseled traits. But no matter the alterations made with age, those same melancholic eyes existed to me. The ones that looked to me and saw hope. The same ones that still held fear. And this time, regret for something I couldn’t quite place.

“He’s dead, Aaron.” A female voice alerted my focus beyond the door left ajar. My body came between the slit as I saw a styled woman with her hands folded across her chest and dismay worn across his face. It existed in every moment I saw him, lightening the longer I had been with him, only to return now in this instance. I wanted nothing more than to return him to that carefree boy who spoke of adventure throughout all seven continents and the surrounding seas. But alas, I didn’t have such power.

“They found him an hour ago. Mauled to bones.”

“Troy was reckless, Rebekah…”

“Your brother was still one of us…” She reminded. “And there are consequences for wolf attacks against their own.”

“Are you insinuating something? To me?” My body froze as he spoke. Every interaction we shared had him nearly timid to speak out of turn and now he was so demanding now. Control and power exuberating from his full frame reminding me how he could easily swallow me in an embrace if he wished to.

“They’re holding a meeting tonight.”

“Tonight?” The man I confused as Aaron’s father, interjected. Having nwo come into a clear light, I saw no resemblance whatsoever. His features are more curved and short whereas Aaron was anything but.

“An hour from now. Should be enough time for you to get rid of that god-awful stench…” He turned slowly to me, catching sight of me and standing to where even if she were to do the same, I would remain unseen. “What is that? Potpourri?”

“Becks, don’t insult me now…I decided to try my hand at pastries…” Ronan interjected.

“Well try your hand at anything else. The sweet smell is sickening…smells…human…” The click of her heels announced her retrieval from the house as I became focused on remaining in the shadows. I was startled to the sound of the door coming open. At the mention of her words I wondered if humans smelled to werewolves as wet dogs smelled to us. One of the many questions I would have for Aaron if we were ever allowed a moment alone again.

“You’re up…” I nodded, still affected by him as if I hadn’t spent the last however long it had been dreaming about him. As if I hadn’t fallen asleep to his heartbeat that raced and settled when he began to relax.

“We’re going out…”

“What?! You can’t take her!”

“I’m not leaving her here.” He spoke sternly, moving back into the room I was in as I looked between them both. Feeling like a useless chess piece in a game only one truly wished to play.

“I can stay, Aaron.” He seemed to still at my words, his body tightening while he paused from the shuffle he made of the clothes set in the wardrobe that he set his focus to. Fingering the hangers harboring beautiful garments kissed ever so gently by the slits of moonlight allowed by the curtains.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He explained when finally turning to me. The way he covered me with his influence nearly made me shudder. But not in pain or fear. More like excitement or anxiousness. Even the most predatorial of comments coming across as a reminder of his care as we seemed to make a habit of saving one another. I suppose next it would have been my turn.

“How are you going to explain to them that she’s there? Don’t you think they’ll, hmm, I don’t know, smell her?!” His jaw constricted to the remark. His silence made the echo of his steps that much more dominant before he returned from a chest at the end of the bed.

“Any more questions?” He asked his ‘advisor’ before we were left alone. Suddenly, my heart was thrust to my throat with how he looked at me. As if he wanted to devour me. An attention I found in more instances than not. One I liked…more than I should have considering the circumstances.

“What is it?” I asked as he pulled a beautiful perfume bottle to the edge of his fingers and began motioning to me.

“My mother’s.” He spoke of her only once. A memory of a field of flowers, much like the scent of this perfume. Something I couldn’t quite place, but an image I relished in now. It was seldom that he wore happiness, but when he did, it was such a beautiful sight.

“Wolfsbane…” He answered this silent question as my eyes widened towards him. The softest of lifts made at the very corner of his lip of happiness.

“My mother wore it to hide her scent when she visited the Cathedral with my father-”

“Your mother was…like me?” He nodded.

"May I?" His eyes flickered with embers of something he lacked in our moments as children. It was the same tease of fire work behind mine, only they seemed to travel between my thighs.

Answering him with another nod, I watched him use his knuckles to pull my hair over my shoulder and produce the aromatic scent to my pulse points. His eyes stayed to mine as if to continuously ask for permission.

"Wrists?" I supplied them as if fearful of making him wait even a second. A submissive to his request as if it had been a command. A blush cascades over my cheeks with a temperature rushing down to follow those former flickers. Once again, my pulse points found his touch. Soft but somehow deep as if he touched each and every nerve beneath my skin.

"Don't get wet." The innuendo was not intended, I knew this. But I couldn't help the visions it thrust in my mind. Especially with the arrival of his eyes catching that thought in the worsening hue of my cheeks.

"It will only last an hour. And if you sweat or anything, it will wear sooner…" I could only answer with a single nod. His t****l over me left my mind blank.

"Wear this…" He pulled something from a hanger.

"Was this hers?" The style was antiquated in comparison to modern taste, but adored by me. A simple floral pattern analyzed as he answered with a single lift and fall of his head.

"It's beautiful…" His teeth met with tension as he paused.

"A minute?" His uncle called from the hallway as our eyes met, interrupted yet again. Perhaps it was better we were as the heat that developed between us was cataclysmic.

In his absence I would shed my stained clothes. Jeans and a tee were disposed upon the floor as I managed to wrap the fabric perfectly around my hips and up my shoulders. The zipper was just out of reach. A turn to the mirror made me understand the depth of my wounds. The entire event was a blur as I was attacked from behind. A coward's assault as I remember the other wolf Aaron left behind, motionless before me and a wicked pain knocking me unconscious. These wounds are now souvenirs of what I couldn't remember.

"I'm sorry, I-" He spoke, somewhat annoyed by whatever conversation was had, now flustered with eyes shifting in every direction to try for the door.

"Can you help me?" I called, my voice timid but almost teasing as he kept his eyes to the floor as he approached me.

"I can't reach the zipper…" I spoke simply to break the silence as he was already behind me. His fingers at the tab necessary to conceal me to him. But I wanted to be vulnerable. A connection annoyingly powerful as I knew in hindsight it was brainless and reckless. But it burned and scorched more than any other passion I'd come to know.

His fingers slow to rise as his knuckles brushed up my spine. A cliche but heart pounding moment until it came to rest in place. His touch remained along my scars.

"Here…" He pulled just beyond me and back to the wardrobe, his body pressing in mine with just enough pressure to feel his change of breath.

"They shouldn't be able to see them with this…" He assisted a sweater over my shoulders before looking at me within the mirror.

"Its best if you don't let them know what I've told you. They'll make things complicated…"

"Because they're so simple already?" I teased. "Why are humans so…outlawed?"

"A simple answer is that they've hunted us nearly to extinction more times than we can count. Always wanting us to test or exploit."

"It isn't fair. You should be able to live…"

"We find out ways…sometimes in little sheds with sheets with constellations we name ourselves." My eyes illuminated at that very memory.

"Because I couldn't pronounce them…" I reminded as he gave a genuine full smile. A sight to see what I'm sure always wore low.

His eyes stayed on mine longer than they should have for the reservation made by his uncle. Our starcrossed existence, pushed to its limit by his proximity. Either one of us pushed to close that remaining distance. My mind was vivid enough to conjure being turned and pressed to the glass or my motivation pulling him to me.

"We need to leave, we can't keep them waiting." The voice called from the hallway.

"I would also stay close…They will be skeptical of you…" He took a grip to my wrist to keep me from leading the exit.

"I won't let anything happen to you, I promise.” I suppose he was chivalrous out of guilt. However deep that may exist, I also knew there was never another man in any conversation who meant these words like he did. A simple bow of my head in agreement was not enough for him as he pulled me closer to make sure I understood.

“I mean it. You’re safe with me, Alessandra.” My skin chilled as he spoke my name, as if it belonged to only his lips. Tempting lips. Damned lips.

Set within the seats of a car whose conception was well before either of ours, we were driven by Ronan. His eyes flickered back to us every so often as the tension may have been silent but it was thick. Like his hair. Like his lashes. Like his arms that I wanted to be in forever.

“We’re here…” But before either of us could leave, Ronan turned to look at us.

“Did you tell her how complicated it is?” My stomach twisted to his warning. Of course, I wasn’t expecting much beyond that of a greeting and then following silence. Maybe a Tim Burton or Lovecraftian theme interior and the characters and residents inside to match. But the look in Ronan’s eyes didn’t harbor the worry he had since I arrived. This was an unbridled and deep fear that made any version of my expectation incorrect to what I was about to find.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Perfume and silence aren’t going to be enough. If they think for one second-”

“I’ll handle it. Now stop scaring her.” He pressed his hand to my thigh for just a moment. A flash of it slipped higher beneath the skirt of this favored dress and my cheeks were burning as red as the leather making up the car.

“I’ve got you…” He extended his hand. “They’re going to be looking for reasons to test you.”

“Test me?”

“You’re in the company of their alpha. It isn’t a place most people get…” The flutters in my stomach worsened with each step he directed to the front of this estate. A moderate home with the decoration of clear gothic inspiration concealed from the inside out with floor-length curtains that kept any sign of life from all passing gazes. My eyes caught one of those curtains flying away as I caught a pair of curious fingers moving back into hiding.

“I can still have Ronan take you home…You’re free to go whenever…” The offer was tempting before he knocked at the door, his broad hand set unsteady in the space between us.

“But I’d prefer if you stayed.” He corrected a hair from my cheek, pulling it around the shell of my ear as I nodded.

“Considering our past…It’s me who will have to save your life this time…So maybe I will…”

The words didn’t leave his lips. And yet, the way he looked to me spoke the ones that didn’t.

You already have saved me.

I deduced this as being a conjuring from the small portion of my brain that existed as a hopeless romantic. My analysis of the way he looked to me was short lived as the door came open.

“Aaron…” The very woman who stood in his home an hour prior was now eyeing me as if I was an obstacle. Not an inch of my skin became untouched by her gaze.

“This is Alessandra…she’s with me.” Hesitantly, we were led inside, his hand on the curve of my back as a final reinstatement of support. The only thing I could be certain of at a time like this.

I was never one to understand architecture as I wish I could. You could have pointed at any detail of the home and explained it as crown molding and I would simply nod and agree. Especially in a den of werewolves. But this house itself was exquisite. Large and heavily decorated with portraits of the woods and trees. My eyes flashing to each one as we were taken into a dining room. A banquet table lined with every other chair holding a body. And he placed me directly beside him as if we were truly tethered. Every person looked at us as if we were aliens among humans.

Or more appropriately, prey among predators.

“She had an unfortunate accident just on the road outside the cabin…” His voice pulled me back to the conversation as the double doors at the end of the hall suddenly opened. A beautiful red haired girl, awkward as she fixed the buckle on her shoe, came to view, as I offered a kind smile. But to her arrival, Aaron tensed. The same tension when speaking of his mother and the past.

“Maisie…” Rebekah, the woman who answered the door, offered her name as she looked at me with a quick but confused stretch of her lips.

“Oh, Aaron, don’t you want to sit beside your fiance?” And now it was me who wore that tension. The inability to breathe. The anger I once pushed down for him having left now returning for having felt as if he’d lied to me. Yet it made sense why he never came back. She was his mate and I would exist as nothing but an obstacle. One each and every pair of eyes in this room seemed hellbent to eradicate.