Page 32 of The Alpha's Forced Bullied Mate

He nodded and then pointed to a house a few paces ahead. “We'll stop there.”

I was curious about his choice because the house didn't seem to match any of the other designs around us. While everyone else had traditional wooden cabins or modern colonial structures, this one was more personal, made of ruddy red brick. It seemed like a lot of people had taken a lot of time to build it. As we walked up the steps, I noticed a long line of flowers decorating either side of the coffee brown wooden porch.

It stretched in either direction with wall-length windows in every possible place. The curtains were open, allowing so much light into the house that it made me wonder why there was a roof on it at all. We didn't even have to knock either. The person who occupied the house answered the door right when I raised my fist to the wood.

A short woman holding a small set of glasses, quite stout, with graying hair, puffy cheeks and a wide nose that was bulbous, blinked up at me. She wore muted colors, mostly teal and brown, and a pair of dingy white slippers that had little bunny ears on them. She smiled so sweetly it felt like I'd known her forever. In her leathery brown face, I saw a million of my ancestors grinning back at me.

She caught my hand and drew me inside as if I had been planning to come over for tea for ages.

“Please, have a seat,” she insisted. “Any mate of the alpha is a friend of mine.”

She was so sweet and loving that I felt I had no choice but to obey her generous offer. All around the living room were beaded works, tufted blankets, charcoal sketches, paintings of great mountains, and many other things. I hardly had room to move my feet, let alone find a place to sit. But she sat me on aleather couch that could have been a recliner without all the junk in front of it piled on the coffee table.

Each piece of art or craft seemed to have a glow to it as if it were made by hands that were not of this earth. That easily could have been the trick of the light filtering through the dust particles in the air. I held my hand over my mouth to resist breathing in the musty smell.

Hector trailed in after me, stepping over the clutter of books and craft supplies on the ground, the thick carpets making him trip up in some places and catching his shoes on others. He eventually landed on quite a large gothic chair, one with pronounced cushions that didn't seem to be comfortable at all, upholstered in a shade that could only be described as dried blood. Even though it didn't look comfortable, he made himself look comfortable. Perhaps to be polite to the person who let us in.

Hector gestured to the woman who was preparing three teacups that were so small I was afraid I might break one if I held it. “This is Daria. She's an elder wolf who does beadwork. We value her presence here. She only recently came to join us a couple of years ago after her son passed away.”

Daria's bushy eyebrows rose and wiggled at me. “He would have liked you. Only because of your magical spirit. Is that what brought you to us?”

I laughed. “Do you know about the kidnapping?”

Daria observed us quietly, and then turned back to her teacups. She picked one up and handed it to me, and then she handed the other to Hector. She stood nearby, sort of hovering, deciding perhaps whether she wanted to sit on a pile of books or on a pile of carpets. She settled eventually for the coffee tablethat was right in front of my knees. “You know, sometimes love starts off in a really strange way.”

She took a long sip of her tea, almost like she was capping the end of her sentence with the slurping sound. Then she sighed as if it was the most delicious tea in the world. Seeing her react that way made me curious about it. So, I took a sip of mine.

It really was delicious. I couldn't put my finger on the taste of it exactly, but it was wonderful, and I couldn't help drinking as much of it as I could until it was gone from the tiny cup. I reached out to hand the cup back to her and she accepted it with a loving grin.

She peered into the cup, her eyes turning so bright that the brown turned to a silvery gray, like moonlight peeking out from behind a dark cloud. “I think you wanted to come here. I don't think you put up much of a fight.”

The laugh I released sounded like a bark. “You must be stoned.”

She looked pleased as she pointed to the rear of the house. “I can show you my plants. They’re great for relaxation—” She glanced at Hector. “Some might say an aphrodisiac as well.”

Hector blushed while crossing one leg over the other. “My friend, I don’t think we need help in that department.”

I gaped at him. “Shut up.”

Daria guffawed while taking my hand. “Come on! I’ll give you a tour, dear.”

Before I could fight the old lady off, she dragged me through her cluttered home. The brick walls housed many paintings that were indecipherable. Splattered blobs of color sprouted from plain canvas or were smeared in nonsensical directions from the canvas to the brick. We squeezed betweentowering stacks of boxes, past arches filled with pages, and underneath low-hanging doorways to get to a room in the back that smelled like a skunk. She held up a beaded necklace made of bright red and yellow, delicious cotton candy-pink, and dazzling cloud-white beads. It was just one row of beads all in a single line holding a star in the middle, and she handed it to me.

Then, she took it back and beckoned me to lift my hair so she could put it around my neck. “Wear this always. Put your favorite oil on it and think of this moment when you realize that you do love him.”

I felt the tiniest bolt of shock. “What?”

She didn’t repeat herself.

Instead, she took me back to the living area and invited Hector to look at some wares she had recently created. I got lost in my thoughts as I traced the beads, thinking about each one that I touched, meditating on the shape and texture as my fingers passed over them. I stopped at the star just for a second, thinking how simple it was and how innocuous it seemed.

But, even as tiny as it was, it shimmered right under my fingers. Much like a winking star in the night, it glowed.

Was that how Daria saw me?

***

After we bid farewell to Daria, we went to another home several doors down. This one was much taller, a modern structure with a young woman bent over in the yard tending to a great bush of roses. There were so many, in fact, that I was afraid to approach because they looked mighty feisty.

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