Page 7 of The Wolf's Appetite
Not fully. Not in the way that I knew it should when you found your fated mate.
But something in me twisted, pulled tight, like it knew something I didn’t.
I scrubbed for another minute before sitting back on my heels and brushing the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I let out a slow breath, hating that I thought about Lennox so much.
Hated how, even when he snarled in frustration, my body responded like it wanted to inch closer to, stand next to, climb on top of Lennox. And that was a feeling I’d never experienced before. Because as a Lycan, I had zero desire to be with another being until I found my fated mate.
But Lennox didn’t just look broken—he carried it in the way he walked, the way his gaze shuttered like he couldn’t bear to be seen. And yet, when he stared at me… I felt like hesawme.
And it was the first time I felt like I was trulyseen.
I reached for the bucket and stood, shaking my head because I hadn’t been able to get Lennox out of my head. “Pathetic,” I muttered to myself. “Ye’re becoming obsessed over a male who snarls and growls at ye at every opportunity.”
I thought about the scars that littered his body, ones he tried to hide. They were the kind of wounds that didn’t just mark his skin—they lived deep in his soul. I could see that much when I looked into his blue eyes.
And gods help me, but I ached to try and reach him… like really help him find that happiness I knew he had somewhere deep down.
I carried the bucket down the hall, past the library, and toward the supply room where I could restock. I knew he was out, had heard whispers that the king and queen insisted he speak with someone who could help. I was sure Lennox didn’t want to speak with a therapist, but he did so to placate his family.
And because he was gone, I felt confident in cleaning his quarters. At least when he wasn’t here, I didn't have to fight the magnetism and also frustration of being near him.
I headed for his bedchamber, allowing myself to wonder what it would mean if he was my mate… and what it would mean if he wasn’t.
Because either way, I was already too far gone. And gods… that was a hard pill to swallow.
5
LENNOX
“This isn’t a waste of time, Lennox,” Dr. Bronwyn Mikonovich said in that soft, placating voice of hers.
I didn’t respond.
“This is good for you. It’s been going well, don’t you think?”
I snorted. “If ye think being forced by my father tae come here weekly while ye tell me all the shit that I can do tae ‘better my life,’ then ye and I have very different ideas on what’s been going well.”
She leaned back in her chair and nodded in that way that annoyed the fuck out of me. Because it genuinely seemed like she got where I was coming from.
It was also the way she stared at me that told me shecould see through my bullshit and wanted to call me out. But she’d also said we weren’t “there” yet in this professional relationship for her to really open up the way she wanted us both to.
I looked at my watch. “Time’s up, Doc,” I said and rose, the couch behind me looking like a fucking piece of dollhouse furniture compared to my size.
She exhaled but didn’t say anything in response. She stood as well, setting her tablet on the little table beside her chair and looking at me to once again give me that placating smile.
I dwarfed her so much she had to tip her head back to look at my face.
Being a Lycan meant I was a big male in general, but ever since my accident and losing the one integral part of me—my Lycan, my inner animal—all I’d been focusing on was working out.
Lifting helped to keep my head clear and focused. It helped me not obsess over the things I couldn’t change.
At the very thought of no longer sensing my inner beast within me, I felt those dark tendrils of nothingness start to creep through me.
They’d been my friend—or enemy, more accurately—for a very long time after my accident, after my face had been scarred when we’d attacked our enemies.
It wasn’t even the fucking scarring that botheredme. It was the fact that after I’d woken up from my accident, I hadn’t been able to feel my wolf.
It was as if he’d deserted me at the time I needed him the most.
