Page 46 of Banished Mates
“Can nae have my mate hungry,” he said and pulled away, gripping my arm to force me into a seat. In a swift move he had an apple in my hand and was at the stove, turning the knob.
A grin tipped up the corners of my mouth and I sank my teeth into the apple. A crisp crunch filled the kitchen as I munched away. I was starved, but the apple helped abate the gnawing hunger. I continued eating as Rowan pulled a bar seat out beside me and lowered into it. He was fortunate it was such a huge seat.
I snorted out a laugh at the sight we made. It was so... domesticated.
The seat Rowan rested in creaked. Oh shit, I could tell where this was going, but he was too busy sneering at Kit. I couldn’t even shout out a warning before the legs cracked and shattered, taking him to the ground.
I blinked down at the sight of Rowan in his wolfman form with his deep green eyes wide as he stared and tried wrapping his head around the fact that he was on a chair moments ago.
The slow blinking was what took me out.
My shock turned to full-out body-shaking laughs. Rowan let out a short growl, which only set me off even more.
I couldn’t breathe because I was laughing so hard. Through my watering eyes, he pushed to his feet and stalked off, shaking his head with his ears flicking.
I wiped my blurry eyes to find Kit grinning at me and shaking his head.
“I never knew he was so sensitive.” Kit tsked and turned back to rifle through a pantry. I snorted and shook my head. Rowan was so stinking cute it was killing me.
I reached for the little pad and wrote out the question that had been gnawing at me. Knocking on the surface of the island, I called his attention. Kit turned and his eyes flicked as he read the question I’d written out.
“What did she mean, you were banished? How long were you Alpha?”
His lips tightened and he set down the pan.
“About fifteen years.”
I gawked at the number. That meant he was older than I thought, unless he became Alpha as soon as he shifted. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him being older, considering our life spans were longer than humans.
I quickly scrawled out my question.“Thirty-eight?”
He tipped his chin in a minuscule nod.
Yep, he looked much younger. A gift of the werewolf genes. The good thing was we aged so slowly, it’d hardly be noticeable. I knew of a hundred-year-old werewolf that looked no older than a human version of midfifties. Usually, werewolves shift at eighteen which was when aging began to crawl. Werewolves’ lifespans weren’t an obscene length—two hundred was as old as it got, but at least we had a smidge more time than humans.
“There were... situations with Rowan. He’d killed more than a few packmates and the pack had enough. Everyone lived in fear of him. One of my challengers decided to band everyone together to request we put him down.”
I sucked in a hard noisy breath as my hands fisted. How dare they want to put my mate down? My teeth clicked together.
“I obviously did not. Instead, I agreed to leave to try to get him under control.”
“And you want to go back to your pack?”I held it up, trying to keep my expression even.
That was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I wanted out of pack life. This, here, just us and no other responsibilities, or having them put anyone over me, or me having to socialize, that’s what I wanted. It was my heaven. The only reason I’d remained in the Redwood Pack was because of Hector and Camden.
Kit frowned, meeting my gaze pensively, hesitating. I saw the caution in his eyes and it made my heart tighten.
His lips parted but before he said anything, I hopped off the seat as I wrote out my next phrase.“I’m going to shower.”
I twisted on my heel and rushed out of the room like a coward. I didn’t want to hear him say the words because when he did, I would have to state my position, and that would put us at a crossroads I didn’t want to consider.
It was unfair of me to impose my desires on him. I didn’t know if he’d go back as Alpha, or worse, give it up for me. Both sounded like a nightmare.
I was back in Kit’s bedroom and tossed the blanket on the bed and shucked off the shirt. As soon as I turned the shower on, I stepped inside, rubbing the dried cum and sweat from my body.
I sighed, rubbing soap into my skin.
Rowan’s unpredictability was why they lived out in the middle of nowhere and why they were banished. Poor Kit, having to choose between two things he cared for. He was much older than I thought, and he’d been Alpha for so long. No wonder it was all he was thinking about returning to... but that was off the table for me. My teeth sank into my lip. It would be selfish of me to ask him to choose again.
