Page 33 of Bullied Mate

“I can see now your mother was correct about our shared stubborn qualities.”

Crap, why did she have to bring that up? It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard enough from my mother about how wonderful Galanthia was and how well they got along. Bells were ringing in that woman’s head, specifically church bells. Funny how traditional things like that were still considered by non-traditional wolves like us.

Well, it wasn’tmethinking about church bells. Marriage wasn’t on the docket any time soon, especially not marriage with the Elderling woman who went hot and cold with me all the time.

Except, right this second she was so deliciously warm that I wanted to bury my face in her tits again.

But I resisted. “Yeah, well…”

“Do you deny our similarities, Avi?”

“Do you keep calling me that because you like me?”

The way her entire face crawled with red splotches made me laugh openly. And just like that, the sadness crept away, the joker returned, and my half-chub threatened to become full-on stiff.

“I don’t know why I keep calling you that,” she admitted, “or why I keep finding you when I don’t want to find you.”

My laughter faded to a light chuckle. “Shit, that sounds like my problem too.”

“You don’t want to run into me?”

“No, because then it means we’ll argue again. And I hate arguing with you.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Even though you seem to enjoy it all the same.”

“Enjoyis a strong word to use there, Lanthie.”

“We seem to enjoy a lot of things. Is that not accurate?”

Hell, was she flirting with me? “Other than the arguing, yeah. We like a lot of things.”

“Crafting, building, spending time with our families.”

I stared at the ground. “Yeah…”

“I understand your feelings of loss.”

“Hey, I haven’t lost my mother yet. Don’t you start—”

She showed me her palms. “That’s not what I meant. Forgive me. I struggle occasionally with your language. What I mean is that I understand beinglost.”

Yep, she’d heard plenty. Maybe I would have been embarrassed if I wasn’t assured by her energy and her expression that she was being serious. “Go on.”

“Our old pack chased me into the woods. That was how I ended up in Estaria. The Star Goddess took me there through a hole.”

“That’s a lot of things I don’t understand, but I can try to grasp it.”

She chortled. “It’s beyond my understanding as well, but magic can reach quite far. Our dimension is sandwiched next to yours. Therefore, it’s easier to access it by way of a magical hole.”

“You keep talking about holes and we’re going to have a problem.”

She frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

My gaze dropped to my lap. “Eh, you’ll see eventually.”

“Do you want me to stop talking?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’m just being a jerk.”

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