Buttercup

Lya

The book I had found on my bed was interesting, to say the least. It had been wrapped in an old cloth, and the warmth under my skin when I skimmed my hand over the cover confirmed it was embossed with silver. Given it seemed to be a book about werewolves, and we had a sensitivity to silver, that was a peculiar choice. I wondered if it was filled with information they didn’t want just anyone reading.

I hadn’t gotten much into the book - just the introduction of the Wulver Pack, its location, and when it came into existence - when there was a knock on the door. I went over to open it, not at all surprised that Oliver was on the other side.

'Lya, mate!' Tala insisted. I just rolled my eyes at her. Ever since I had chastised her for not telling me Oliver was our mate, she had made a point of announcing it every time we saw him. It was getting annoying.

'I get it, now leave me alone,' I growled, frustrated by her nagging.

'But mate! Mate is right there!'

“Hi,” Oliver said with a lopsided boyish grin. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Depends on who you ask,” I huffed. I couldn’t help it - my eyes raked over him. His blue t-shirt was struggling to hold his muscles in, and it was drool worthy. “Do you need something?”

Oliver shrugged. “It’s getting late. I figured it’s bedtime.”

I raised my eyebrows. Sure, he’d spent every night here recently, but was that really necessary? “Don’t you have your own room?”

“I mean, I’ll just be back here when your night terrors start up, but if you’d prefer…” He turned to leave, making it a couple steps down the hall.

Some sort of sound caught in my throat, causing him to turn back and look questioningly at me. I opened the door a little wider, relishing in his smile as he walked back toward the door. He caught my hand in his, dragging me over to the bed with him.

I couldn’t stand this. Why did he have the power to turn me into putty in his hands?

'Well mate, duh,' Tala piped up. I didn’t humor her with a response, focusing on the static electricity on steroids zapping between us.

I perched on the edge of the bed, not quite willing to get too close. “Are my night terrors really that bad still?” I asked.

“It’s normal, Lya,” Oliver insisted, sprawling out on his side of the bed - when did we develop designated sides of the bed? - and lacing his fingers behind his head. “It’s just your brain’s defense mechanism. We have professionals at the hospital you could talk to at any time if you so choose.”

I scrunched up my nose, but decided to just return to the book I was trying to start reading.

Oliver sat up, scooting over to where I was, which had been as far away from him as I could get. “Are you liking the book?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t really had the chance to start reading it,” I said pointedly. I closed the book, taking a moment to look at the intricacies of the cover. Oliver held his hand out for it, but as soon as it hit his skin, he hissed, dropping it quickly. “Careful! It’s old!” I reached for his hand, examining the welts that quickly developed where his skin came in contact with the silver embossment. “Will my sensitivity to silver get worse the more in touch with my wolf I get?”

Oliver kept his eyes closely on me as I reached down to retrieve the book from the floor. He flinched when I picked it up, but all I felt was a bit of warmth. “No, I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “Does that silver seriously not bother you at all?”

I shrugged. “It feels a little warm. I imagine if I left my hand on it for a while it would get itchy or zingy, kind of like when I’d wear the silver bracelet or earrings for long periods of time.”

“Interesting,” Oliver said slowly, like he was trying to taste every letter of the word. “I wonder what your reaction to wolfsbane is. Let me know if that comes up in the book.”

“Why would it be in the book?” I asked. “It’s just about some pack over in Scotland. Although, it’s the region of Scotland my dad’s side of the family is from, which is kind of cool. How did you know that?”

A small smile flitted across Oliver’s lips. “We’re just trying to get some more information on that pack, try to connect some dots,” he said. “Speaking of, my grandmother wants to talk to you more about that.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What’s so important about this pack, though? Aren’t there a bunch of packs around?”

“Usually, it wouldn’t, but this is one we don’t know much about yet. You’re what we’d call a rogue, by the way, given that you aren’t in a pack. Until you join mine, anyway,” he said with a smirk.

“What makes you so certain I’ll join your pack?” I chided, even though I knew I would. The possessive look was adorable on him, so I continued. “Maybe I like this whole rogue thing. No responsibility, no one to tell me what to do.”

“Trust me.” Oliver reached out, snaking his arm around my waist. He pushed me down onto the bed, caging me in with his arms as he moved to hover over me. “If I have it my way, you will.” His lips crashed down on mine, greedy and demanding.

I turned away, giggling, and rolled out from under him. “Oh no, Mr. Alpha, I’m not about to give up all this independence I just discovered. I’m a lone wolf until I decide otherwise.” I picked the book up and moved to rest against the headboard. I felt the bed move, but refused to take my eyes off the pages. Oliver’s arm came around me, pulling me against him, and he placed feather light kisses along my neck.

“What do I have to do to convince you?” His voice was dark and husky and hard to resist.

“I-I’ll think about it,” I stuttered.

Oliver settled in with his chin resting on my shoulder, reading over me. Occasionally, he’d ask for me to wait to turn a page, and I could tell he had read faster than me when his lips found their way to my skin, which just made me read slower.

I could get used to this.

Tala purred in contentment, but the way she was flitting around, I could tell she was trying to reach out to Adair. I wondered how it worked for our wolves. Did they have their own way of communicating, or did they rely on their human counterparts to pass on messages, like a game of telephone? None of the books I had found talked much about mates, so I didn’t know much in that department other than what Rose, Allyssa, and Marjorie had told me.

“Is what Cody and Ellie like normal for mates?” I found myself asking after a good half hour of very distracted reading.

“No,” Oliver said quickly. “I have honestly never even heard of mates being like that. Gregory and Allyssa are normal.”

I thought of them dancing in the kitchen a couple mornings ago while their kids ate breakfast before school. Every time I had seen the two of them together, they seemed so happily in love, even twenty something years and three and a half kids later. Gregory was so reverent of Allyssa, and Allyssa clearly cherished him. The thought of that being my future with a mate filled me with warmth, and made the idea seem less scary than it had been.

“What’s wrong with Cody and Ellie, then?” I continued, still not able to get a hold on my brain’s programming to latch onto the bad.

Oliver leaned back to lay down, pulling me with him. “I don’t know. But he told me today he’s planning on rejecting her.”

“That would explain his mood,” I mused. “Did your grandmother reject her mate for a reason like that?”

“What?” he snapped. “My grandmother would not have rejected her mate.”

“Y-you didn’t know?” I sat up and looked at him. The look on his face made me feel guilty for divulging some deep dark family secret. “Ollie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Oliver reached up and pulled me back down to him. He kissed me again, but this time it was slow, with a passion that simmered just beneath the surface. “I don’t let many people call me Ollie,” he murmured, placing another kiss on the corner of my mouth. “But to answer your question, my grandmother can be a very scary woman. If she rejected her mate, it wouldn’t have been because he acted like Ellie. I don’t think anyone would have dared to treat her like that.”

I snuggled down into the pillow, keeping my eyes on Oliver. Tala let out a contented hum, and for once, I had to agree with her. The quiet and peace of this moment was something I wanted to hold onto forever.

For a brief moment, I wondered if I would have changed the way I approached the whole wolf thing if I had known this was what life could have been like. But, I had other people to hold responsible for not having access to this. I was pretty sure my own father was a werewolf, for crying out loud. I had talked to him a couple times after he saw me shift. He could have made sure I knew, but he made no attempts to fill me in.

And then, the nagging acceptance of fate crept in. How in the world would I have ever ended up here if things had been managed correctly?