Haven't Had Enough

Lya

Anna trailed behind me all the way to my room, talking nonstop about a smell of intense spices, certain it was her mate and he was close and he had been in the packhouse recently and she just had to find him. I peeled off my clothes, noting my shirt truly was on backwards, and stepped into the shower while she continued to chatter outside the door.

“I get it! I truly get it!” she insisted. “I totally understand why you can’t keep your hands off of Ollie, because as soon as I find this person, I swear I am going to eat him alive he smells so good. In fact, I have no idea how you control yourself as much as you do.” I cringed a bit. I really thought I had been relatively successful in my restraint, keeping PDA to a minimum. It was Oliver who either wasn’t trying or was having a really difficult time keeping his hands off of me.

“Do you have any guesses?” I called out over the sound of the water.

Anna was quiet for a moment - a rare occurrence. “I feel like I’ve smelled it before, but not this intense,” she finally mused.

“So who do you know that you haven’t seen in a long time?”

“A lot of people,” she laughed. “I hardly came back here when I was in college.”

I stepped out of the shower, drying quickly, and throwing on a sundress before emerging from the bathroom. “So of those people, who would have any business being in the packhouse?”

Anna shrugged. “I guess anyone could at this point. Who has gotten promotions in the past four years?”

I shot Anna a look over my shoulder as I made my way toward the kitchen, on the hunt for a beer. It’d be so easy to just tell her exactly who she was looking for. “Pray tell, exactly how would I know that?”

“Good point.”

“Why don’t you maybe try sniffing rooms, to see if there’s a particular room that smells more like your mate’s scent than others?” I offered, figuring I’d throw her a bone.

Anna perked up at that. “Good idea!” And just as quickly as she had glommed onto me, she was off, headed up the stairs to the guest rooms. No one had stayed up there in the past few weeks I had been here, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. It would at least keep her occupied for a few minutes.

I caught sight of Allyssa out of the corner of my eye. I turned to greet her, feeling a little guilty that I was drinking a beer in front of her.

“You know who it is, don't you?” she said accusingly.

I just nodded sheepishly, sending a glance in the direction of the alpha hall. There were three males living that way, only one of which was a possibility for her. Hopefully
Allyssa got the point.

Allyssa just let out an exasperated sigh. “I knew it. This house will never sleep again.”

“Should we just tell her?” I asked tentatively.

“No,” she said quickly. “Anna will be furious enough when she finds him.”

I had heard several stories by this point about the two of them growing up. It was very easy to see that that would be the case. Allyssa was probably right - there would be no sleep once Anna finally tracked Trevor down, for which reason I couldn’t decide. “How long do you think it will take?”

“Oh, not long.” Allyssa’s eyes looked past me, over my shoulder. I turned to follow her gaze and saw Trevor standing in between Oliver and Thom - one holding each arm.

“Go put him in his room,” I suggested. “Anna’s checking rooms to find one that smells like him.” Thom led him off, Allyssa and Oliver remaining in the kitchen.

“He tried climbing through the window to make a run for it,” Oliver informed us. Allyssa just rolled her eyes, almost as if it was expected behavior.

“Is that normal?” I asked. The whole mate thing still confused me, and I could only imagine the way it was going for me was far from normal, meaning I had no idea what sort of show I was in for when they finally did run into each other.

“No,” Oliver said, eyes searing into me. “Most mates are overjoyed to find each other, glued at the hip, and have no qualms showing the world they have found the one who belongs to them.”

His words cut into me, feeling like they carried much more meaning than just explaining what was going wrong between Trevor and Anna. His words were directed toward me and what was supposed to be happening with us.

But it takes two, sweetheart.

If he wasn’t going to talk about it, neither was I. I was the newbie here - he could take the lead. ‘Hey Lya, love of my life, gift from the goddess, I just want to make sure you know those sparky feelings are because we were made for each other.’ It wasn’t that hard.

But then again, it wasn’t that hard for me to say something, either.

Easier said than done, though.

Allyssa’s glance shifted between the two of us. “I’m sure they will figure it out sooner or later - sometimes it just takes a bit of an adjustment when there’s history that predates discovering they’re your mate.”

It felt like everyone knew. Our mutually unrequited mateship was quickly becoming the elephant in the room.

“I’ll just go track down Greg to give him a quick heads up,” she said, slinking out of the kitchen.

Oliver stalked toward me, almost predatory. “Do you ever think about what it’ll be like to meet your mate?”

With each step Oliver took toward me, I took one back. In no time, I was backed up to the refrigerator with no space between us, leaving no room to breathe. “I could ask you the same,” I choked.

“They say there are sparks.” He reached a hand up, brushing his fingers along my cheek, the electricity making me jump. “And an irresistible scent that only you can smell.” Oliver’s nose grazed along my jaw and down my neck. “And it’s nearly impossible to not mark them when close to them.” Teeth - canines - grazed along where my shoulder met my neck, right where I had marked him.

Barely a prick. A canine ever so slightly broke the skin, causing a trickle of blood to run down my neck. His tongue flitted out, sealing the wound. I clamped my hand down on my neck, feeling for the mark I hoped he hadn’t bitten deep enough to leave.

Oliver kissed me like it could be our last - or like it was a kiss he had waited his whole life for. It said everything he hadn’t put into words. Fire burned across my lips, and I couldn’t live without it.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t mark you without asking first. But I’m still going to stake my claim. Over and over again until you let me mark you.”

I wanted his mark. I wanted to be only his. But I bore too much responsibility to succumb to temptation and selfish desires. I felt guilty for marking him so prematurely, especially when he was so willing to afford me a courtesy I denied him. But he wanted me as his and that was all I needed to know.

Oliver buried his nose in my neck again, breathing deep. “You smell like lilac and pine carried on an ocean breeze, like a beach in Maine I went to once.”
My breathing hitched. If I thought hard enough, I could almost remember a perfectly overcast late spring morning, my last day in Maine, visiting my favorite place for one last time. But there had been a something that had caused my wolf to surge forward, coming closer to the surface than I had ever experienced before. I barely made it off the beach that day, shifting for the first time as soon as I hit the treeline. It had been a long and agonizingly painful experience, overshadowing nearly everything else. He had changed since then. Lived a bit more. But if I thought hard enough, I could remember him.

“Mate!”