Daddy’s Mail Order Mate (Twilight Meadows Wolves #3)

Chapter 9 - Gwen

Last night was one of the most miserable I’ve had in a while, and I’ve had a pretty rough time of it for the last… Forever, really.

Despite my exhaustion from a sleepless and stressful night, I’ve decided that a walk might be my only saving grace to dig myself out of the hole. So I step outside into the dawn twilight, take in the cool air, and set myself off on some blind trajectory. I don’t need to know where I’m going. I just need to outpace my own head for a bit. Just so long as I remember my way back, I’ll be fine.

I used to go for walks just like this back in the day. Taking the quiet hours of solitude and just covering ground until I was too exhausted to think had been my only way to get through it all and actually get some sleep. Otherwise my head just kept drilling down, looping through the same miseries over and over again.

My eyes vaguely log my surroundings as I go, though my mind is everywhere and nowhere.

I can’t ask Thorn to leave early, and I can’t confide in anyone about any of this. Not even if I wanted to, but I certainly don’t. All I would get from any of them is ignorance, misunderstanding, and the heedless privilege of people who would never understand how cruel my circumstances were and would clearly always be.

And one of the lines of thought I’d been gnawing away at all night in the corners rolls back around. Rowan had been born from a human mother, apparently. He’d been forthright enough about that during our first conversations over the app. But that means that there’s no telling if he’d have strong enough wolf shifter blood to be like his father. It had been one of the reasons why I even agreed to the trial in the first place; my anonymous match had seemed compatible enough with me, and I would have the opportunity to maybe help a child who would otherwise have suffered in isolation like I did.

If I leave for good at the end of the trial, who would be there for Rowan if his wolf never came?

I’ve blindly made it onto one of the trails leading off from the main buildings and dully register that there’s a nice wooded path running straight before me. I ground myself back into my body from such far-flung thoughts by hurrying my pace along. I try, anyways. My mind is still buzzing, crammed full of doubts and fears, all these old wounds bleeding away.

With a painful past and an uncertain future, it’s no small wonder I’m in such a state. But I still feel an oppressive weight of shame choke me. All the years of rejection and struggle had branded awful things into my soul: I deserve to be looked down on, I’m inherently worthless no matter how hard I try, I will never get to be happy because I will never be enough, do enough, have enough. I’m doomed to suffer and struggle. All I’ll ever be good for is rotting at the bottom of the pile. Discarded. Worthless. My view of the path blurs and distorts, and I force the unshed tears back with a self-loathing snarl. The anger spikes through the pain wracking through me, but only twists the knife of my despair.

“ Goddamn it Gwen, ” I scold myself under my breath, “ Stop crying.”

I lean forward and try to force a march to shake myself out of it—

But some animal instinct has me stop dead in my tracks. Fear runs cold through me and chokes my breath.

Through the brush slinks a dark figure fifteen feet in front of me, canine and unhurried.

The wolf’s head turns towards me and fixes me with its unblinking yellow stare.

Several others pace out after, filling the path with their forms.

The largest is phantom white and stares at me with uncanny icy blue eyes. Like the man from last night; it had to be him. But it’s not the color that makes me associate the two. It’s the disdain . The primal scrutiny he’d looked at me with last night had reached its natural conclusion. He had judged me and found me wanting, as everyone did. And now I get to have the lovely follow-up of him actively looking down on me like the trash I am.

I hate being around packs.

I hate wolves.

I have never been able to be like them. I’ve never been able to be one of them. Not since my peers started to get their wolves and I was left in the dust. Thorn had been one of the only people to not give up on my slow development—

Until he did, in the most vicious and absolute way possible.

I break eye contact, clench my fists, and stand still.

Their paws softly sound off on the path as they walk towards me. The atmosphere as they drift by is of silent superiority. I suppose I might have to get used to even humans walking by me like this, if I wound up being stuck truly homeless.

One of the smallest in the back suddenly snaps its teeth towards me, and I flinch, almost falling back. There’s some guttural noises from the other wolves which I know unmistakably to be the closest thing they can do to laughter.

I hang my head and hide my heating face, tears welling up in my eyes. I’m sick and tired of being left mortified for just existing around wolves. I’m sick and tired of being the pecking order’s punching bag.

But I’ve never been able to break the cycle.

It has always been like this. And like the fool I am, I thought maybe things had changed, I had changed…

I don’t know how long I stand there drowning in myself and silent tears. I just know that I don’t move until it is ages since I heard the last trace of the wolves leave me behind, and the sun is starting to properly rise.

My face feels tight from dried tears even after I wipe it aggressively on my sleeves, and I know I will probably look like a mess to anyone that sees me. But I’m already at rock bottom so far as they’re all concerned.

Weak, useless, rejected entirely. Not even my own wolf wants me. All that’s left of her is a howling ghost haunting my bones and leaving me in perpetual pain.

So I’m going to put her, me, everyone out of their misery.

I feel a certainty in my strides as I make my way back to the little guest house the Alpha put us up in. I knew the courtesy had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Thorn. He’s always been accepted in this world; he’s always been strong. He has always been in tune with his powerful and impressive wolf. When we were young, he got so much attention from the adults. In my pack, they admired him as a rising star of the young generation. In his pack, he was constantly being called upon by his Alpha even from an early age, clearly being trained as a prodigy of some kind.

He will never understand the hell that this whole werewolf world had put me through. He is meant to be here. I’m not. He made that clear himself.

I mount the stairs and head inside, already queuing up the words to tell Thorn that I’m calling the whole thing off.

But as I look to the kitchen, he’s already there.

The aroma of black coffee wafts through the air, and a savory scent from what looks to be breakfast freshly plated. On the table are two places fully set, each plate laden with slabs of bacon, scrambled eggs, toasted english muffins, and hashbrowns. A coffee pot sits on a quaint little pot holder to fill the mismatched mugs at each spot. Thorn himself is sat at one, though he’s scooted back. Rather than eating, he’s gently supporting Rowan on his lap, clearly in the middle of gently coaxing the baby to use a sippy cup. He’s in the middle of humming something I don’t recognize, but it has to be off-key; even though the pitch sounds off, the deep gravel of his voice soothes something all the way down to my marrow.

The little boy’s still too clumsy and small to properly hold the bottle himself quite yet, but one of Thorn’s massive hands so tenderly holds the back end to support the weight. He looks so attentive, clearly tuned in to every subtle cue from his son to make sure he’s safe and happy, taking the feeding at his own pace.

Rowan’s mouth distractedly laps around the little spout, though he loses his own focus to turn towards me and stare at me with those big green eyes.

Thorn’s head also shifts to look at me.

This life looks beautiful. It’s something I never thought I could have—and I know I don’t really have it, but just the illusion of it strikes me in my deepest wounds and fuels some foolish hope that maybe, just maybe—

Only a monumental amount of willpower keeps me from breaking down into a sobbing mess right here. But instead, I just stand here, and a hushed anticipation takes over the room.

“Good morning,” he slowly greets me.

I clear my throat and nod.

“Yeah… Thank you. For breakfast.”

He nods back.

“Figured you’d be back soon. Either it’d be warm still, or I could heat it back up.”

I slowly pace over and hover near the table, and I know I look like some uncertain house guest or a cagey servant. But I can’t help it. I’m not at home here—I’ve never been at home anywhere, really.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You already thanked me.”

In spite of myself, I scoff, bitterly endeared to him even now. My heart had been hardened, battle-ready, when I’d walked in the door. And now I’m an addled mess, tangled between too many emotions and far too exhausted to face any of them.

I look down at the set of untouched identical meals and fend off the urge to cry again.

“I can feed him. You must be hungry—you haven’t eaten anything yet.”

“Neither have you. So sit and eat.”

My body goes tense, and I’m locked up for a few awkward moments before he gives me a silent expectant stare and all of a sudden I’m sitting down as though on auto-pilot.

I force a careful breath out and go to pour myself some coffee without making it obvious my hands are shaking.

Things are quiet for a minute or so except for Rowan’s happy warbling and me carefully trying to negotiate my anxious body to eat some of this food Thorn had gone through the effort of making.

Eventually, he speaks up.

“... If you’d like to help with him, you could watch him while I clean up the kitchen.”

I scuff my fork across my plate, shoving a cloudy chunk of egg around.

“I’d like that,” I say softly.

My attention goes down to the little boy on his lap, and Rowan meets my gaze after a second and flashes me an easy smile. I can’t help but smile back, even though it makes me realize just how sore my eyes are from sleeplessness and all that crying.

“He likes you,” Thorn murmurs in an abruptly warm tone.

I look up to him feeling more than a bit startled. But Thorn doesn’t seem like he’s inclined to let the moment linger, as he keeps talking in a more sober tone.

“It’ll be good to get him home. Paige is lucky I love her enough to not just leave after we eat.”

I huff in dry amusement.

“Yeah, I feel the same about Lucas. It’d probably break his tender little heart if I took off after that shitshow last night. At least if I did it without giving him the opportunity to somehow convince me that being around a pack is some perfect wolfy American Dream lifestyle that I just need to give another chance. It’s like someone trying to convince you that the wood chipper won’t rip your arm off after it’s already lopped off your legs, all you have to do is give it another go.”

Thorn chuckles, just once. But from him that might as well be a big belly laugh. My heart squeezes with a cramp of pining nostalgia at that sound—god, I missed it so much. I’ve missed him so much.

“Sounds about right.”

And when he says that, there’s an affection in the faint smile he gives me that I wonder if he’s missed me too.