Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

18. Gael

EIGHTEEN

Gael

I stomped back to the dining room, my head whirling. I don’t know what kept coming over me; maybe it was a reaction to the pregnancy, but my wolf was in overdrive when it came to Leigh. In my head, I knew Lucien wasn’t a bad guy. I knew it. But when I’d stepped into that dining room and seen his hands on her, it was like a switch flipped. My wolf was in charge, and he was pissed.

And then I declared that she was mine? What the fuck was that, besides me putting my foot in my mouth in the most epic way possible?

Stupid, G. Stupid.

She’d immediately pulled back, and even if she hadn’t outright said I’m not yours , the direction of her thoughts was clear as day. She wasn’t feeling all this like I was. This pull . It was like an anchor in the center of my chest, the chain stretched between us right to her. She could pull me any direction she wanted, but she didn’t even know her hands were on the rudder.

When I stepped back into the dining room, Lucien was talking to Dirge off to the side, a sandwich in hand, while Brielle, Shay, and Olivia sat at the table in front of a veritable feast. The girls were chatting, but I caught the new girl shooting a glance at Lucien when she thought nobody was looking.

Good, maybe she could keep his attention far, far away from Leigh.

Mine, my wolf rumbled in my head, shocking me.

He was a cantankerous beast who had rarely spoken to me throughout our lives.

She has no marks. She’s not ours.

Mine! he demanded again.

I shook my head. He could say what he wanted. It didn’t make mate signs appear.

“You okay, man?” Reed’s hand dropped to my shoulder, taking me by surprise with how caught up I was in my own head.

“Yeah, fine.” I waved him off, but he followed me through the swinging kitchen doors, the sounds of our pack mates’ conversations instantly muffled as the doors swung shut behind us.

“You don’t sound fine. Lucien told me about what happened a few minutes ago, and I think we need to talk.”

I sighed. He was probably right.

There was a small table off to the side with a handful of chairs around it, where the chef team did prep. It was empty now, though. Reed gestured toward it, and we both sat.

Maybe a minute to clear my head before I went back up to Leigh would be a good thing, especially with my wolf acting crazy.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Reed said without preamble.

“I don’t know. We got out of the meeting in Kane’s office, and I came down to get Leigh lunch. But she was already down here, and Lucien had his hands on her shoulders, and I just… lost it. ”

“You also lost it in the office, and you’re usually the most controlled person I know.”

I scoffed. “Besides you, you mean?” I pointedly eyed his crisp suit jacket and the probably starched button-up underneath it.

Reed grinned, but didn’t argue with my assessment. “You know, Kane felt crazy like this while he and Bri were working things out. It’s possible?—”

I shook my head, not willing to go down that path. “Reed, you know as well as I do that they popped mate marks within days. Well, Leigh and I made a baby together and there are still no marks. She’s not my mate, and my wolf is probably just reacting to the fact that she’s carrying our baby, or something.” The words were bitter on my tongue, and my wolf growled again, no longer deigning to chime in with words.

But the fuck you tail swish was pretty easy to read.

Reed steepled his fingers, staring me down with infuriating silence.

“Just spit it out, man. I’ve got to get her lunch before we leave for the council.”

“You know that mate marks aren’t the only sign, right? And Bri and Kane were different because she’s an omega. We don’t know how much sway that had over their bonding process,” he said quietly, shooting a pensive look across the room toward where Lucien sat, presumably unaware of our pack’s secret.

I froze in my seat, my blood turning to ice in my veins. What was he saying?

“What other signs?” I asked when my tongue decided to work again.

“Well, there’s a physical pull. Wolf connection, mate scent?—”

He rattled things off as he ticked them off his fingers, but my brain had frozen at the physical pull. I definitely felt pulled toward her. But did that little bit mean we were mates ?

“How the hell am I supposed to know the damn difference between intense lust and a mate bond trying to form?”

Reed grinned, a dimple in his cheek popping with the motion. “Time will tell. But marks aren’t the be-all and end-all.”

I sighed, dropping my head into my palms. “You know that’s not the case for me.”

“I do. I know what your family obligations are. But what I’m saying is don’t give up hope. It feels… it feels a lot like the Goddess is bringing us all together for a reason we just haven’t figured out yet.”

I glanced up, arching an eyebrow at his unusually woo-woo statement. “Since when are you into mystic shit? Aren’t you a money talks and all others walk kind of guy?”

“Of course. But even I’m not blind. First, Brielle being what she is. Then what we saw on Ushagat, what happened when Shay didn’t die, what happened with the marks on Leigh and now Olivia? This is not the norm. Something is happening here, and you’d have to be an idiot to pretend it isn’t. We’re being pulled together, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you and Leigh making a baby together wasn’t an accident.”

My wolf rumbled his agreement in my chest, happy with the turn of the conversation. Shit, was he right? Was I in denial?

Fuck.

“Tell me the signs again,” I demanded, my brain moving too quickly for the rest of me to catch up.

“Physical pull, wolf connection, mate scent, mate marks, claiming, and finally, the mental bond, if you’re lucky.”

I nodded, combing back through all my interactions with Leigh. The very first thing I’d felt for her was irritation.

Or was it? Was I irritated at her, or because of how she made me feel about her? Distracted. Interested. Hot under the collar.

And my wolf sure as hell liked her. Maybe all hope wasn’t lost after all .

“You’re thinking something. What is it?” Reed asked, leaning back in his chair and kicking a foot up on his knee.

I wanted to punch him for looking so relaxed while I was going through the wringer, but his clear head was helping me, as usual, so I kept my fists to myself.

“I’m thinking about everything and questioning it. She irritates me, but I think that might be me trying to fight back an attraction I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.”

“That’s good. Honesty can only make the process easier. Maybe if you stopped fighting all this for once, things would just click into place.” He checked his watch and shook his head. “You better get a move on, though. We’ve got to leave for the council soon.”

I cursed under my breath and pushed back from the table. I wanted to dig deeper, but pack business couldn’t be allowed to slide, even if it felt like my own life was crumbling to pieces.

When I backed into the room, I had an overflowing plate balanced in one hand and a bag full of kitten supplies in the other.

Leigh was sitting on the floor, her hair golden in the afternoon sun as she trailed a string in front of the tiny kitten.

Nugget was an absolutely absurd name for an animal, but Leigh was so fiercely protective, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.

“Hey, BD.” She smiled up at me.

Granted, she had a thing for absurd names.

“We’re going to have to work on the name,” I muttered as I handed her the plate.

“Thanks,” she said as she took it from my hands, wrinkling her nose at the big green salad the chef had insisted was full of superfood . Smelled like shit to me, but I wasn’t a nutrition expert. “Would you rather I called you baby daddy?”

“You can call me anything you want,” I said, holding her gaze. The tension snapped between us in an instant, as for the first time, I didn’t deflect or back down. I let myself look at her, really see her.

She was a vision, even in sleep-rumpled lounge clothes. Her hair was in messy waves, her eyes bright blue, and the hint of a smile on her lips melted into a fantasy-inducing lip bite.

I went rock hard as I watched her nibble that lip and felt it when my eyes began to glow. But I didn’t have time to indulge those fantasies, even if I could have convinced her to let me bend her over my bed. Nor did I have the time to think too hard about whether those were two early mate signs, because I had to keep my head in the game to protect Kane’s back.

Basically, I was fucked on every level.

“Lucien got us in to see the IGC, and we have to leave in half an hour. You don’t have to come if you don’t feel up to it, but I do have to go. Bri and Shay are going. I’m not sure about Olivia.”

“Whiplash,” she muttered, taking a bite of the oversized sandwich as she pointedly ignored the salad.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… nothing. Thanks for the food, and I feel pretty good, so yes, I’d like to come. Sorry I slept through the earlier meeting, though.”

She blushed, staring down at her plate instead of at me.

“You’re growing a whole pup. You deserve to nap whenever you want. The meeting was fine, but we don’t all have to be present for every single thing, especially not if you need rest.”

Leigh smiled at me then, a full, real smile, and my lungs seized up. Shit, opening up to her was going to be a problem. At this rate, I was going to have a stroke before I turned forty.

When she took a big bite of her sandwich, I looked away, clearing my throat. “I’ll set up the stuff for Nugget. He can’t come with us.”

“Aww, but he’s so cute with his widdle tiny paws.” She switched to baby talk, and I might or might not have grinned while my back was turned as I worked on setting up the bowls and the little makeshift litter box in the bathroom.

I might not have been completely sure whether or not she was my mate yet. But I was a hundred percent certain that she was going to be an excellent mother to our child.