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

48. Leigh

FORTY-EIGHT

Leigh

A week after our meeting, the Council did indeed come back and say there was no wrongdoing found on the part of the ODL during their investigation. Lucien immediately submitted the new petition we’d put together.

Another three weeks had passed since Lucien took the petition to the IGC, and it had been oddly quiet ever since. We’d all fallen into a strange sort of rhythm. I was—carefully, with Bri’s and Oli’s approval—leading daily runs and yoga classes for pack females who wanted to join me. Shay was working daily on her fae powers and getting better at being a human battery for Bri, and using it defensively with Dirge and any cocky Caelestis Pack males who were willing to play crash-test dummy. Oli was thriving with our pack and always bringing up some new medical tidbit she’d learned at dinner.

She was also making eyes at Lucien every time he came to dinner, but we were politely pretending we didn’t see it. Anytime someone brought up his name, she blushed, the curse of the redheads. It was adorable.

But all the while, we were in limbo. The men had daily meetings, Lucien gave us slow-as-snail updates, and in between, we waited.

The topic of flying back to Alaska had come up once or twice, but despite all of us being restless, we agreed that staying close to the council was for the best. Eventually, they’d want to see us again, and we needed to be available at a moment’s notice so they couldn’t throw out our petition again.

It was infuriating, much like buttoning my shorts these days. Gael’s credit card lay on my nightstand, where it would have gotten dusty if housekeeping didn’t come in daily to clean this room. But soon, I would need new clothes.

My workout stuff was stretchy, but anything cutting into my stomach made me crazy these days. I was officially in the second trimester, and the nausea had finally, finally gone away for the most part. In its place was ravenous hunger. If food wasn’t nailed down, I was going to eat it. Which wasn’t helping my clothes fit.

Which was part of the reason I was currently standing in my room post-evening-workout, staring down at my nonfitting jean shorts, desperately trying to get the button to close the distance. It didn’t stand a chance. I was over an inch and a half shy, because Petal was officially making her presence known to everyone. I had a real-life baby bump, and that was the fifth pair of shorts in a row that wouldn’t button.

I sighed in defeat and pulled a sundress out of my closet. It was high waisted and loose, covered in sunflowers, with sleeves that hung low and showed off my shoulders. Just looking at it made me happy. My boobs were straining at the ties up top, but that was more socially acceptable than having my stomach hang out of my unbuttoned shorts, so it would have to do.

When I stepped out into the hall, I immediately scented Gael. His typical pine scent was stronger than usual, the ylang-ylang and masculine musk heavy in the air, as if he’d been sweaty when he’d walked through the hall .

It had been happening every day, and I suspected that he was running himself ragged in the gym, just like I was with my outdoor runs, to keep his distance. And like every other day this week, my mate’s scent had my core soaked in two seconds flat. Which was especially irritating because my panties were also starting to get too small, and I hadn’t worn any just to run down to the kitchen for a late-night snack.

It was frustrating and arousing, and if he’d been in the hall, I wasn’t sure if I’d have leapt on him or snarled at him for daring to smell so freaking delicious.

As if I’d conjured him with the thought, he stepped out of his bedroom a few doors down the hall. He had a towel in hand, rubbing his hair halfheartedly as he scanned the nearly empty space. He was shirtless in sweatpants, and the sight of all those rippling muscles nearly did me in. Leaping on him is definitely the winner. I’m so damn horny, I could cry.

When he spotted me standing there like a bump on a log, he froze.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back, trying to keep my tone cool and unbothered. I was supremely bothered, but it wasn’t his damn business. I forced my legs into motion, as if I hadn’t been rooted to the spot just from his scent lingering.

It was a mistake. Because to get to the kitchen, I had to walk past him. And do you know what the only thing better than his scent tantalizing me in the hallway was? A fresh hit of it when he was freshly showered and standing less than two feet away.

My mouth watered and my knees locked up before I could walk past.

“Everything… okay?” he asked, both eyebrows lifted as he stared at me.

What was I supposed to tell him? Sorry, couldn’t keep walking, I’m trying not to hump your leg right now?

Absolutely not .

“Fine, just a cramp,” I lied through my teeth, doing my best to keep my breathing shallow. What I didn’t expect was for him to leap into action.

“Where is it? Calf? Shoulder?” He stepped forward, concern etching his face as he scanned me, like he would be able to identify the misbehaving muscle with sheer will alone.

“Umm, calf?” I whispered, completely making it up. I had no choice but to double down on my fib, even as he stepped closer and I had to look away.

“Put your hand on the wall.”

I obeyed without thought, as if he’d woven me into some spell, watching as he dropped to his knees in a fluid motion.

“Which leg?”

I lifted one, holding my breath as he gripped my foot in one hand, letting the other come up to cup the back of my calf.

“Shit,” I whispered, letting my head fall back as his gentle touch wrecked what little was left of my self-control.

“Does that hurt?” he asked as he kneaded the not-at-all-cramping muscle and flexed my foot to work out the knot.

I couldn’t answer. He had stolen my words, and all that escaped was a breathy moan. He felt too good, my wolf was pushing my control, and I was so damn wet, my arousal was going to be rolling down my inner thighs if he didn’t stop touching me.

But as soon as he heard my moan, he froze, shoulders tight. “Too hard? I can go softer.” He eased up on the pressure, searching my face with every stroke.

Something about the sight of him there, on his knees for me yet again, bulldozed the barriers I’d been hanging onto so desperately. For protection. To keep my heart intact as I did this impossible thing the Goddess had charged me with.

All those objections, those staunch defenses, felt suddenly hazy and overblown. Why was I keeping him at arm’s length?

Why was I fighting fate so hard ?

“That’s better, thank you.” I finally managed to choke out coherent words, and he set my foot down, but didn’t take his hand off my calf. The warm, calloused heat of his palm was fueling all kinds of sexy ideas, but I couldn’t go there, not now.

So, I did what I do best and blurted the first unrelated thing that popped into my head. “I need french fries. Need them . I’m going to see if I can get someone to drive me into the village to get some. There’s got to be a bar still open, and fried potatoes are bar food, no matter what part of the world you’re in.”

His lips quirked up into a half smile. “Pregnancy craving? Does that mean the nausea is fading?”

“Pretty much gone now, so I’m moving on to eating all the things. Like that caterpillar in the kids’ book.”

He mouthed the word caterpillar , but didn’t comment on the reference. “The drivers can’t go out with any of the pack females without approval from Kane or the head of security.”

I was just relieved we were talking about something safe and distracting from my intense need for the man I was trying to keep at arm’s length.

“I don’t think you understand. If I have to, I’ll walk my ass to town, because I need french fries like I need oxygen, and the chef in this castle has all these ideas about only feeding me superfood until I pop. But I need salty, greasy goodness, okay? Pregnancy cravings?—”

“Are nothing to take lightly,” he interrupted me, standing with a single, fluid movement.

That was how a predator moved, and my wolf liked it. She liked it too much.

“Which is why I’m offering to drive you myself. Will you let me take you into town?” He offered his hand, palm up and unassuming, and waited for me to decide.

Damn, so much for distractions. Spending the whole evening alone with him in town was risky.

I raked my hands through my hair, probably making it stick up like a crazy person, then made a rash decision. I slid my hand into his, locked eyes, and said, “Take me to town, prince.”

His grin was devilish, and it had me wanting to lean into the desires instead of away as he tugged me down the hallway, not giving me the chance to change my mind.

It felt reckless as we ran out the front door—the only time I hadn’t seen Cristian guarding it, which meant he did sleep sometimes —and down the steps, not stopping until we hit the row of black SUVs always at the ready off to the side of the castle. I was oddly breathless, though I exercised much harder every single day. It was all him; the pull between us.

He opened the door to the closest one for me and didn’t let go of my hand until I was seated. When he did let go, it was to grab the seat belt, buckling me in himself.

“I can do that myself, you know. I’m a big girl,” I said with an extra dash of sass.

“You could do it yourself, or you could let me take care of you.” There wasn’t an ounce of joking in his voice. He was dead serious, and something about that had me resisting the urge to rub my thighs together with need.

His face was inches away from mine, and the tension between us was so heavy, it was a physical presence. All I had to do was lean in half an inch, and I knew it to my core that his lips would be on mine, and I would be getting something hot and heavy that was not french fries.

My stomach grumbled, and his eyes crinkled with his smile. “Come on, princess. I promised you french fries, and it’s time to deliver. I know the perfect place.” He lifted my hand one last time, pressing a kiss to the back of my knuckles that made me shudder.

It was giving medieval knight vibes, and it was working for me in a big way. Maybe it was the castle, maybe it was the stunningly green and untarnished countryside we were driving through, or maybe it was the fact that I had a real, live prince driving me, but for the first time in my life, I really did feel like a princess.

He turned on something upbeat in Romanian that I didn’t understand on the radio, and the silence between us was oddly comfortable as we drove the fifteen minutes or so off castle grounds and into the little village where more of Pack Caelestis lived and worked.

When he stopped, we were in front of a quaint-looking stone building, that simply said Gustav’s on the front window in green lettering.

“Gustav’s? There isn’t a burger joint around here?” I asked, suddenly feeling nervous for no reason at all.

He scoffed, but I could tell he was poking fun and not upset. “Gustav is the man if you want a basket of hot fries. Trust me?”

The question was weightier than it should have been. But when I nodded, Gael grinned as if I’d just given him the best gift in the world and hopped out of the car. Before I could even finish unbuckling, he jogged around and opened my door for me, hand already extended to help me down. I turned and took it, stepping down onto cobblestone that looked like it’d been around for nearly as long as the castle. I might normally have made a sassy remark, but he was trying . I kept my remarks to myself and followed him toward the front door.

He held open the door for Gustav’s too, and the most delectable scents I’d ever experienced bathed me. It was fresh baked bread, roasting meat, and some sort of rich sauce or broth I couldn’t put my finger on. I was instantly starving, voracious for whatever the hell they served here.

To my surprise, the inside was packed, low lanterns mounted on the walls gilding the working-class men and women scattered around every table and booth. It looked like a painting, and in that moment, I wished I had an ounce of artistic skill to capture it .

Though without the divine smells, it could never be as perfect as this moment.

He held up two fingers in a gesture to someone—though there was no one waiting at a hostess stand that I could see—and then led me through the maze of occupied tables right to the bar across the back.

“Gael! And you’ve brought a lovely lady to meet me. I’m so lucky!” A barrel-chested man with a wide grin and a green apron greeted us. Before we’d even settled on our barstools, a plate of steaming bread tied in intricate knots was slid between us, and he was already reaching for the nearest beer tap.

“Hang on, my friend—just water for us tonight. Unless you’d like a soda?” Gael asked me.

“Water’s great, thank you,” I murmured, a little overawed by the personal attention.

“Water! That’s not how we do it at Gustav’s, you know.”

“I know, Gustav. I’m sorry! But…” Gael glanced around conspiratorially, then leaned forward and stage whispered, “My lovely companion is pregnant.”

My cheeks burned as the man arched a thick brown eyebrow the size of a caterpillar over twinkling eyes, but thankfully, he kept quiet as he reached over for two water glasses with a wide smile. When he filled them and spun back around to hand them to us along with a pair of menus, his scent hit me for the first time, and my jaw nearly dropped. But I managed to hold my surprise until he turned to serve another customer.

Holding up my menu as a shield, I ducked behind it and turned to Gael.

“He’s human ? I thought everyone in the village was Kosta’s pack?” I whispered.

Gael grinned. “You assumed that everyone in the village was pack. But we’re sitting in a primarily human establishment right now, so if you could keep the glowing in check, that’d be for the best.” He gestured to my eyes .

I blinked, and I realized he was right. My eyes were glowing, my wolf reacting to Gael’s proximity and the surprise of being surrounded by humans. She’d been edgy ever since I got pregnant, and this was the first time I’d been surrounded by humans since I left my job back home at the gym. I blinked a few times until I felt her recede, and he gave me a wink of approval.

“Do you want anything besides fries? How hungry are you?” he asked as I glanced over the menu. There was no English on it at all, so I still had no idea what they served here besides bread.

“What’s good here? I could eat a horse right now,” I admitted, abandoning the laminated menu in favor of a roll.

Or the handsome, tempting, muscle-bound man sitting at my side. I’d love another taste of him.

The roll was safer, so I stuffed it in my mouth before I could say something I’d regret. It was slathered in some kind of garlic spread, and my eyes almost rolled back in my head from food-induced bliss.

“Everything’s good. I’ll order us a variety, if that’s okay?”

“Absolutely,” I mumbled around my mouthful of bread as Gustav stepped back up to the counter across from us.

“Are you ready, my friend?”

“Of course,” Gael said, then shot me a smile and switched flawlessly into fluid Romanian. Gustav took quick notes on a pad, then left us to enjoy our bread.

“So, I’d thought before that Romanian was your birth language, but that’s not true, is it?” I asked after I was done inhaling my second piece of bread. Stick to safe topics, Leigh. Do not let the hormones win.

“No, Spanish is my first language. English second, and Romanian is my third.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely surprised. “Do you speak others, or… ”

“I’m also fluent in Portuguese, and conversational in French. But that’s it.”

“I have never felt so American as I do in this exact moment. I speak English and a smattering of high school Spanish. Me llamo Leigh, y me gusta carteras rosas.”

He threw his head back and laughed, right as another server we hadn’t seen yet arrived with both arms loaded down with plates.

“Just the two of you?” he asked in heavily accented English.

“We’re really hungry,” Gael joked without missing a beat. It was a new side of him I’d never seen before, a freedom that he usually didn’t show when we were with the pack. He was always so straitlaced and serious. I was loving every minute of this. It felt like he and I were friends .

We were just two friends in a human bar, about to demolish so much food that if we were back in the States, they might take our picture for the wall and give us a T-shirt, and it was such a relief from all the stress constantly buzzing around us.

Every single plate looked and tasted delicious. There were garlicky sausages, two giant mounds of fried potatoes covered in some sort of grated cheese, stuffed cabbages in the rich red sauce I smelled when we walked in, polenta, pork, and several large dollops of sour cream that I slathered on everything. It was a feast the likes of which I’d never seen before and probably never would again.

We laughed, talked, and ate until I was so stuffed, I didn’t think I could move. When Gustav called out in Romanian and all his late-night customers groaned, I shot a questioning look at Gael.

“What’d he say, prince baby daddy?”

He shook his head but didn’t argue against the nickname. “Closing time. Do you want anything to go?”

I shook my head, feeling suddenly sleepy now that I was stuffed to the gills, so he paid the tab and left Gustav a sizable tip.

“Come back soon, my friend, and we will share a beer to celebrate your beautiful child!” the man said a little too loudly, and congratulatory shouts went up around the room as people slowly made their way out the door.

I blushed to the roots of my hair at the attention, but Gael just wrapped his arm around me and beamed as he accepted the congratulations.

There was a lump in my throat the size of my home state as we left Gustav’s, but a soul-deep happiness that I’d never experienced with anyone else.