Chapter Thirteen
Jillian
Dean had asked me a pointed question, but I couldn’t bring myself to give him any more than a generic answer. Yes, there were only specific people who could speak to each other mentally in their wolf forms.
Those people were mates.
Mate.
I didn’t remember how the rule got into my head. Either it was told to me as a child, or I’d just assumed, given my circumstances, it was true.
Either way, my life didn’t allow for a mate.
And if there was one, I wouldn’t be surprised if he rejected me. That was kind of the story of my existence.
So I did what any girl would do when faced with a mate dilemma...I gave the entire thing, including Dean, the cold shoulder. It was so easy to bestow the ice princess treatment on the rest of the pack, but with Dean, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
He was always finding ways to touch me or accidentally brush my hand here and there.
Every touch seemed to light me on fire.
I needed time to think.
My eyes were barely open when I got up before the sun, and it was already dark by the time I got back. It left little time for conversation or for anything else.
Like kissing. Gods above, I’d never thought about kissing as much as I did lately. I had dreams of it. The thoughts distracted me from my work. I couldn’t eat, barely slept, all because I needed this male to touch me.
Then again, it seemed like asking him to touch a venomous animal. Like the poison that was my place in the pack would somehow pass onto him.
I didn’t want that for him.
He deserved to be a happy shifter with someone who could, you know, read, write, and be a part of the pack meetings and parties and gatherings.
He deserved a life that I couldn’t give him.
There was only one person who would give me the time I needed to suffer through this without judgment.
She lived out in the woods, somewhat cast out like me, but more for her half-witch status than anything else. She was the one who taught me to forage for myself. Her cabin was smaller than mine, if possible, but somehow, when I was there, it felt like a mansion.
Not that I’d ever seen a mansion.
It was the kind of place where you didn’t have to knock and something was always brewing on the stove.
I knocked four times before entering anyway, simply so she would know it was me. It was my special signal.
Some people in the pack secretly came to her with requests. Make them a concoction to help them have a baby. Make their mate nicer. And some requests not so innocent.
“Hello, Jillian, my dear. I’ve just pulled some chamomile-and-lavender scones from the oven. Come in. I’ve brewed tea as well.”
I sat at her wobbly round table, crafted of wood she found in the forest. The flowery scents of chamomile and lavender permeated the air and instantly made me somehow feel lighter, though Dean and all that came along with knowing him, and speaking to him as a wolf still weighed on me. Her home was straight out of a storybook I’d found in the discard heap and treasured. The cottage had a rounded, thatched roof and all kinds of herbs hanging from the rafters and drying on racks in every nook and cranny. She wasn’t the type to clean up before company and expected you to pick up her knitting or her cat if you wanted to sit on the sofa.
“Here you go.” She sat down across from me after serving us both tea and putting a dollop of honey in each cup. A basket of piping-hot scones sat in the middle of the table, but I waited until she reached for one before helping myself.
Magda was the kind of person who was everyone’s mother despite her semi-isolation.
Her nurturing ways discriminated against no one.
“I know you won’t tell me what’s on your mind, but I think I already know. You’ve been blushing since the moment you got here, and the fire in the hearth is simply not that hot tonight. Plus, you scent like passion.”