Chapter 37

Chapter 37

As I combined the rice with the chicken and vegetables, I was hit with the aroma of the teriyaki sauce and the steam rising from the dish. Picking up the plate, I headed out to leave the kitchen and return to my room to eat.

My stomach continued to growl in hunger as I walked across the dining room. Just as I was about to leave, I heard a voice behind me.

"Come here." The woman said.

The hair over my back rose and I turned, finding Nicholas' mother. She sipped on her tea and motioned me to sit across the table.

I swallowed hard and sat on the other end of the table while keeping my food down at the same time.

Nicholas left after speaking to me, and I hadn't seen him after that, but I could hear his mother everywhere in the house. I dreaded coming face to face with her. She was Nicholas' mother after all.

He was cruel. She could be nonetheless.

"You're runt, aren't you?" She asked a moment later. In the silence, she sniffed the air and figured out I didn't have a scent.

I nodded, "I am."

Placing her cup back on the table, she leaned behind on the seat and said. "Eat your food. You don't need to hide from me."

Maybe she wasn't as cruel as I thought she would be.

I pulled the fork from the napkin and pushed it over the chicken before taking a small bite of it. My mouth went tight shut and I hesitated looking up at her as I could feel her penetrating gaze over me.

"Nicholas told me about you. A survivor from one of the pack's he destroyed last month," she continued, her tone thickening. There was more behind her words but I couldn't understand. "What are you doing here?"

I rose my head, wondering the same, but then I realized Nicholas might have not told her or anyone about the fact I was his mate. He didn't even tell me. I doubted he told anyone.

"Nicholas wants me to stay here."

"You take his name?" She cocked a wicked brow and I instantly knew she wasn't someone I could just talk to.

"He lets me."

"Why can't you shift?" Even more confusion filled her eyes as they raced all over me.

"I don't know."

"You must," she took a sip of her tea and then returned her attention back over to me. "How long is he going to keep you here?"

"I don't know." I truly didn't.

I wasn't sure if he was keeping me here anymore, or if I was staying here.

"He had plenty of girls over, some even living in this house, but I have never seen such a clueless girl like you," Her mouth lined straight and all the wrinkles disappeared from her face. "You can go wherever you were heading to."

My stomach stopped grumbling and I stood up from my seat before heading upstairs. My hunger disappeared as I walked into the bedroom, slightly hot-headed and ashamed. I blew out a breath and further walked inside as my hands went to my hips, resting above.

I was right not to leave the room when she was lurking around.

Taking the sweater off my body, I tossed it aside as it grew warm within me. I paced around the room wearing nothing but my pants. My head fell over my shoulders and I took in another deep breath before going into the closet to find something thin to wear.

Something that would heat me up anymore.

Nicholas had a scent, it was a scent of an alpha and that was all I could smell. Nothing else. It didn't pull me in, it didn't create any sort of attraction, and it only confused me more.

How could I—a runt have a mate? I didn't have a wolf. I couldn't be mated to another one.

I raced my hands through the clothes, most of them were thick sweaters and clothes until I went further and found a few shirts hanging on the side. Just as I reached for one of the shirts, I caught a glimpse of a white dress. It was off-shoulder, full sleeved still and the dress I had worn nearly three years ago at my high school graduation party.

I placed my cheek between my teeth and held the dress in my hand as confusion filled my face.

It was three years ago.

I hadn't seen the dress a couple months after I finished high-school. After being kicked out from the house, I believed I had misplaced the dress somewhere, or Gerald decided to throw it out. But I was wrong—it was right here, in front of my eyes, hanging in the closet of the alpha I only came to know about a month ago.

Did he—

I bought a quick pause to my thoughts, but my mind ran wild either way. Nothing held back the hundred questions surfacing in my head.

Grabbing the dress, I wheeled around and stepped outside the closet.

Nicholas wasn't here to tell me why he had my dress, the dress I had worn three years ago.

My face went pale and I waited for him to return.

I stayed awake past midnight, collected at the edge of the bed, waiting for him. I didn't leave the room until he was here.

"You're awake?" He stepped in, and looked at me with suspicion.

The door behind him closed as he came inside and neared me. Moonlight slipped in from behind the bed where the window remained. I rose my head, meeting his gaze. His eyes pinned me like an owl prepared to attack.

"When did you learn that I was your mate?" I asked him.

He didn't say anything, nor truth or lie. Just nothing. "There's no need for you to know when it was." His jaw hardened, not liking the questions I was asking, but it was only the beginning.

I rose up from the bed and went near to the table before gesturing at the cloth laid over it. "Why do you have my dress?" My brows furrowed. "A dress I haven't seen in three years."

"I warned you about putting your nose where it doesn't belongs." Another true warning set off in his tone and it gave me the answers I wanted.

I took the dress off the table before his hand reached for it. "You knew I was your mate for three years!" I exclaimed in disbelief, my eyes widening at the same time of realization. "Three years, Nicholas. You knew it. You knew I was your mate, and you didn't say anything."

"I wasn't sure."

"Sure about?" I stepped back from him. Our eyes continued to fight even in the silence, like a heated battle was going down. My heart thumped in my chest hard and my fingers tightened over my dress. "You knew I was your mate, you knew it all along and you never told me. Not once. And you told me you didn't have one when I asked you about it."

He flashed me a threatening stare. "I wasn't sure if you were."

"How could you not be? You smelled me, you knew I was your mate. Did you not want me? Was it because I'm a runt?" My teeth pressed hard against each other.

I still couldn't believe it.

He reached closer to me, closing the gap between us. "What difference would it have made? You were too young for me then. I had to wait, and I had to be sure, and it wasn't because you are a runt. You know that."

My neck stretched as I rose my head. Our gazes leveled, and the air between us stiffened with tension.

I remembered the past three years I had spent, alone and in misery after my family kicked me out on the streets and I had nothing to survive for, but I still did. I managed to stay alive, and out of trouble for years and years.

On that night, Nicholas knew I was there, in the pack house. He knew everything, and he hid it all from me.

"You're nothing but a liar." I whispered before throwing the dress over him and walking out of the room.

The heat within me simmered. I rushed across the hallway and walked into the room I had been in earlier, the guest room. Slamming the door shut, I locked it before Nicholas could come, or chase me down. My head neared the door and as soon as the footsteps began to fade, I stepped back and sat down, hoping to calm my racing heart beat before I became overwhelmed with all the emotions running inside me.

Three years would've been different if he claimed me as his mate.

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