Page 101 of The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate
“I don’t know how my father did this for thirty years.”
Her hand at the back of my neck goes still. Then, it resumes.
“He had his moments alone, too,” she breathes. “I’d bet on it.”
“He had no one to hold him.”
The hand in my hair tightens, just for a heartbeat. Her cheek lowers to the top of my head. She presses her lips to my hair without making a sound—just a long, warm contact, her breath stirring against my scalp.
“You have me,” she whispers. “For as long as I have.”
Her words land in a wound that is already gaping, and they open it further.
I turn my face deeper into her throat. My arms close around her ribs, and I hold her against my chest hard enough that she would tell me if it hurt. She doesn’t. Her fingers move slowly and steadily at the back of my neck. I let myself be held by her and think about the day I shoved her in a hallway and pretended I did not know what she was to me.
Soft sounds reach us from the estate. A clock chimes the hour and is answered by another clock two seconds behind. The window across the room has gone fully dark, and the only light in the office is the dim gray of the moon through the glass, falling across the desk in a long, pale rectangle.
The squadron is a week from coming back. There is a black mark crawling up my mate’s collarbone. There is a witch I have not yet found.
None of it has gone away.
But Sienna’s heartbeat is against my ear, slow and even. Her hand is in my hair, and her other arm is around my shoulders now. She has put herself between me and the dark for all this time without asking anything of me, and I am, for the first time today, breathing all the way in and all the way out.
I tighten my arms around her. She tightens hers around me.
We stay there a long time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sienna
The Moonvale convoy comes up the long driveway at half past two on a bright, cold afternoon, and I am on the front steps of the estate house before the last vehicle has cleared the gates.
I hurry down the steps and across the gravel, my pace quickening when I see Violet opening the rear door of the lead car. By the time her foot touches the ground, I’ve already thrown my arms around her. Her embrace wraps around me so tightly that not even a sheet of paper could fit between us.
“It’s so good to see you in person!” I breathe. “Oh, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Violet.”
She pulls back, demanding, “Let me look at you.”
Her hands stay at my upper arms as her eyes move over my face, noticing the color of my cheeks, the sleep I have not had. Then, her gaze drops to the collar of my blouse and stops. Her fingers come up to pull the fabric down an inch.
She finds the mark of the curse.
Emotion flickers in her eyes as they meet mine. “Does it hurt?”
I shake my head. “So far, it’s been fine. It has been spreading a bit, as if its roots are expanding. If you pay enough attention you can see it moving.”
My friend peers at my neck. “Yeah. I don’t like this, Sienna. You were supposed to find your mate, not his family baggage.”
A short laugh leaves my lips. “Oh, I’m so glad to have you here. How is Anne?”
“Pregnant,” Violet grins. “She really wanted to come. She even tried to sneak into one of the cars, but Kain dragged her out.”
“She’s pregnant?” My eyes widen. “She never told me.”
Violet blinks. “Oh.” She winces. “Crap. I forgot. She was planning to surprise you when you return. She’s going to kill me. Don’t tell her I let it slip!”
I grin. “Let what slip?”
