Healing Her Wolf: Paranormal Werewolf Romance (8 page)

“And sometimes those couples stay together,” Tyler said. “Maddy, I get that you’re confused, but what’s stopping you from giving Konrad a chance, at least?”

“I mentioned he wanted me to move to his town, right?” Maddy said. She explained about Konrad’s desire to be Alpha and join the town’s council. “So he could just bring back any woman and it wouldn’t matter.” Just talking about it made her angry all over again. Why would she want to spend the rest of her life with someone who was only interested in what they wanted?

“So you kicked him out because he was moving too fast,” Tyler replied.

“He wouldn’t listen to me. He just kept repeating that I had to because we were mates, because he wanted to be on the council.” Maddy sighed. “I don’t want to be with someone like that.”

“I figured that’s what it was,” Tyler muttered.

“What?” she asked, suspicious. That sounded like Tyler knew more than he was letting on.

“I, er, should probably mention that I’d already talked to Konrad, right?”

“Tyler!” she yelled. “Why the hell did you ask me to explain when you already knew what had happened?” She thought she knew him better than that. Then again, she hadn’t known he was a shifter either.

“Because from what Konrad told me, I already thought you were angry because he wasn’t listening to you. I needed to know if I was right, or if it was something else,” Tyler replied calmly.

She huffed. “So, now what?”

“Well, Konrad’s outside the station. I can call him in if you want to talk to him.”

Her stomach felt like it did a cartwheel inside of her. “No,” she immediately said. “No, I need time to think first. What did he say to you?”

“When he realized he had basically ignored your side of things? Called himself an idiot.”

She had to smile. “He is.”

“That’s what I said.”

She turned around on the chair to look out the window. “And then what?”

“I told him I’d ask you if you were willing to talk to him if he stays around for a few days. I was gonna call you tonight, but I guess Konrad’s not the only one feeling like an idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot,” she muttered, flushing. “I was being sensible.” Maybe a little too sensible. And rash.

“I think Konrad can use someone who’s sensible, don’t you?” Tyler told her. “I’m not saying you should run off with him tomorrow, but give him a chance to apologize, at least. Finding your mate is weird for a shifter, too.”

“I guess.”

“So,” Tyler said, his tone more cheerful, “what do I tell him?”

She tilted her head back, looking at the ceiling. “Tell him he can come over for dinner at seven. Depending on how our talk goes, it might become a date.” She definitely wanted it to be a date, but she also wanted to make Konrad sweat a little.

“Seven it is,” Tyler told her. “And try not to over-think it too much, will you? Go with what your gut tells you. Also, just so you know, this is gonna be the last time you can use me as Cupid, okay? Sort out your own problems or leave me out of it.”

She laughed. It was ridiculous, having Tyler as a go-between like this. “I will,” she promised. “And tell Konrad to be on time.”

They exchanged goodbyes, and Maddy hung up. Her stomach went back to doing cartwheels.

She had a date tonight.

*

“Pizza?” Konrad asked, surprised. When Tyler had told him about Maddy’s peace offering, he’d been over the moon. Dinner had been more than he had hoped for after their fight that morning, but shoving two pizzas in the oven didn’t give him a lot of confidence that Maddy was interested in making this a date.

She clearly sensed his disappointment, and gave him a smile. “Things got a little busy this afternoon, so I haven’t had the time,” she admitted. “Mrs. Campbell came to pick up her Chihuahua and stayed for a little chat. On the bright side, I am now fully caught up on the town gossip.”

To be fair, it wasn’t like he had been able to make much of an effort for this potential-date either, since he was wearing a pair of jeans and a shirt, but he had brought her some flowers, and he figured that had to count for something. “And by ‘little’ you mean?”

“Nearly an hour,” Maddy said, arranging the flowers in a vase. She was wearing different clothes from last night, the t-shirt more fitted than the loose hoodie.

Konrad tried not to think of the body underneath those clothes. He was here to discuss things with Maddy, and he told himself firmly not to have any further expectations. “Wow. That’s — that’s kinda impressive.”

She shrugged. “She’s had a lot of practice.” Then she smiled at him. “So, ham and pineapple is okay for you?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He wandered over to the kitchen table to sit down, feeling incredibly awkward. Things had gone so well between them, talking to her had been so easy this morning, and now he wasn’t sure what to say. “So.”

“They should be done in about ten minutes,” she replied. “Do you want something to drink? Beer? Coffee?”

He wasn’t going to touch alcohol tonight. “A water for now, thanks.”

She moved around the kitchen, nearly brushing against his shoulder as she did. Her scent made his mouth water more than the smell of the pizza, and he curled his fingers into a fist, his nails digging into the palm of his hand.

There was a flowery undertone to her scent now, one that hadn’t been there this morning. And was that a hint of coconut? “You showered.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes wide as she held a glass under the tap. “What? How the hell do you know that?”

Oh shit. “I can smell it; you used coconut shampoo,” he quickly said, scooting his chair back. “I swear I did not lurk in the bushes or anything.”

“Well, you’re right,” she muttered, raising a hand to her hair self-consciously. “I guess I didn’t notice the smell myself.” She put the glass of water in front of him, and eyed him suspiciously as she sat down opposite him.

“It’s nice,” he said, in case that made it better. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and bury his nose in her hair.

Her cheeks reddened slightly, and she looked away for a moment. “Yes, well, anyway, Tyler said you wanted to talk?”

“I did, yeah.” Where did he start? “Things didn’t go so well this morning.”

“They didn’t, no,” she agreed, folding her hands together on the table, rubbing her thumbs against one another.

“I shouldn’t have been so pushy.” There, he’d said it.

She smiled a little. “True. And I may have been a bit quick to kick you out.”

He squashed down on the relief sweeping through him. They weren’t done yet. “I should’ve listened to you. You — you made some good points. We don’t know each other at all.”

“Yes, but telling you to leave didn’t exactly help with that.” She sighed. “If I could do it again, I would’ve asked you to leave for a few hours and then meet for lunch, or something.”

“Hey, I get it now, you just had your world turned upside down.” It was amazing what a few hours of thinking could do to you. “Of course you needed space.”

“I did. I do,” she added. “This is still — this is still weird for me, Konrad.”

He had tried to imagine what it must be like for her, to suddenly discover a whole new kind of human. “It’s a little weird for me too.” He had had crushes before, even fallen in love, but meeting his mate was so completely different from that.

Maddy laughed. “At least you know what you’re doing.”

“I really, really don’t,” he replied, laughing as well. “Didn’t I prove that this morning?” Suddenly, he had to be considerate of someone else’s needs as well as his own in a whole new way.

She leaned forward, folding her hands under her chin. “Shall we agree that neither of us know what we’re doing?”

He nodded, raising his glass of water. “Agreed.” He took a sip. “So, now what? Because Maddy, I have to be honest, I don’t want to leave you. I don’t think I can stand it.” The pain was still fresh in his mind, and he never wanted to feel that empty again.

“I don’t want you to leave either. I pretty much regretted sending you away the moment you went,” she admitted, lowering her hands to the table again. “But I also don’t want to go with you. I just can’t.”

That stung, even if he understood. “I’m gonna have to go back home eventually.”

“Do you really?”

He frowned. “I have to if I want to be an Alpha. I’ll have to see how the council feels about an Alpha whose mate doesn’t live in the town, though.”

She shifted in her chair. “What if I never want to live in Woodland Creek?” she asked. “What if, assuming you could be an unmated Alpha, you had to choose between me or the town?”

He stared at her. She couldn’t be serious. There was no way the council would allow that to happen. Maybe if he made his case that even as an unmated Alpha he was still a better candidate than either of his cousins who did have mates — and that was assuming they had found them — the council would agree to an exception to the rule. But it didn’t matter, because when it came to choosing between Maddy or being Alpha, the choice was obvious. “I’d go with you,” he said. He couldn’t be without his mate. “I’d make a terrible Alpha if I was constantly pining for you.”

Her cheeks flushed again. “You wouldn’t be pining.”

“I would,” he insisted, leaning forward. “Endlessly. And so would you, admit it.”

“Wouldn’t,” she replied, smiling and folding her arms across her chest.

“You would be weeping into your pillow every night,” he said, grinning at her.

“Well, you’d be listening to sad love songs all day.”

“While weeping,” he agreed. “And I bet you’d write terrible, sad poems in your diary.”

“Hah, I don’t even have a diary,” she said with a triumphant grin.

“You’d buy one just for all your sad poems,” he insisted, feeling giddy and lighter than he had all day.

She looked at him, then leaned forward. “I bet your sad poems would be worse than mine.”

“They would be,” he agreed, staring into her eyes. God, she was so close, he’d only need to lean in to kiss her. “I mean, what even rhymes with Maddy?”

She burst out laughing at that, lowering her head for a moment. “Because so many things rhyme with Konrad…”

“Had,” he replied. “Sad.”

“Cad.”

“See, your sad poems would be far better than mine.” He smiled at her, and decided to take the chance. He leaned closer, watching her eyes widen as she realized what he was about to do, but she didn’t back away. Their lips were about to touch when the oven let out a loud beep.

Maddy jerked back. “The pizzas!”

*

After dinner, with Konrad finished before she was — Maddy tried not to think ‘wolfing it down’ but that was the only apt description for how quickly Konrad ate — Maddy put the plates in the dishwasher and leaned against the counter as she turned to look at him. They hadn’t talked much during dinner, and Maddy wasn’t ready for him to leave yet. She had been so relieved to hear him say that he would pick her over being Alpha, it had been exactly what she had needed to hear. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Sure,” he replied, getting up. “I’d love to.”

They headed into the living room, and Maddy grabbed the remote from the coffee table. When Konrad sat down on one end of the sofa, he raised one arm and it seemed only natural to settle against him. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and smiled as he wrapped his arm around her.

She pressed closer, humming contently at the feel of his body against her. She flicked through the channels, pausing when a car blew up while some guy walked away from it while putting on his sunglasses. “This’ll do,” she said.

Konrad ran his fingers up and down her bare arm, just above her elbow. “Yeah.” He sagged a little further down the sofa, getting comfortable. “So, Maddy, I have to ask. When you asked me if I would choose you over being Alpha, did you mean it?”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, still holding the remote. “I had to know what mattered more, Konrad. Because from how you explained it this morning…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, it sounded like I was happy enough dragging any woman back to Woodland Creek,” he muttered. “But now I want to know if you really never want to live there.”

Maddy sighed. “I’ve never been there, so I can’t say, can I?”

“Hm, so you want to get to know the town? Don’t blame you,” he replied.

That was a good way of putting it. “I’m sure it’s a nice town.”

“I think you’d like it,” he said, thumb running circles across her skin. “You should visit.”

The slight touches of his hand were starting to drive her crazy, making her feel hot all over. “I think I will, once my parents are back from their holiday.” She wanted to see this town that Konrad cared so much about.

“And until then?” he asked, turning his head so his lips were brushing her forehead.

She sat up, giving in to the urge to kiss him. His hand tightened around her, and she moaned softly his tongue slid against hers. She dropped the remote in favor of sliding her hand under his shirt, touching warm skin.

Konrad was the one who pulled back. “I asked you a question,” he murmured, grinning at her.

She flushed slightly, pulling her mind away from naked skin and back to the topic at hand. “Until then, I want to get to know you better,” she said. “We’ve still got a couple of days until my parents get back.”

“That seems fair enough,” he agreed. “And where will I be staying?”

Her first thought was that it was a weird question, because of course he would be staying here, with her. Then another part of her brain protested that Konrad was practically a stranger and could be a deranged serial killer for all she knew. She looked at him, and he raised his eyebrows slightly as if in question.

Tyler’s advice had been to go with her gut, and that, along with her heart, was telling her that she could trust Konrad. She might not understand wolf shifters, or mates, but she didn’t need to to know that Konrad was a good guy. “Right here. If you want to,” she added.

“Of course I want to!” he replied, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her even closer. His nose was buried in her hair. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

She couldn’t help but grin as she hugged him back. “There’s nowhere else I want you to be.”