Elle

“I needed this so badly.”

She sipped at the glass of white wine, relaxing into one of the sinfully luxurious leather chairs that surrounded a large circular table. The other four chairs were filled with good friends.

Angela, Rachel, Kelly, and Karri, Andrew’s mate, whom she’d been talking more with over the past few days. It was a good gathering. Small, intimate, and at the moment, perfectly timed to coincide with nap time for the kids.

It was bliss.

“Yeah, girl time is so awesome. Especially with just a few of us,” Kelly agreed.

“Preach,” Angela said, lifting her glass. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole crowd. But sometimes I don’t want a party atmosphere, I just want a chill atmosphere. Right?”

The others voiced their agreement, including Elle, lifting her glass and then taking another sip. It was going down smooth. Possibly too smoothly.

She’d been spending a lot of time in the north end of the city over the past few days, occupying her time with friends as much as possible to try and cover up the hole that the fight with Braden had left in her life. The others all knew something was up, but so far they’d all respected her privacy and waited for her to talk about it.

“You’re all so lucky,” she said now, swirling the wine around as she watched it.

Karri looked around the group before responding for them. “What do you mean?”

“Just, with your men. With your families and the lives you’ve built. They all love you so much, and they just get you. None of them have tried to change you.”

“No,” Rachel said, “they haven’t. Not majorly at least. But that doesn’t mean things were easy before we got to this point. In fact, I think the majority of us here found ourselves on the wrong side of things, forced into dealing with enemies that our men had made. Enemies that we couldn’t do a damn thing about. “

The others all nodded. “I know,” Elle told them. “I wasn’t trying to diminish that. I was just saying, the relationship has always been strong. You’ve always known that they were going to be there for you.” She sighed heavily. “I’d do anything for that right now.”

None of the women said anything, they all just looked at her, waiting patiently for Elle to finally reveal to them what had been going on between her and Braden. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to tell them, but she needed to tell someone, and these were the closest friends she had. Who else was she going to talk to? Normally she’d consider going to Braden. But he was the one who’d fucked it all up in the first place, that stubborn, pigheaded jerk!

“What I mean is, your mates all understood that they were dealing with women. Human women. That the old customs and things wouldn’t fly with us.”

There were nods from around the circle.

“Exactly. Oh I’m sure you had fights and the like. But tell me, honestly, how many of them simply told you that you were expected to give up your life here and move back to Cadia with them, to be little more than a trophy wife and brood mare?”

Silence rang out loudly. She could see shock and stunned surprise on all their faces.

“I’m going to take it that means none of you.”

Angela snickered.

“What’s so funny?” she snapped.

“Oh come on!” her best friend said, breaking out into a chuckle. “I can just imagine how you reacted to that. I bet he had no idea what hit him when you laid into him and told him how wrong that is on so many levels, and how he doesn’t control you. I know you, Elle. You’re pretty chill most days, but you are not one to let someone else control you. Not outside the bedroom at least.”

That brought giggles from the rest of them, and even Elle couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said stoically, despite the red tinge creeping up her face.

“Did he seriously say that?” Karri asked as the hubbub died back down.

“He did! I told him I wanted a job, ‘cause I’m going stir crazy. Something to get me out of the house, where I could maybe make a bit of extra income. Buy myself lunch once a week maybe. Nothing crazy. He starts getting all defensive, saying I don’t need to do that, that he’ll just give me money for whatever, that sort of thing.” She worked her hands together while she spoke as the emotions of the day came rushing back.

“Which was nice,” she said, continuing after a moment. “I really do appreciate his willingness to spoil me and buy nice things. It’s uncomfortable to accept, but I’m not denying that I enjoy the stuff he buys me, or Gwen. At the same time though, I still want to have my own independence. Besides, what if things don’t work out between us, right? I need to have my feet on the ground at least. So I tell him that, and he doesn’t like it, but he just says it would be pointless, because when I move back to Cadia with him, I won’t be able to work there.”

“Just like that?” Angela half-gasped as she spoke.

“Just like that,” she confirmed. “He just sort of plunked it down, like it was a given. When I tried to confront him about it, he seemed confused, not understanding why I wouldn’t be willing to do that. As if the concept of moving away from the human world and into his shouldn’t bother me in the slightest.”

“Men,” Karri snorted. “So oblivious sometimes. I can’t believe he would just expect that of you.”

Elle nodded, lowering her voice as she spoke, imitating him to the best of her ability. “That’s how it is. You’re my mate, so you come live with me. Hur hur hur.”

They all laughed. She knew it wasn’t overly nice, but she was angry with him, and needed to vent. And until he decided to be more open-minded, she was going to feel perfectly okay with mocking his thick-skull.

“When did this happen?”

She looked at Rachel. “Five days ago.”

“Have you spoken since?” her friend asked.

“Nope.” She shook her head. “He’s asked me to come talk about it a few times, but I just ignored him. I’m not interested until he stops trying to convince me, or asking me for explanations on why I’m mad. Maybe he’ll figure it out. Eventually. I don’t know. I hope so. He’s a good guy, but I can’t be with someone who thinks I’m just property.”

“Absolutely,” Kelly said, the others chiming in with words of support for her.

“Still, I can’t believe it’s been five days,” she said, waving at Hector as he came in the front door of the house.

Rachel got up and went to greet him, then gave him the boot, saying it was ladies’ time. The big shifter grumbled something and then headed for the stairs.

“I don’t know,” she continued, feeling like she was saying those three words a lot. “Maybe I had him figured all wrong. Maybe he’s not that interested in me. Maybe he just doesn’t care.”

There was the sound of wood creaking from the railing, which was just audible from where she sat on the far side of the room. Then it suddenly exploded.

“That will be enough.” The thunderous avalanche of Hector’s voice rolled over the room as he descended the stairs.

Elle sat there in shock. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been talked to like that.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he growled, the sound deep and menacing. “You want to make fun of Braden for being thick-headed? Sure. He’s still got some learning to do about humans. Not a problem. But I don’t want to hear another word out of you about him not caring, got it?”

She opened her mouth to reply at the same time that Rachel got up, stunned by her mate’s aggression, but Hector flipped up a hand at Rachel so forcefully that she froze, rooted to the spot.

“Braden is a damn good shifter, a good coworker, and a good person overall. He has been drinking himself sick the past three days, all because he can’t stand being away from you, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s come this close to being fired because of how distraught he’s become over his fight with you. I’m pretty sure I heard him crying, though if you mention that to anyone I will make your life a living hell. He desperately wants to fix things with you, but from what I understand, you won’t even give him the chance to speak. The words might not be what you want to hear just yet, but he is trying to talk to you. And you’ve kept pushing him away, refusing until he does things your way.”

Hector paused and jabbed a finger at Elle. “Which, if I’m not mistaken, is exactly why you’re fighting in the first place, because one of you was refusing to compromise. So I’ll tell you one more time. Don’t talk shit about whether he cares or doesn’t care. Especially when, to someone who can see both sides of it, you’re the one coming off like you don’t care right now.”

Without another word the shifter turned and silently left the room.

“I’ll fix the railing tomorrow, my love,” he said softly as he paused at the bottom of the stairs, then climbed them quieter than someone his size should have been able to do.

Elle sat back into her chair, speechless. She’d never been on the receiving end of an angry shifter before. Not one whose anger had been directed at her, at least. She was shaken. The worst part of it all was that Hector was right. She was doing exactly what she’d gotten upset with Braden about. It wasn’t the same level, but when she boiled it down, his logic was hard to counter.

“I feel almost like I’m eight years old again and just got a strip torn off my back by my father for doing something dumb,” she remarked at last, breaking the tension in the room. Then, to Rachel, “Don’t say anything to him, okay? I…I think I actually needed that,” she admitted.

“Are you sure?” Rachel asked. “Because that wasn’t overly nice of him.”

“No, it wasn’t. But he was defending his friend, who I was making incorrect remarks about.”

“If you’re sure,” Rachel said, settling back into her chair as well.

Almost as if on cue, all the women picked up their glasses at once and began to drink.

“So, are you going to talk to him?

Elle nodded. “Maybe, yeah. I think I’ll try. I mean, I do like him. A lot. I just can’t have him assuming that I’m going to do major things like that without us talking about them. He needs to accept that reality. Until then, I don’t know if we can be together. But I can talk to him about it.”

She lifted the glass of wine and finished it.

Yeah, she could talk to him. Had he really been crying over her? That seemed so out of character for any of the shifters. But maybe, like the rest of them, their emotions were stronger too. The idea that he cared so much about her, and was so distraught over them fighting that he had been willing to cry was touching. It confirmed to her that he did care, that he took their relationship, as newfound as it was, just as seriously as she was.

Which only makes sense. He called you his mate. That’s sort of a forever thing as far as shifters go.

Right. She’d totally forgotten about that. It had sort of gotten swept up into their argument, and Elle hadn’t given it any further thought after.

She wondered if he meant it.