The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

TESSA POV

Returning with ragged scraps of chicken in my hand, Irene immediately saw my quivering lips.

“What’s happened?” her freckled nose scrunching in concern.

It was hard to put it into words. The main feeling was humiliation. Why would declaring he had a mate stop Maxim from doing whatever he likes? He spouts the rules but doesn’t seem to think following them applies to him in any way.

Respect the Wardens, Tessa. But Maxim can sass them.

Don’t forget we must act like mates, Tessa. But Maxim can enjoy the Alpha’s daughter caressing his face.

Kiss him, feel the butterflies stir inside. Stare into those amber eyes Tessa, trust his velvet–lace words! But Maxim doesn’t actually have to give you a second thought.

“Tessa?” Irene checks softly, her delicate features full of concern.

I take a quick breath, snapping back into the dark corridor space where a new friend and a kitten look up at me. Maxim is just an illusion, to everyone. Our lie is just securing a role under the Alpha for him. For a few moments I lost sight of that.

I’m not his. I can’t be his even if I wanted to be. That’s not where my road leads, as much as I’m trying to divert myself into Ravenbow and away from the darkness I left back home.

“Irene….I…know we have only just met…but I can’t go back to my room tonight. I can’t. My…my mate…” looking behind me in case he was following. Irene stands up to face me, her earnest face so serious.

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GO

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“Come on. Grab…well we don’t have a name for this fluffball yet but we can sort that. I’m in Block A?”

A door opened behind us, but we didn’t stay to see who it was. Together the three of us scuttled away in the darkness.

Block A was huge and somewhere in there was a room intended for me. Irene was kind enough not to ask too many questions. Falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, “I’ll find my room tomorrow, get my bag back…“I murmured, only to feel her shush and stroke my hair.

So began my first week at Ravenbow.

My hair was wrapped up into a high, tight plaited bun and headed for

breakfast. Irene is a little smaller and shorter than me so the borrowed

white vest clung to my shape but I couldn’t face putting Maxim’s leather jacket back on. I’ll endure a few stares instead.

The oak and berries scent tormented my dreams enough to go through it again today. Our adopted kitten slept on it in the end. It devoured the chicken and water we grabbed. Purring and seeking our touch it kept wandering between us, like it knew we were both nervous about our first real day.

“Ready then?” I asked Irene, watching her pace back and forth, fussing with her tan jacket in the mirror. Above and below us is a racket of feet on the ancient floorboards. Dust flickers in the shafts of dawn breaking through the whitewashed wooden shutters.

Irene checks her leather boots for the fifth time. “I think so. It’s just…a lot isn’t it.”

“Maybe just see yesterday as the low point.”

“Only getting better from now on?” Irene smiled back at me, dimples in her cheeks. I know bumping into Princess Hazel is playing on her mind. But I hope explaining how I stripped to my bra in front of a Warden made

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her feel less foolish.

“Absolutely. Plus, we’re starting today with a pet!” holding up our kitten, it’s long brown, gold and black–furred body somehow doubling in length the higher I lifted him. He offers a plaintive miaow of agreement. “You could make him a little helmet in the armoury!”

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It’s a stupid idea but we leave smiling, joking about miniature breastplates and swords.

Turning the corner, we join a long shuffling queue of first years. Snaking our way along the gravel paths like ants, we head towards the granite Packhouse, inhaling the crisp morning air.

Without our training uniform we resemble a bizarre group of tourists in our mix of mainly white, tan and leather–clad clothing. Irene’s shoulder length honey–coloured hair hid her eyes, her clothing baggy, disguising the shape of her petite body.

To our relief, the first–years schedule was posted on a large canvas in the packhouse entrance. Everyone taking time to double check their locations caused a queue. Nerves are jangling today. Not helped by the white–clad Warden’s. Clipboards are wielded and scribbled upon constantly.

A nearby group telling oafish jokes about fucking the scented stuffing back into the Healers is commanded to eat in silence by one Warden with a long scar across his throat. Irene and I watch, their faces whitening as quick scribbles are made. One patrolling Warden is significantly older than the others. With only one eye, he must be the Warden Donlon Maxim admires.

Not seeing Warden Marshall is a relief. Maxim’s warnings about being constantly judged ring truer each hour I spend here. I force my head up, to take in my surroundings. My eyes glued to the ground won’t help me succeed no matter how natural it feels.

“We get uniforms tonight!” Irene whispers but I feel faint. Waiting,

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dreading, hoping for Maxim to appear. Would he cause a scene?

If he went to kiss me good morning would I freeze or allow the make-

believe moment?

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The deep cut on his forehead last night plays on my mind. He was holding himself a little differently too. My mind paints vivid pictures of Warden Marshall doing something terrible to him.

It took a minute to register one other difference to the dining hall. “Wait. Where are they all?” I whispered to Irene. “The Beta’s, the second and third years?”

There were no dark–blue Beta’s. Not even Kai or Silas. The hall was eerily quiet without them, only half–full, conversations feeling like they could echo for days underneath the blood–red drapings and black iron

chandeliers.

“Maybe they eat at a different time?” she suggests.

“No, I’m sure Maxim mentioned eating together,” trying to cast my mind back to the train bathroom. Apart from memorising the intense amber colour of his eyes, not all the advice he gave me really landed in my fuzzy, panicked brain.

Sat facing each other near the furthest corner, eight other first years gradually joined our table. Not that they acknowledged us. Our shyness rendered us both invisible. A girl, draped in an extravagant peacock silk gown, black hair wrapped in a silk headscarf sighed. “Maybe there has been an attack?”

“All of them? They would have called on us!” one broad–chested man complained.

“Yes that one day of sparring has already made you invaluable to the Alpha,” the silk–clad girl drawls sarcastically. She must be a Healer.

“Which circus did you come from? Got some herbs hidden in that

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headscarf?” he snaps back, a vein in his thick neck protruding. The girl calmly smiled, reached behind her and revealed a short, lethally sharp silver blade.

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Not a healer, a blade wielder. “No herbs sorry. But I can a tongue out from twenty metres,” smiling sweetly, placing the gleaming blade down next to her toast. The men cough before moving on.

“It’s probably endurance training up the mountains or something.”

“Hang on, she’s mated to a Beta isn’t she?” a dark haired man with cold black eyes snaps. All eyes turn to me. “So, where are they all then?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Oh come on don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You must know if you’re mated?”

Think. My first thought being to fake a fit and drop to the floor is quickly discarded. THINK.

“No he didn’t say. Because I’m just a first year,” I offered quietly, my brain reaching for a desperate excuse. To my relief Irene adds, in an even softer voice than mine, “He wouldn’t be allowed to say anyway. He’d be in

serious trouble for it.”

The table rolls their eyes at the pair of us and returns to eating. I can hear some of them muttering. “Of course she fucking knows. Whatever.”

Before we part to head to our separate classes Irene hugs me. “See you at scent–tracing this afternoon?”

“Will Paws be okay do you think?” her pale green eyes full of worry,

“He’s got chicken, water and a cosy bed. He’s one happy cat. Are we sticking with Paws? He seems too full of himself for a standard cat name.”

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He literally stuck his fluffy mitts into my sleeping mouth this morning rather than wait a second longer for a stroke.