The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 54

Chapter 54

MAXIM POV

Turns out my so–called friends are unhinged and lethal.

Her kisses upen my bite were an injection of hellfire into the bloodstream. My wolf, scampering around in the dark trying to heal my internal bleeding and cracked ribs was suddenly alert, forcing my eyelids back open. Every caress cancels out an act of brutality, the loss of a friendship that can never go

back to what it once was.

But Tess can keep on stoking my cheeks and whispering sweet nonsense to me. It’s all helping the healing process. If Allette fancied hurling another knife into Briggs I would be fine with that too.

They will all be apologising soon enough. Right now I need to heal up.

The will of Tess was enough to get me standing up, even if it was a little wobbly. Only for Marshall to insert himself.

Leaning on him for the stagger back to Block E was pathetic. They have beaten the hell out of me. One ankle has swollen up like a damn melon. Breathing feels like running an obstacle course, so many ribs in crunching agony. Then there is my face.

I cannot lie and pretend not to care. I do not want a busted up nose making me look like something descended from a cabbage. Nor do I want any scars. I’m not made to look like a battle–weary hero.

I may be completely soaked, but the walk back did me good. Tess’s arm around my waist, her orange scent in my brain, it sent my wolf onto a supercharged mission.

The powerful rain means Tessa is also soaked through. Delightfully so.

Keeping quiet, I allow her and Waden Marshall to guied me with a heave onto the bed.

Only for Pawful to immediately jump onto my chest and start kneading my black shirt with their tiny, sharp claws. Even the fucking cat hates black.

My wolf is so eager to repair it sends me woozy again. Reduced to a feeble listener when I’m meant to protect her. Because she needs it. Tess is not safe

yet.

Despite her suprisingly confident assertion, “Thank you so much Warden Marshall, I can look after him now.”

“You’re not planning any late night archery practice? I didn’t think the rain would put you off.” Even in my fucked up like mashed potato state, I know he’s fishing. He’s checking she isn’t planning to flee. Him helping to carry me isn’t entirely charitable.

“Not tonight no. I think Maxim needs me more.”

“He did well today.”

“I’ll tell him you think so,” my little heart–stealing rebel answers calmly.

Talking like I’m not here, my eyes stay closed, wolf patching up splintered bones.

“He won’t believe you anyway,” Marshall scoffs before turning around and closing the door behind him. “But the black shirt…you can see why we don’t give it out easily. It’s a big adjustment.”

“His friends should have been proud of him. Known he hadn’t corrupted himself,” Tess answers firmly, her fingers sliding into mine. Holding my hand, standing next to my mattress like a true protector.

“Why would they be happy for the chance they’ve craved and trained for vanishing? They’re going to the warfront now. They’ll likely die. If not the rebels, then the Elven folk. Pagano won’t. He will form part of the Alpha’s inner circle. He is not disposable, they are.”

“Why do you never call him Maxim?”

1/4

Chapter 54

“Because he is a Pagano, Same as you are a Darnell. You shoul not be allowed to forget where you came from.”

“Can he insist you call him the correct name now?” Tess asks and I can almost feel her blush from here. Goddess she is bold tonight.

“Your status is unchanged Miss Darnell, Keep that in mind when you interact with those above you.” With a soft little click of the door, Warden Marshall manages to leave the room whilst keeping a sour, bitter note languishing in the air.

“Oh you can just piss off,” Tess mumbles under her breath.

“theard that,” I mutter, hoping my words are clear enough to hear. “Can’t be insulting Wardens now Tess.”

She flops down onto the bed next to me, a strand of her long, damp hair brushing my cheek. “Can’t be letting you bleed everywhere.”

“Eurgh, am I?”

“Oh yes. Try not to ooze onto me. I’m going to patch you up. I’ve done it to a pig that got stuck on wire before, you can’t be much different.”

“I’m offended in about ten different ways. Ooze?” I groan but when her hands touch my chest, her weight sinking into the mattress next to me, I am compliance personified.

Plus, the more my vision comes back into focus, the more spectacular the view becomes.

She’s stripping away my black shirt, every button swiftly undone. Her fiery hair hangs in thick, soaked ribbons. It only makes her chocolate eyes stand out more. She’s abandoned her thick beige and gold training gear, revealing a plain white vest top and bra. Also revealing her stunning, curvaceous chest and soft waist, trapped behind useless white cotton.

The soft stomach I adore wrapping my arm around and gently stroking. The full breasts I dream about sucking and teasing until she whimpers my name.

When she goes for my pants I’m forced to try and keep myself together. Tess playing nurse was not on my forbidden idea’s list but it’s just shot straight to the top. It can’t. I need to think. Clearly, calmly.

Divert the blood heading towards my cock back to where it’s meant to be. Get grounded in reality.

Tessa just lost her best friend. She’s planning to leave. Probably tonight.

So it’s a good job she is brutally brisk. Other women might make a sensual performance out of stripping me out of my wet clothes. Tess almost broke my hip. And nearly fell off the bed in her clumsy effort to pull the material further down.

“You worked as a prison guard before then? In–between rescuing stuck swine?” I groan as she rags down my pants in one go, the material clinging to my legs, including my still–swollen ankle.

“No, why do you say that?”

I reply, “Your kind and gentle bedside manner.”

“Oh,” she whispers back, a smile threatening to break. When she says nothing, it feels like everything is going to tumble into the abyss of awkwardness. Then she leans forward and kisses my bite mark. “I do hope you’re feeling better.”

“Yes. Very much so. Yes, I’ll be fine” I gasp, before I realise she has whipped my pants completely off me and I’m laid in the bed in just my black briefs. Dammit I can feel every single rib move when I breathe. “Ouch. Ouch!” escapes me and I can sense her grinning.

I am going to ruin Silas and Kai when I get the chance. Grovelling won’t even be the fucking start of what I want to put them through.

I have to think about bloody vengeance and devastation. Otherwise my brain is going to zero in on the vision that is Tess. Skin glowing, cheeks a little pink from the cold, her brown eyes scanning over my near–naked body thoroughly feeling every bruise and cut, checking for broken bones.

Or maybe just groping me.

Both activities are fully authorised.

Chapter 54

Tess murmurs “Good, good,” after moving on from each wound, her little voice so quiet i almost miss it, I fixed upon her, blatantly staring whites a mops the blood from my brow with a damp towel, perched on the edge of our bed.

“Good?” 1 check, frowning at her as she walks away into the bathroom. “Sure about that?”

“You’ll be fine. I’m going to get a shower. Rest up.”

Reluctantly 1 obey. My mind sends the most deviant images but tonight is not the night. Thunder is roaring above us, crashing and churning the skies. Every minute another huge roll of weather blows across the pack, tiles will be coming loose, training gear damaged. But that is tomorrow.

She emerges in one of my blue shirts again. Mentally damning my cock to behave itself I lie there, meek as a lamb whilst she dabs at my injured nose with a warm sponge..

That blue shirt isn’t hiding enough. Leaning on the bed to reach my battered face I can see almost everything I crave. The shape of her breasts, even the type of lacy, black underwear she’s wearing.

This has to be going somewhere.

Until Tess scrambles under the bedclothes and hides herself away from sight. Fully rolled away, her face staring at the bedroom window. Lantern

switched off.

My heart drops Of course. This was never going to be a night where Tessa placed all her trust in me. I know what I want. For her to allow me to be her first. But more importantly, her last. Fuck this Luca guy. He can be rejected. She can make her own choices. She can choose me if she wants to

Even though my wolf jumps at the idea I scold myself for such thos

Her voice returns to its usual insecurity from the darkness. She sounds so far away on the other side of the bed. “Maxim.”

“Yes?”

“How are you feeling?”

“Not great.”

She rolls over, her brown eyes glistening with tears. “Same.”

“I can make it better you know?” I offer with my best attempt at a grin. I hear her chuckle from the other side of the bed.

“I dread to think how.”

“Just this,” before leaning over, wrapping my arm around her waist and dragging her her back hits my torso, her long shapely legs follow the bend in mine.