Chapter 126

Zane POV

The photo showed my family standing behind Jordan as he praised the mine’s new school and its purpose. It was a flattering shot of all of us, and I wondered if it had been Photoshopped.

TorandoAllie: That Jordan’s gonna be an alpha and a half when he’s older!

RealLiveBoogie23: They should put the school curricula online. We need to know what bullshit there teaching those kids!

Worldofsilence: Now they’re putting everyone in the family in danger. Mines are no places for pups!

GinnyWolf: @RealLiveBoogie23, I hope they’re teaching them the right way to spell “they’re.”

Eggs&Bacon69: I dout you can really turn mines into geothemal stuff. Sounds like they messed up bigtime.

CrzyDwnHr: Isn’t that mine hundreds of years old or something? They should turn it into a museum.

Tea&CrumpetsRU: Geothermal power is the way of the future. Iceland is 100% hydraulic and geothermal.

RealLiveBoogie23: Not going to go after Eggs&Bacon69 @GinnyWolf?

GinnyWolf: @RealLiveBoogie23, they’re hopeless.

ShangHairSurprise: I love the girls’ dresses! They’re from Au Bon Marche.

S: The pups are fine. They’re not actually inside the mine, you know. It’s an outdoor pic. Duh.

There it was again, “S” defending Sarah. Well, they were defending all of us, I suppose. Lots of people used initials online. This S might have no connection at all the to S from the auction.

But I still didn’t like it. I clicked on their bio and got nothing except their recent feed.

S: If Sarah were a wolf, she’d be an alpha. I can dream, amiright?

S: You look beautiful in that dress, Sarah. I wish you wore your hair down more often.

S. You know, Sarah looks a little like the girls. Have you guys noticed?

S: <3 Sarah!

S: Fated mate for some lucky wolf? Maybe.

I put my phone down and looked over the papers I was supposed to be reading on my desk. I soybean farm in the south of my territory had made it through the fiscal year for the first time in almost a decade with no government subsidy assistance. I needed to write to congratulate them.

S didn’t really sound like Scott, the way he talked or the terms he liked to use. S sounded a lot younger, for one thing. Most of the time, S just sounded like a supportive fan.

But the comment about wearing her hair down was intrusive. I knew I was just snarling at some presumptuous wolf who was getting too close to my mate, and that wasn’t appropriate because Sarah and I weren’t mated. Not yet.

Maybe not ever. The more I looked into legal precedent and traditions, the more improbable it was that we would ever be able to mate, at least officially, and if we mated in private and it got out I’d been challenged and dead within the day. The girls would be left without their father, and I couldn’t even imagine what would happen to Sarah.

Well, I could, actually.

Oh, screw the soybean farm, I thought as I got up and went looking for the only person I could concentrate on right now.

I found her in the sitting room. Again.

“Do you want your own office in the villa?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t thought of it sooner.

She looked up from her laptop in surprise and then smiled. I was becoming foolishly fond of Sarah’s smiles. She had a way of conveying so much through her bright blue eyes, and her whole face seemed to soften and glow when her lips curled up.

I could tell she was pleased and touched by my offer. I wondered what else I could offer soon to get her to look at me like this again.

“Is there space?” she asked.

“I cannot remember the last time this place was full up with guests. Here, why don’t we look at a few of the guest rooms that haven’t been used since the sinking of the Titanic?”

She laughed, closed, her laptop, and set it aside before standing up. “Sounds like fun.” She grew a little thoughtful.

“Do any of them look out over the hedge maze?”

“So you can keep an eye on the girls, I suppose?”

She shrugged. “They do seem to live out there some days.”

I thought over the floor plan and took her to the second floor. The room I had in mind wasn’t particularly large, but it had its own bathroom and a nice balcony that indeed looked out over the maze.

“This is perfect!” She rushed to the French doors and swung them open wide. There was a small table on the balcony with two chairs, and she plopped down into one with delight.

“It’s all yours,” I said, sitting down across from her. “Get together with the housekeeper, Eliot, and tell him what you want for a desk and all that.” I looked at her eyes and smirked.

“You’re thinking about how you’re going to get the girls to help you decorate, aren’t you?”

She shrugged, and then she leaned back into her chair. “I shall drink tea and watch the children as they frolic.”

I laughed.

“It really is perfect, Zane. Thank you.”

“Do you really want to thank me?”

She made a scandalized face. “Out here? Where anyone could see us?”

Then she stood up and walked back inside. I followed and closed the doors.

She turned to me as I walked up and took her in my arms. She slotted into perfect place, as always, and I thought of throwing a party just to have an excuse to dance with her.

We kissed, and my whole body enjoyed it. She shivered just a bit, and I couldn’t help but growl and nip at her chin. She laughed, and in a dance-like move, I twirled us around to land on the bed.

She took it as a challenge and growled back at me. She was getting quite good at that. Her hands pulled my button-down out of my trousers and then ran up my chest.

“I love the feel of your hands on me,” I whispered.

“I love you,” she said.

All breath left me, and I rested my head against her shoulder.

“I wanted to say it first,” I grumbled.

“You had plenty of chances.”

I lifted my head to look into her eyes. “I’ve been trying, looking at everything I can find, but . . .”

“I know.” She smiled, and it was sad this time. Then an odd look came over her face.

“What?”

“It’s silly.”

“I could use some silly right now.”

“Years ago, I watched some Star Trek rerun, and Beverly Crusher, the doctor, doesn’t know she’s in some sort of space thing. People keep disappearing, but no one but her seems to notice.”

“OK.”

“Well, there’s this line she has, and it’s stuck with me. ‘If there’s nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the universe.’”

I nodded, understanding what she meant. “There is something wrong with the universe if it means you and I can’t be together properly. There’s something wrong in any universe where that’s true.”

She reached up and kissed me gently on my lips, and the sweet taste and scent of her filled me.

“I love you too,” I said. I’d never meant anything more.