Chapter 200

Cara’s POV

When I had been Alaric’s lover in the past, back when we had lived together in DuskWood, Alaric as Alpha with me as his Beta, I had naturally been inclined to help take care of him. Partially, this instinct had been to fulfill my role as his Beta, but in other part, I had wanted to prove myself a capable mate.

Mates took care of each other.

At the time, it had been a natural role to want to serve him and please him.

Now, he’d been here in my house for two days and already I found myself falling into old habits.

Alaric had taken over the den as his personal office, working remotely from there, taking phone calls and using the internet.

Early mornings, before I head to the Alpha headquarters building to work my own position as Beta, I had started to bring him fresh coffee before I left, adding the sugar and cream just as I knew he liked it. While he thanked me, he also gave me a strange look.

I ignored it, feeling good about what I’d done.

In the evenings, I had started to leave work early to come home and make dinners. I often did this for the kids, but now, I made sure to include more dishes that I knew Alaric liked.

“Ah, my favorite,” he said one evening with a smile, which seemed to satisfy some primal urge within me.

This started happening in other ways too. If I thought he might be cold, I gave him my favorite blanket. When he joined me at the couch after the kids went to bed, I passed him the remote so he could watch his favorite channels.

I cleaned up after him. Once I even ran him a bath, ignoring the curious and confused look he gave me when I told him it was ready.

That morning, it looked like it might rain, so I left the umbrella in case Alaric decided to go out.

When I came home drenched, he finally cornered me in the entryway.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why didn’t you take the umbrella?”

“What if you needed it?” I said.

“You actually needed it. No if.”

“But –”

“Cara, what is going on? Why are you acting like my servant?”

Servant. The word shook me down to my core. Was that what I had been doing?

Yes, I could see it now. I had been defaulting to my old ways, back from those times I had been like a servant to him, constantly trying to please him, never quite gaining his approval as a mate.

Even now, it took everything in me not to slink away from his discontent.

What was wrong with me?

“I guess… I don’t know.” I carded my fingers through my hair, rubbing at my scalp. I felt a headache coming on. “Is it possible I was falling back into old habits?”

Alaric immediately looked stricken. “No, Cara. No. You don’t have to do that. Please, don’t. Never again, okay? I was such a jerk then. Things are different now.”

“You were a jerk,” I said. But it was strange to hear him admit it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. Alaric had come such a long way since back then. I had too.

Neither of us should have been reverting to bad habits.

“Cara.” Alaric took my hands in his. “You are precious to me, do you understand? Just by existing beside me, you make me happy. I don’t need coffee in the morning, or special dinners, or your blanket, or even the television remote. I don’t need baths drawn for me, and I certainly don’t need your umbrella when it’s raining. It’s important to me for you to have the things you need.”

My heart warmed at his words. I never would have thought he’d be saying these things. He’d said he loved me, but I supposed I still thought, when things came down to it, he would still expect the same kind of servitude from me that he had received in the past.

Instead, it seemed as if he wanted the opposite.

He didn’t want any of that from me. He just wanted me to be here. Near him. With him.

“Alaric…” I could have cried.

He stopped me by pulling me into a tight hug.

“Just be here, Cara. For as long as you can. That’s all I need.”

That night, as I laid down in my bed, with Alaric all the day down on the couch, I started to realize just how big and lonely my bed truly was.

Alaric, when we had hugged, had been so safe and warm, that now as I was without it, I missed it terrible. An embrace that comfortable would have been the perfect thing to fall asleep inside.

Alaric and I had decided on this arrangement on his arrival. It didn’t seem right to sleep together, even though we had in the past. We still had too much hanging between us, especially with how I had been acting lately.

I had vowed to be more like myself and had fallen immediately into old habits. Perhaps I had seen my vow through after all, by becoming the woman that I had been when I’d been Beta to pack DuskWood.

I wanted to be myself but not that far back. Couldn’t there be some variant of me that was both capable and in love without needing to prove myself to Alaric or to me?

Ruby had said I needed to relax. Maybe that was harder than I thought it would be. I tended to be a workaholic on my best days. Lately, that had meant pushing myself even further past my limits.

I needed to find a way to calm down. To just be.

Maybe if Alaric was beside me…

I tossed and turned, trying to find sleep, but it never came to me.

An hour later, no closer to sleeping, I pushed myself upright in exhausting.

Leaving my bedroom, I first checked on the kids, both of whom were sound asleep. Satisfied, I then descended downstairs. I moved soundlessly on the stairs, missing every creak, knowing the stairs to avoid to avoid making noise.

In the foyer, I peeked into the living room.

Alaric was there, sitting upright on the couch. He was asleep though, his head thrown back, his limbs stretched out over the couch cushions. His blanket was tangled up around his torso.

It looked terribly uncomfortable, yet still he was resting. I envied him, being able to sleep anywhere, though surely his neck was going to bother him.

Making a decision, I moved closer and grabbed one of the discarded couch cushions that Alaric had tossed to the side of the couch. Moving swiftly and silently, I moved to stand behind him, and then, very carefully, I tried to angle the pillow so that it slid under his head.

Almost at most, Alaric’s eyes blinked open. He looked right at me.

For a moment, neither of us said a word.

Then, embarrassed, I hurried out, “I, uh… your neck looked uncomfortable.”

He reached up and placed his hand over mine on the pillow. “Thanks,” he said.

“Right,” I said, and pulled my hand away. Then, lacking any grace whatsoever, I retreated from the room.