Consider This a Promise

***Ophelia*** How do I feel it, when I don’t even have her? The thought circles endlessly as Ares trails me down the corridor towards the kitchen in my family home. That strange, warming sensation greets me again—the quiet swell of pride at being accompanied by my chosen mate on pack land. It ought to feel even more profound now, when he is stronger, quicker, sharper in every way. Everything about him has become… more. I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t need that from him. I only need him content within himself. Right now, his unease is the only barrier to that. His mind is loud with worry—about my parents, about his mother, about how they see what happened. I’d told him during the drive that my mother already knew, that she had correctly guessed the truth after the London gal