“He’s a bit much, isn’t he?” Ashlee watched Cullen stalk from their sight.
“He can be, yes. He’s the bogeyman to the wolf children. Don’t misbehave at pack meetings, listen to your Alpha, don’t betray our secrets, or Cullen will come and get you.
He actually came and got me once when I’d disobeyed. Needless to say I never disobeyed again.”
“What did he do to you?” Ashlee asked, as images of dark dungeons and beatings filled her head.
“He made me do manual labor for a month. This place shone like a new penny when I was done scrubbing it.”
So Cullen was tough but not brutal. Ashlee could respect that.
“One more thing, Tristan. What is the mating ritual we need to get done so you can stop being doe-eyed?”
“Michael just ordered us to go have sex.”
That’s what she’d thought. If her cheeks were as red as she thought they were, she was the color of a tomato.
Chapter Six
“What about this one?”
Tristan smiled. The painting Ashlee pointed to was his favorite. She’d been walking around his room asking him about every one of his creations. He couldn’t imagine being more happy than he was right at this moment.
“That was one of the first I did in watercolor. I wasn’t even sure I could use a brush.
All of my work before that had been in charcoal.”
He’d sat outside for hours and watched the chickens in his mother’s yard cluck and peck their way through their food supply for the day. He captured two of them from memory during their feeding. It was a very simple picture, just two chickens being chickens, but it had proven to him that he could paint with a brush.
Ashlee turned from examining the painting to smile at him. He reached out and touched the side of her face. Tristan watched as she closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again. Yep, this was happiness.
“Why was all your previous work in charcoal?”
“I trained in architecture. The Institute was my design.” She beamed at him and he felt like he grew taller by two inches. “So when I started trying to do art that wasn’t building design, I immediately went to charcoal, because I could hold the block of charcoal like I held a pencil.”
“Do you still do architectural design?”
Tristan shook his head. “No. The last time I designed something was eighty years ago. It’s all very different now. I can use a computer as well as anyone, but I’ve never even tried the software.” Tristan swallowed. “But if you want to leave here, to go live somewhere else, I’ll do that, go back to school. Learn the new stuff and start over with another architecture career.”
She looked at him, her right eyebrow raised, and Tristan wished he could read her mind. That might have been a useful trick to give mates, the power of mind reading.
“What makes you think I want to leave here?”
He didn’t mind the question. At least she wasn’t denying they’d be together.
“I’m just letting you know I’ll go wherever you want.” He gulped. He had meant that when he said it earlier but now something seemed to be changing inside of him. He would do whatever Ashlee wanted but he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that they needed him here. What had Michael meant when he’d said they’d been lost without him?
Do you really not know?
Was that annoyance he heard in his wolf’s voice? What do you mean?
He thought he heard the creature sigh. Never mind it now.
“I wanted to go into interior design. I paint too.” Ashlee grinned at him.
Tristan’s heart jumped. “Wow. That’s incredible.” Inside, his wolf leapt with delight, their strange conversation from moments earlier forgotten instantly. He wanted to shift to four feet and leap in the air. He settled for just inhaling Ashlee’s unique scent. Cinnamon and vanilla. He’d noticed it when he’d been stuck in the wolf enclosure and he drowned in the glory of it now.
“I don’t know if I want to live in your bedroom for the rest of my days. There’s no where to put my stuff.”
Inside, his wolf dropped down on all fours in disgust. Idiot.
He’d had ample time to clear out some drawers for her, why didn’t he? He didn’t use the smallest bit of the manners his mother had taught him. His mate was currently living out of a suitcase.
She grabbed his hands and pulled them out of his hair. “I’m not saying I’m unhappy.
I think we can make room for me in here. But… well, I thought that I saw some old, decrepit-looking cottages on the south side of the island when I walked with the Aunts today…” she trailed off, seeming unsure.
He knew the ones. They’d all gone to ruin thirty years ago when the insanity had descended on the island. The remaining unmated males had all moved into the Institute and let their childhood homes fall apart. It had seemed appropriate, as their lives before the spell had been destroyed too.
“I want you to build me a cottage. I don’t want to live here, in your dorm-like bedroom, forever. I want a home. A real home.”
Tristan wanted to leap again. “Yes, I can do that, little Ashlee. I’ll build it myself, with my own two hands. Our home, yes.”
“Sometimes, when you get really excited, the way you say things becomes old fashioned. It’s adorable.” Her eyes were playful, her grin a sexual taunt if he’d ever seen one. His groin grew hard.
“We can’t have babies. But maybe we can bring this place back to life.” The playfulness left her eyes as she spoke.
“I really don’t care about that. I don’t need children. I’m not even sure I like them.
Besides, I’d rather not have to share your attention.” He wasn’t lying; he wouldn’t have minded having kids someday, but it wasn’t a must-have. He felt so blessed with Ashlee in his life he wouldn’t trade her for a million children.
Her eyes were so serious it almost stopped his heart. “I believe you, but you have to understand…when my fiancé found out I couldn’t have babies, he got so upset he ran out and had sex with the counter chick from the local Dairy Queen. Ironically, that little indiscretion got her pregnant and I became so distraught over it I had a nervous breakdown, dropped out of college, and terrified my parents.” Tristan watched as Ashlee suddenly became interested in her shoes. She had been worried about telling him of her past. “I can’t help but have this belief that men want women who can have their offspring. You and I are part animal, and animals want to procreate.”
He walked the few steps to her and pressed his body up against hers. She moved backwards until she was halted by the wall behind her. “You and I are sentient beings, humans, who have this special gift inside of us, an ability most do not have. It makes us loyal, attentive, and family-oriented but we’re still human beings. You are mine. Period. I wouldn’t care if you were missing a limb, I’d still want you like I do now, and I’d like to think if there was an equivalent problem with me, you’d feel the same way.” He leaned down until his mouth was just above hers. “Little Ashlee, you are my mate—after tonight you will always be with me. I’ve never been mated, obviously, but I’m told it’s very intense.”
He pressed his mouth to hers and lost all coherent thought.
Ashlee ran her hands up Tristan’s sculpted arms as his tongue conquered her mouth.