Mercy

After Nikolai’s and her conversation in the fields after the fire, Roza has been avoiding Nikolai. She needed to think. For three years, she was upset with him and for him to tell her he wanted to try. She was angry. Her heart burned with hurt and pain.

Did he want to try because of their son? What was the real reason behind his change of mind?

Roza swore under her breath as she paced her bedroom and ran a hand through her dark long tresses, smoothing it back. She was frustrated with him.

“No.” She shook her head. “No, you don’t get to do this to me Nikolai! You don’t get to be nice and sweet. I refuse to let you into my heart.”

She stomped her right foot hard. “I’m going to protect what I have left of myself. If you want to make things work with our son that is fine, but between you and I — there will never be anything.”

It has been exactly three days since that day that she has been avoiding him. Day one, she did it with casual ease. When she saw him coming, she dove for the nearest room and hid in it. During breakfast, lunch, or dinner, she claimed a headache. Second day, she went out and spent a day to herself walking around the territory until late at night. Today, she had to come up with something to avoid him.

She was hiding like a coward but she couldn’t look at him because she knew the minute she sees him, her defenses will come crumbling down. Her heart will bend to his words easily. She blamed the mate bond but in truth, she knew it was because she was still in love with him.

Angrily, she threw on an olive green maxi dress and walked out of the bedroom, but first she peeked out to see if the hallway was empty. The sound of construction invaded her ears. It helped a little that Nikolai was busy with the pack in building the east wing back up.

Roza can already see the renovation was coming along pretty quickly. Maksim was outside with Nikolai watching his father work. Roza walked down the steps and out the front door. She looked to the east and saw the many people walking around with logs over their shoulders.

Werewolves had more strength and they were carrying the huge fallen logs with ease. Some of the warriors were shirtless and some wore tank tops that were dirtied up from the hard labor. Her eyes were roaming the group of men until she caught sight of her son and Nikolai by a table.

She watched as Nikolai bent over a table as he held a pencil in his hand and made some marks on a piece of paper. The sweat on his back beaded down in the heated sun. He looked up at Dimitri and they said something before he slicked his hair back and went back to the paper. His muscles defined with every movement he made.

Roza was finding it hard to breathe and she licked her lips and tore her gaze away from her mate. He was sinfully gorgeous. A young man walked up to her. He wore a warrior tattoo on his biceps.

“Good morning.” The man spoke.

“Good morning.” Roza looked him over. He looked slightly taller than her by a few inches, but he was pretty gorgeous with those protruding hazel eyes on him. He looked her body over a little boldly and she fought the urge to slap him across the face. Her skin crawled with goose bumps in disgust.

Why couldn’t she fall in love with another man? Why was she so obsessed over Nikolai? Glancing back at the man his eyes perked up the moment he saw Roza looking at him.

“The name is Brendan.” He introduced.

“Roza.” Nikolai growled.

Her eyes and Brendan’s darted up the hill towards Nikolai, who looked ready to kill. She glanced back at Brendan and saw how close he was to her. She took a step back and then caught herself in time. She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Brendan, if you find that you are free with nothing else to do other than flirt with my son’s mother, then you can go run 10 miles around the territory. After that you can go down to the southwest border and help the pack down there cut some logs for us to finish building the east wing.” Nikolai snarled and the man scurried off so fast she almost saw smoke behind him.

Roza turned back to see Nikolai looking at her with anger. He stalked down the hill towards her and grabbed her arm as he yanked her close to him.

“Did you not smell the arousal coming from him? He was ready to pounce on you and you didn’t even-” He was interrupted by her.

“I didn’t know!” She growled and tried to yank her arm from his tightening grasp. It was the truth. She was so consumed in disgust with Brendan and her mind was solely on Nikolai, that she didn’t even realize the man was shamelessly letting his lust for her show.

“How can you not smell it, Roza? He was a hairsbreadth away from you!” Nikolai was angry — very angry. The thought of his pack warrior hitting on his mate got his blood boiling to the point where he was seeing red and almost killed Brendan right then.

“I-I-” She didn’t know what to say. Tell him the truth? Or lie? How can she tell him she was so consumed in looking at Nikolai that she didn’t even smell Brendan.

Nikolai pushed her away and she saw that he hasn’t calmed down yet. “You smell like you wanted him too.”

Oh no, Roza thought. He must be thinking that her arousal scent that she got from looking at him was for Brendan. She shook her head and he took another step back.

“Nikolai.” Roza started but then she saw Maksim walking towards them. She stopped talking and Nikolai turned to see their son arriving at his side before walking to his mother.

“It is not what you think.” Roza gritted out. “I am not what you think.”

“It’s kind of hard not to believe what I am thinking when I smell it off from you.” Nikolai growled. “And not to mention you’ve been avoiding me for the past three days.”

Nikolai stalked away in an attempt to not argue with Roza any longer. He didn’t want his son to see what was going on between him and his mother. Roza watched Nikolai’s stiff back until he returned back to the drawing table.

She sighed and kissed the top of her son’s head. “You’re father is an ill tempered Alpha wolf.”

She walked and thought about their conversation. Nikolai was indeed jealous of her and a small part of her lit up in hope, but another part of her asked if it wasn’t Nikolai who was feeling the possessive need, but his wolf?

What if all his talk wasn’t for anyone’s benefit, but for Nikolai’s wolf?

She found Anna making lunch for the hard working men outside. Placing Maksim in the care of a nurse, she helped Anna in the kitchen in making many bread rolls and casseroles. Anna and her have grown close over last couple of days. She has been helping Anna more and more in the kitchen in a way to hide from Nikolai, but a part of it had to do with her missing her father.

Working and cooking helped her in coping with her emotions. Everyday Roza was talkative, but today she didn’t even open her mouth. Anna noticed how consumed in thoughts her Luna was. The way her eyes would furrow when she was angry, or her nose would wrinkle when she was thinking hard.

“What’s wrong?” Anna asked. “I can see you are feeling a little distressed.”

Roza sighed and pounded at the dough in front of her. “It’s just that I don’t know how I feel about Nikolai.”

Anna was now very interested in the conversation. She moved forward and leaned closer to her Luna. “Tell me exactly how you are feeling.”

Roza laughed softly at Anna’s curiosity. “I hate him but I love him. He pisses me off because he walked out on me three years ago and now that he sees me he says he wants to make it work.”

“Well isn’t that a good thing? Don’t you want to make it work?” Anna asked.

Roza rolled the dough nicely before placing it on a baking sheet to rise. She turned to Anna and crossed her arms over her chest as she looked out the window where she can see Nikolai perfectly.

“A part of me does, but a part of me is still so angry.” She admitted.

“You haven’t forgiven him yet.” Anna responded.

Roza shook her head. “I guess I haven’t.”

“You want to know what I think?” Anna asked.

“What?” Roza glanced at Anna curiously.

“I think that a part of you has already forgiven him.” When Roza was about to protest, Anna lifted up a finger to stop her. “I say this because you came here. It was the first step. Forgiveness isn’t given right away. It takes time to heal wounds and it will take time for you to forgive, but I think you are heading in the right direction.”

“I don’t know if I want to forgive him. There are still so many things on my mind. What if he was just using me and doesn’t really want me? He says that he wants to try, but what if I perceived it wrongly? What if he wants to try because he doesn’t want to die, or if he wanted to try because of what we both have together?”

Anna sighed. “That’s how life works. It’s all about taking chances without knowing if you will get hurt in the end.”