Free Web NovelChapter 152: Chapter 151: Jealous Wolves
The story of what happened between Raphael and Elena had spread through the Blackwood estate the way all significant information spread through a wolf pack.....quickly, thoroughly, and with considerable embellishment by the time it reached the outer edges of the gossip network.
The facts, as the pack understood them: the Luna’s uncle, an ancient and devastatingly beautiful incubus, had arrived at the estate and been offered twenty volunteers for his feeding requirements. He had rejected all twenty without a second glance and requested specifically the quiet, unremarkable omega Elena, who worked in the kitchens and had never been anyone’s first choice for anything.
The embellishments varied depending on the teller.
Some said Raphael had taken one look at Elena across a crowded room and declared her the most extraordinary being he’d ever encountered. Some said Elena had used some kind of special technique to catch his attention....though no one could agree on what the technique was. Some said the connection between them was supernatural, predestined, a bond that transcended their different natures.
The actual truth....that he had sensed her energy signature as compatible with his specific feeding requirements and had chosen her with the practical discernment of someone who knew exactly what he needed....was considerably less romantic. But the pack preferred their version, and Elena had the wisdom not to correct it.
What the pack also understood, with the collective social intelligence of a community that lived in close proximity and paid close attention to hierarchy and status: Elena now occupied a unique position in the estate’s social architecture. She had the direct attention and apparent favor of a powerful supernatural guest who was family to their Luna. That made her, by extension, someone of elevated significance.
For most of the pack, this was simply interesting information to be processed and accepted.
For Vanessa, it was a source of consuming fury.
Vanessa was twenty-six, unmated, and possessed of the particular brand of confidence that came from being beautiful and knowing it. She was tall and dark-haired, with the kind of physical presence that typically made her the center of attention in any room. She’d been one of the original twenty volunteers....had, in fact, been one of the first to put her name forward, before the list had even been formally circulated.
She’d spent two hours preparing before Catherine’s message came back: Lord Raphael’s thanks, but no.
The rejection had landed somewhere very specific in Vanessa’s ego.
She wasn’t accustomed to rejection. She’d been pursued by dominant wolves, by visiting supernaturals passing through pack territory, by males of various kinds who recognized her obvious appeal. She understood, intellectually, that an ancient incubus might have particular preferences. But understanding it intellectually and accepting it emotionally were different things.
And watching Elena....quiet, unassuming, unremarkable Elena....float through the estate with that particular glow, receiving that particular quality of attention from a being that had looked straight through Vanessa without interest....
It made something in her chest go tight with a feeling she preferred to call unfairness rather than jealousy, because jealousy was beneath her.
She spent a week being furiously rational about it.
Then she spent three days being less rational.
Then, on a Thursday evening when Elena had been seen heading toward the main house kitchens rather than the east wing....which meant Raphael’s quarters were, for a brief window, unoccupied by his chosen companion...Vanessa made a decision.
She told herself it wasn’t calculation. That she simply had a legitimate reason to be in the east wing corridor....she was delivering something to one of the guest rooms two doors down from Raphael’s quarters, which was true, if the delivery could have easily been handled by any number of other people and absolutely didn’t require her to be wearing her best dress at seven in the evening.
She told herself she would simply knock, introduce herself properly, perhaps offer her assistance with anything he might need. She was a pack member. Hospitality was appropriate.
She told herself, firmly, that this wasn’t about Elena.
She knocked on Raphael’s door with a certainty she had mostly manufactured and waited.
The door opened after a brief pause.
Raphael stood in the doorway looking, as he always looked, entirely and unfairly extraordinary. He was wearing simple dark clothes, a book held loosely in one hand with a finger marking his page....a man interrupted in the middle of a quiet evening. His silver eyes moved over Vanessa with immediate, comprehensive assessment.
The assessment, notably, produced no visible reaction whatsoever.
"Can I help you?" he asked, his voice polite and entirely neutral.
Vanessa deployed her best smile. "Lord Raphael. I apologize for interrupting your evening. I’m Vanessa....I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m one of the senior pack members."
"I see," Raphael said, in the tone of someone who sees considerably more than what’s being offered.
"I was just in the corridor and thought I’d stop by to ensure you have everything you need," Vanessa continued. "The Alphas are very particular about our guests being comfortable, and I wanted to personally make sure...."
"Everything is quite comfortable, thank you," Raphael said.
"Of course." Vanessa tilted her head slightly, letting her hair fall in the way that she knew to be effective. "If there’s anything specific you find yourself wanting....anything that perhaps hasn’t been offered yet, or that current arrangements aren’t fully providing...."
She let that hang with deliberate implication.
Raphael looked at her.
It was a particular quality of look...patient and perceptive and thoroughly, gently seeing exactly what was happening. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
"Vanessa," he said.
"Yes?"
"May I be direct with you?"
Something in his tone made the carefully constructed confidence in her chest shift slightly. "Of course."
"You’re not here to check on my comfort," Raphael said, and his voice was neither unkind nor particularly soft. Just accurate. "You’re here because you were one of the volunteers I declined, and you’ve decided that my choice of Elena over you requires some kind of correction."
The smile on Vanessa’s face held for a moment through sheer muscular stubbornness. Then it faded.
