The Wolf’s Fake Mate by Layla Silver
Chapter 10 – Silas
The snow crunched under my paws, and the scent of the pine trees filled the air pleasantly. Usually, roaming around in my panther form felt divine. However, I was so angry today that I felt none of the usual satisfaction. I ran as fast as I could, dodging the trees and jumping over logs, trying to tire out my fury.
How dare the Morrans speak that way about my mate? They were her family, for fuck’s sake! She worked so hard every day, yet when she came home, she had to endure all those veiled and apparent insults. No wonder she’d been so eager to stay behind when I’d requested it. Hailey didn’t enjoy being home, and her family’s unreasonable demand that she find a partner for the wedding only added insult to injury. I understood now why she had approached me asking for a fake relationship. Hailey hoped that pretending to mate would get her family off her back, but I felt like our ruse had made little difference. Or maybe it had. But if they dared speak about her that way in front of a guest—her supposed mate no less—I was worried what they were like to her in private.
I wondered what I could do about this situation. I still didn’t understand it fully—why did Hailey’s family pick on her in particular out of the four Morran sisters? Was this why she didn’t want to commit to a relationship? I had an inkling that those things were connected, but I had no idea how. I needed to talk to my mate; however, I feared she wouldn’t want to speak about her family problems. Hailey was a very closed-off person. Speaking of private matters was hard for anyone, but it was especially complicated when you were used to dealing with things on your own and holding back your feelings. Still, I had to find out the truth behind her family situation. Otherwise, I felt we would remain stuck as we were.
I also wanted to help Hailey as much as I could. I longed to protect her. If it meant cutting ties with her family, that was okay with me. I didn’t have a great relationship with my parents either. When I left the pride, they basically stopped thinking of me as their son. My decision to join the wolf pack felt like a betrayal of our panther nature to my family. They were fiercely loyal to Allegra Carrington, even more so now that they thought they had to make up for my decision.
If it meant long talks with the Morrans and trying to fix the family relations, I was up for that too. Either on our own or with the help of a family counselor, if Hailey decided she wanted to remain in contact with them, something had to be done. I couldn’t handle my mate being bullied. Even if she acted like she didn’t care, like she was used to it, I didn’t buy such bullshit. I’d felt her twitch when a particularly nasty thing was said about her. She was good at controlling her reaction, but someone as attuned to her every move as her mate could notice when she felt hurt.
It was my job as a mate to ensure that Hailey was the happiest woman in the world. And I would do everything in my power to make that happen.
It took me hours to tire myself enough for my fury to subside. The disgust remained, though. It was after midnight when I shifted back to my human form, got dressed, and made my way back to the ski resort.
I entered through the main door. Mary was on, reading a romance book behind the reception desk like usual. She had followed Ainsley from the old hotel to the new facility. And as head of the resort, Ainsley didn’t mind Mary reading as long as she stopped to take care of the clients’ needs.
However, as soon as she saw me, the petite blonde laid her book to the side. “Mr. Petterson!” she exclaimed and waved me over.
I changed the direction I was headed and made my way to her desk. “Hello, Mary,” I greeted her.
“Wow, you look like shit,” she commented, looking me up and down.
“Thank you,” I said. “As you can see, I’m not in top form right now. Is there anything I can help you with?” I hoped not. I just wanted to lie down on my bed and try to fall asleep, although I felt that goal would be a difficult thing to achieve tonight despite my tiredness.
“Ms. Morran came by and left a message for you. She said to call her at this phone number,” Mary handed me a paper, “no matter what the hour is when you return. She said it’s important.”
My heart jumped in my chest. My mate wanted me to call her? When I looked down at the note, though, I was disappointed. There was a phone number in neat handwriting, but the name ‘Waverly Morran’ stood next to it. What did Waverly want with me at this hour?
Wait, this was an excellent chance to find out more about Hailey’s situation, which was probably what Waverly wanted to talk to me about… unless she had figured out that my relationship with my mate was fake. Either way, I felt like Waverly was on Hailey’s side, so the note couldn’t mean anything bad, could it?
“Thank you,” I told Mary. “I’ll be sure to call her as soon as I can.”
It was past midnight, but this matter felt urgent. I wished Mary good night and went up to my suite. After shifting, I always felt dirty and couldn’t stand the idea of doing anything in that condition, so first I took a quick shower with the water on cold to wake myself up. The shower and my curiosity about Waverly’s note got me back to my usual self in no time.
As soon as I got dressed, casually this time in a loose blue t-shirt and ripped jeans, I put Waverly’s number in my phone. I saved it—my mate’s good sister’s number was a valuable thing to have—then pressed the call button. It was past 1 a.m., so I knew the chances of her picking up were next to null—
“Hello?” Waverly answered. She sounded utterly awake, as if she wasn’t sleeping yet. “Is this Silas?”
“Yes, it’s me. I hope I didn’t wake you up,” I said, really meaning it.
“No, no, I wasn’t sleeping. I was waiting for your call. Took you long enough.” My mate’s sister laughed shortly. “I wanted to talk about Hailey, but… it’s not really a good talk to have over the phone, so if we could meet in Boston tomorrow… There’s this restaurant, I’ll send you the directions after we finish talking....”
“Sure, that’s alright with me. I have the first shift, so I can be there around 6 p.m.”
“Very well. Good night then, and see you tomorrow,” Waverly said before hanging up.
It took me an hour to fall asleep after our call, and I was restless all day wondering what Hailey’s sister had to tell me. Even Hailey noticed when she came in for the second shift. However, this time I didn’t try to engage her in conversation as much. I had a lot on my mind, and I really didn’t want to mess this up by saying the wrong thing. I had too little information about Hailey. Now that I thought about it, what did I know about her? I still didn’t know what had upset her the other night after we’d had sex—what had made her close up so quickly. I was sure, though, that Waverly had all the answers I needed.
***
Waverly Morran invited me to a middle-class restaurant with acceptable food at acceptable prices and a non-distinct beige decor. I didn’t care about any of those details, though. I studied Waverly as she took her time picking what to eat. Where Hailey was slim, Waverly was curvier. Both the sisters had long black hair, but Hailey’s was straight while Waverly’s face was adorned by tight curls. Waverly’s face was rounder than Hailey’s, but they had the same eyes—gray and intelligent—that revealed more than the two women realized.
Right now, I saw that Waverly was nervous about something. “I can’t be seen with you, so I’ll make this brief,” she said quickly. Why she didn’t want to be seen around with her sister’s mate was beyond me. But I could play along.
“Sure—shoot,” I told her.
“It’s about Hailey. You noticed how the family treated her yesterday, didn’t you?”
“I would have to be blind not to take note of the bullying,” I answered, annoyed, remembering yesterday’s disgusting behavior of the Morran family.
“See, I’ll start at the beginning. Our mother Ophelia, she’s a wolf shifter from the pack that was originally led by our current Alpha’s Grandfather,” Waverly explained, and I nodded. “She took a human man as her mate and had four wolf daughters with him. Hailey was the first, then two years later Gabriella, another two years later Laurene, then a year later I was born.” I counted the difference between Hailey and Waverly. Since Hailey was 28, that made Waverly five years younger. She was 23, which made her quite mature for her age from the little I knew of her.
“When Hailey was 12 years old and I was 7, our father George abandoned us for a younger human woman,” Waverly continued. “It came as a shock to my mom, who deeply believed mates were for life, and so did Hailey.”
I stared at my mate’s sister, starting to comprehend what was going on.
“Our mom was left with four mouths to feed, and she started working two shifts in the apothecary to get by. Back then, Aunt Evangeline was a housekeeper at the military base where her husband was stationed. She sent a bit of money every month.”
Our food arrived, and Waverly took a break from talking until the waitress left.
“And Hailey felt responsible for you,” I guessed. Waverly nodded. “Hailey took care of us. She basically took on the role of both parents. At twelve, Mom thought she was old enough to carry that responsibility, so she pushed it on her. Hailey cleaned the house, cooked, dressed us, washed us, and helped us with homework. At first, she looked tired and miserable, but she quickly grew cold and distant. She had to keep discipline in the house. Gabriella and Laurene hated that; they wanted to exploit the freedom that came with our mom’s absence, but Hailey wouldn’t let them. She kept them all in check with curfews, allowances, no dating until sixteen. They detested her but listened. It made them grow up into fine ladies, but they don’t have a high opinion of Hailey even to this day. They think she made them ‘waste their youth.’”
“That’s bullshit. All Hailey did was take care of those two and shield them from making huge mistakes,” I answered.
“They still made their share of mistakes. But nothing major—neither of them got into drugs or got pregnant with a boy they didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives with,” Waverly added. “I was always the quiet one, the one who was naturally responsible. I tried to be a friend to Hailey as much as I could. But sometimes she was so deep in her own head, I couldn’t get through to her. She created this persona for herself of someone who has everything under control.”
“An immovable fortress,” I agreed. “When something happens that Hailey’s afraid of, she puts up her mental shields and locks down her feelings.”
“Hailey once explained to me that she visualizes a box in her head where she puts all the feelings she doesn’t want, all the dreams she can’t realize, all the expectations she thinks she shouldn’t have. Then, when they are locked up, she puts them aside and proceeds with her life.”
“That sounds so… miserable,” I noted, feeling overwhelmingly sad for my mate. “I knew something was going on, but I didn’t realize she was this unhappy. I… feel like I failed her as her mate.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” Waverly exclaimed, waving around her fork with spaghetti Bolognese. “If someone can make her happy in life, it’s you.” She pointed the fork at me. “It’s your responsibility as her mate.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that. I live to make Hailey happy,” I said with confidence. “Thank you for explaining all this to me. Now that I know where the problem lies, I think that with enough persistence I can get through to her.”
“You really do love her,” Waverly commented, looking at me in wonder. “That’s so romantic. I hope this happens to me too… and soon.”
That… was true: I did love her. Until half an hour ago, I had known very little about Hailey Morran. Still, what I knew had made me fall in love with her. And now that I had learned how hard things were for her, I wanted to make the rest of her life easier. I would try to do that much for her. No—I would do that much for her. I would spend every day for the rest of my life loving and adoring her. And I would do so because only I could give her that special care—I was her mate, the one and only other part of her soul—and also simply because I was a man and she was the woman I wanted like no other.
I loved Hailey Morran. All I needed to do was prove it to her and convince her that I wouldn’t walk away from her like her father had done; that I would never abandon her; that I would only have words of love for her; and that I would never bully her or demand something she couldn’t give. I wanted to live for Hailey—to make her happiness the goal of my life.
Waverly smiled at me, and I smiled back. “Thank you. I know what to do,” I told her with confidence.
