Cyrus shook his head. She still thought like a human. Eventually, she would come to see how pack worked. “Jensen and Mitchell can handle him. I’d rather you not be here for him to taunt.”
Betsy dropped her eyes, and he inwardly sighed. Some day she wouldn’t feel so unsure around him. He had to believe that. Everything had just happened, and adjustments took time. The only problem was that he’d never been very good at being patient.
“If you are not with me I am going to worry about you. This is an important conversation. I need to be able to concentrate.” It pained him to admit such a weakness, but there it was.
She raised her eyes slightly, still not quite meeting his gaze. “What’s going to happen to me down here in the basement? Nathan is in a cage. Your pack mates are here. If I get my feelings hurt, it won’t be the first time in my life. I’ll live through it.”
She was used to being brave, and she didn’t trust him completely yet. That much he could understand. If she’d been raised as she should have been, with pack, she would know to trust the instincts inside of her that had to be telling her she was pack and belonged to him. A sudden thought almost brought him to his knees. What if she didn’t feel that way about him? What if she felt that way toward someone else? Felt more connected to another Alpha and a different pack.
What if Alexei connected her more to the pack in Boston than Cyrus had managed so far? Oh hell. Could that have happened?
“Are you okay?” She reached out and gripped his arm. “Your smell changed.”
He cleared his throat; he could imagine it had. None of his pack members would mention it. But she was his mate, and she didn’t know better.
“How so?” He needed to get upstairs with Alexei, but this was more important. Instead of a lifetime to hone her senses, he needed her to do it in a few minutes. If that meant she needed blunt, unrelenting honesty no matter how uncomfortable? Then he’d do it. Unreasonable, yes—but life wasn’t fair.
“There was a surge from you, a change in the way you smelled, for a split second.” She wrinkled her nose. “You usually carry the scent of cinnamon, you were suddenly filled with vanilla too. And mint.”
“You think I smell like cinnamon?” Huh. He’d never heard that before. To him, aromas were connected to seasons and places. The woods. Fall. The city. Betsy had a very specific sense of smell.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” He shook his head. “My scent changed because I got nervous. I’ve trained my wolf pack to do their best to disguise that, but I didn’t follow my own instructions.”
“You got scared that I might stay down here and get hurt?”
“I got nervous that you aren’t connecting to me.” He shook his head. This conversation had to cease before he ended up curled under a table in a fetal position. “Stay down here if that is what you prefer. I would like you upstairs with me where I know you’re safe, where I don’t have to worry that the basement might spontaneous combust and you’d be somehow killed in the process. But, if you don’t want to be there with me, then don’t come. I can’t force you to want to be with me. Not even as an Alpha wolf.”
He turned on his heel and headed toward the elevator. Maybe he should order her to go with him. That’s what he’d do with any other pack member. Only he didn’t want that from her. He wanted her to choose him, to want to be with him, and to stand at his side.
Shit. Wasn’t true mating supposed to be easier than this? What if he’d gotten this whole thing wrong and she would never—could never be mated to him? What would happen to him then? Would he be stuck in this perpetual, unrequited need for her for the rest of his existence?
She ran to him and grabbed his hand. He looked down at their joined fingers for a second before he pressed the elevator button to go up to the offices. She’d chased him, and he hadn’t seen that coming. What did it mean? And was her taking his hand an indication of feelings on her part? Why was this woman so confusing to him? He’d dealt with females his whole life and Betsy made him feel like a dolt.
“I had no idea you were so insecure.” She raised her eyebrows.
“What?” He wasn’t insecure. He’d taken over a wolf pack when he’d barely been twenty years old. He couldn’t have done that if he was insecure. Humans had neuroses, not Alpha werewolves.
“That was a pretty good display of passive-aggressive back there. If it was that important for me to go with you, why didn’t you say so?”
“I did.” The elevator dinged when it opened, and they stepped inside. Hadn’t he made that clear? He wanted her to come. He’d told her to, and then he’d relented out of respect to her wishes. How and why had this gotten so complicated?