Page 70 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)

ANTONELLA

THE TRUST

Valor, or whoever packed my bag, had at least some idea of the things I liked or disliked. The soft fabric of yoga pants, T-shirts, and bralettes were a welcome sight over something rigid and formal.

It’s soothing to have something comfortable to put on when your insides feel disheveled enough to be a jigsaw puzzle. I’m unsettled, and my brain feels fuzzy.

I cried, and I’m not even certain I know the whole reason behind my tears, but everything feels so heavy. I couldn’t hold it in. Valor doesn’t deserve to see me weak, but I couldn’t stop it if I tried.

I don’t know how to act or how to behave. A little voice inside me says Fuck him, fuck this, fuck it all. A louder voice says He’s ours and he sees that now.

The shower in the small bathroom is in a clawfoot tub. I debate trying to clean up, at least the parts of me that can be scrubbed anyway. Instead, I dress and run my fingers through my hair until it lies moderately flat. Then I wrap it up into a small bun using the hair tie I found in the bag.

Valor is where I left him when I leave the bathroom.

The louder voice that I keep hearing, my wolf I guess, sighs. Our mate provided for us. He’s made us food again. He loves us.

He must be receiving a similar message from his wolf because Valor looks at me with one of those caring glances that he gives Kerrianne. He sets a bowl, dished up with food that smells delightful, on the counter with a fork tucked in it and cautiously slides it toward me.

I approach, eyeing the offering. It’s egg noodles with a protein, something that doesn’t smell like beef, and gravy poured over the top. Hesitantly, I raise the fork and take a bite. It’s delicious and not in the way all food tastes when you’re starving.

Valor whines and then clears his throat.

He wants us to like his offering. My wolf apparently translates.

I look up to see his eyes trained on me. They’re beautiful. The flicker of gold makes them a little more animalistic but beautiful all the same.

Because I’m petty and immature, I lie. “My wolf said to tell your wolf to fuck off.”

It sounds dishonest even to me, but Valor nods and then laughs, “I bet she does.”

I take my bowl and head toward the bed, feeling too awkward standing at the kitchen counter.

A few steps behind me, Valor follows. He drags over a small stool and sits on it, facing me where I sit on the bed, feet curled underneath me.

After a few seconds, he tries to break the silence. “Do you want to see a picture of your wolf?”

I still the fork midway to my mouth. “How long have I been out?”

“Well, out is a . . . not quite the right word.” He stumbles over that. “It was four days ago I turned you. It’s been four days since you were in human shape. ”

I lower my bowl from chest height to my lap, scrutinizing him. “What have I been doing for four days?”

“Well, the first one you slept. Your body was healing, and the next two, your wolf was busy trying to exact revenge on your behalf.” He gets up and pulls his phone from his pocket before unlocking it and setting it on the bed next to me.

“But when she was too tired to try and maul me to death, she let me grab some pictures.”

I hesitate at first and then pick up his phone. There’s a stunning gray wolf with warm eyes and sometimes a bloody snout. I flip through a few, forward and backward, looking again and again. Using two fingers, I zoom in and out on the photos, flicking between the nearly two or three dozen he took.

That’s us. My wolf encourages me to recognize the wolf as me. But I don’t remember anything about these photos being taken. I have no attachment beyond what the voice in my head is telling me is real.

It is real though. My heart beats a little harder at that sentiment. It is real. I’m a wolf. Valor made me a wolf like him.

The last photo in the reel is of Valor and me. He’s in the foreground, taking a selfie with me over his shoulder in the woods behind him. He’s smiling, and the sun is shining bright. We could be happy like this.

“You’re such a dad,” I mutter before thinking it through a bit more. “What have I been eating for two days?” I narrow my eyes. Please don’t tell me you’ve been letting me eat weird shit . “This wolf’s snout is almost always bloody.”

“Uhm.” Valor runs his hand across the back of his neck before giving me a cheeky smile. “That’s mostly my blood. Good news, you’re a great hunter. Bad news, you still suck at killing things.”

“Only you would think that’s bad news.” I turn off his phone screen in favor of my bowl of food, and I force my jaw to unclench in order to eat .

“I’ve been feeding you frozen cuts of meat and helped you take down some smaller game. You tried to take us after a whitetail and almost got kicked in the head, so, not great yet.” He tries to muffle a laugh.

I roll my eyes and, with a shake of my head, finish my food quickly. When I go to take it to the kitchen, Valor follows me. I dislike him at my back, so I turn to face him. “I don’t need your help.”

“At the risk of sounding conceited, yes, you do.” He places his bowl on the counter and then steps back, giving me space. “We need to have a conversation.”

The relief of him stepping away is met with anxiety over the same action. More back and forth in my brain of being mad at him, being afraid of him, and being lost without him. It’s a never-ending conflict, and I wish I could pick a spot and stay anchored to it.

“I deserve for you to be mad at me and to hate me.” He steps back farther, walking backward to the stool he ate his dinner on. When the backs of his knees hit it, he sits down. “Nothing you ever did gave me reason to believe that you’re not exactly the woman you claimed to be from day one.”

I leave the kitchen and absentmindedly walk toward the door, where I lean against the wall alongside it, listening to him talk.

See, he loves us. My wolf urges.

I slide down the wall until my butt hits the floor.

“I’ve learned so much about trust since I met you.” He hangs his head, looking at his hands. Valor scrubs them together softly like he’s remembering something. “The most important lesson I learned too late.”

“Which was?” I quirk an eyebrow and cross my arms in front of my chest. But admitting he was wrong and willing to have a conversation already is so much more than I anticipated from him.

“Trust in a relationship isn’t determined by how long two people have known each other but rather the depth of the souls intertwined.

I trusted Neil because he’s been there my entire life.

I took the near-thirty years I’ve known him and didn’t examine beyond that.

Because if I had, then I’d have seen that the strongest relationship I ever had was telling me the whole truth.

” Valor closes his eyes and then forces them open to meet mine, but a weight drags his shoulders down.

He looks worn and tired. “What you saw in seconds took me too long to recognize.”

“And?” I push for more, not worried if I’m making him uncomfortable.

“And I’m so fuckin’ sorry. We talked, I don’t know how many times, about trust and how I could trust you with Kerrianne. Yet when it came time for me to back that trust, I didn’t. I said the words but didn’t believe them when it mattered.”

I can feel the sadness in his eyes.

It warms the hollowness inside my heart.

Our mate is sorry. He is remorseful. We’ve punished him, and he knows he’s wrong. My wolf urges me to recognize the truth, but I’m still wrestling with the way everything unfolded.

The anger is still there, but the sadness at his betrayal subsides with his conviction. It’s the first time anyone has ever apologized for their actions against me with real contrition.

I believe Valor is sorry. That he is remorseful. And that whatever my wolf has been doing to him, whatever anxiety he’s had over my well-being, and whatever wrath he’s received from Kerrianne has pained him enough to know how badly he screwed up.

It doesn’t fix the relationship. It doesn’t ease all my anger and my pain.

But when Valor leaves his perch on the stool, crosses the room, and sits beside me, I don’t move away from him. Our eyes lock while I wait for some sort of divine providence to tell me what to do.

None comes, and Valor places his hand on mine, giving it a little squeeze. I don’t pull away or fight the touch.

Our mate. My wolf pushes, wanting every part of us to be touching him. The change, the pull, and acceptance of what he is saying has me leaning against him.

“I trust you with Kerrianne,” he reiterates.

I draw in a sharp breath. My chest constricts, and my face heats. “I don’t trust you with me . I don’t trust you at all.”

“And I am going to earn it every day. It’s why you can’t live in the apartment in the city.

I’m going to spend every day trying to earn back your trust. Wolves have complicated belief systems, and one of those beliefs is that two wolves can make a great pairing, claim each other as mates, and work on that bond.

The belief is that if you both work hard and well .

. . not fuck up everything like I did this week, you can form an intense and long-lasting mating bond.

It can become the bond that fate intended you to find.

” He squeezes my leg, his large palm spanning across my thigh.

He means it. My wolf encourages me.

“Then on the other end of that is fated mates. It’s someone you meet one day, and instantly, you know.

Your wolves just click together. It’s two halves of a whole being reunited.

It’s rarer and more unexpected, but it’s celebrated as the best relationship you can have.

Because the two are so perfect for each other in their unity they don’t struggle and get bogged down by the little things.

No one claims it’s without challenges entirely, but it’s not as hard. ”

He’s our fated mate, my wolf whines.