TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 354

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Het inanipulation was becoming impossible to miss. She had made fre question everything after Beatrice’s death, but I had never imagined she could have known Beatrice was struggling and still said nothing. All she had shown me was Beatrice’s diary, written days before her death, where she described her exhaustion, her fear of the future and how relieved she would be to leave me. If Barbara knew more than what was in those pages, why hadn’t she told me?

“Wesley, look, we don’t have to make this complicated.”

I released her hand, my temper rising.

“Beatrice wasn’t strong enough for you.”

“Stop it, Barbara. You don’t get to rewrite my relationship with Beatrice because you want me.”

“But it’s true.” She chuckled and followed me again. “I know her better than you did. You overwhelmed frer and made her believe she had to stay.”

If I didn’t know Beatrice, I might have believed her.

“And you kept this from me for years.”

“She asked me to,” Barbara snapped.

“Then you’re responsible for staying silent. It’s a shame you’re using my grief to make yourself necessary. You’re desperate, Barbara, and desperate people can become dangerous.”

I picked up my briefcase.

“I love you!” she cried. “You can’t do this to me.”

“Get dressed or I’ll call security.”

Her face twisted. “You selfish bastard. You killed Beatrice. She must have taken something because of you. You destroyed her.

You animal.”

I chuckled.

“The autopsy found nothing that supports that.”

The woman standing before me looked nothing like the Barbara I thought I knew. She had always been composed and easy to trust. I had believed I knew her because I had known her for years. Now she was showing me something I had never seen before.

I shook my head. All I felt was pity.

“If you don’t let me into your life, you won’t have anyone. No one will love you the way I do. No one has more right to you than I do.”

I headed toward the door and opened it. I hadn’t planned to answer her, but I turned back.

“I’m prepared to let this go, and I won’t punish you for what happened tonight. But stay away from me and Isabella. If you don’t, you’ll see a side of me neither of us will like.”

I arrived at the chapter house, and Joanna finished checking my eyes before stepping back as another member of the Daughters checked my blood pressure and temperature. I sat through the examination with the resignation of a man who had spent too much of his life being poked, prodded, restrained, and treated like a problem that needed fixing.

“I was starting to miss torturing you,” Joanna said, scribbling something on her keyboard. “My favorite patient hasn’t needed me in two fortnights. I’m beginning to feel forgotten.”

Although I frowned, I couldn’t hide my amusement.

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“I’ve always suspected you enjoy those terrifying needles a little too much. I hope I never see them again.”

Her smile broadened. “Let’s hope your body cooperates and the test results come out quickly so we can find out what’s causing the change.”

“Did you change my medication?”

She didn’t answer immediately, continuing to type

“We’ve been trying different alternatives. Something seems to be working. Don’t get excited. You might ruin it.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I mumbled.

“I can read you. You’re already imagining yourself walking out of here forever.”

“I was thinking of asking for a statue in my honor.”

She laughed, and I smiled.

“So what happens when you figure out what’s causing it?”

“Then we’ll know what we’re dealing with and work out how to regulate your wolf.”

My smile faded.

“Even if I’m not spiraling?”

She nodded. “Especially then. You still need your wolf.”

She was right. My wolf had never spoken to me. I couldn’t reach it, call it forward, or feel anything from it beyond the chaos that came whenever it took control. Whatever had changed inside me hadn’t repaired that.

“You’ll still have to complete the Alpha March,” Joanna said. “You can’t rule without it.”

The Alpha March wasn’t optional. It was part of proving that an Alpha could control his wolf and lead the people who followed him. It involved hunting with the warriors, running the territory in wolf form, howling beneath the moon, and enduring the physical demands expected of an Alpha. Each stage tested strength and control.

How was I supposed to complete it when my wolf wouldn’t even speak to me?

“A win is a win,” I said.

Joanna smiled.

I left her room before she found another reason to keep me there or inject me with another syringe.

The corridor felt different without people waiting to restrain me. I passed the room where they had held me during the worst episodes, and memories came without permission. The restraints biting into my wrists. The smell of antiseptic and blood. The sting of needles. The sound of my wolf tearing through everything inside me while people struggled to hold me down.

I’d been thirteen when it started.

Twelve years of losing control, waking up ashamed of what I had done, watching my parents worry, and knowing people wondered whether I would ever become the Alpha they expected.

I had grown used to pain and humiliation. I had become afraid of my own body.

Now, for two fortnights, my wolf had stayed quiet.

It was the longest stretch of peace I could remember.

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