Chapter 346 346
Maurice POV
Something was wrong with Bee.
She’d practically fled back into the house earlier, avoiding the shift altogether. I knew her relationship with her wolf was complicated I had always known and I never wanted her to feel pressured or exposed, especially when her wolf had barely experienced shifting or true pack dynamics the way mine had.
Still… my wolf had struggled to feel hers.
That alone was alarming.
It was the unmistakable sign of prolonged suppression. Too long without shifting. Too long disconnected. Unhealthy dangerously so.
That was why I’d hoped she would use the group shift as cover. Strength in numbers. Familiar faces. A safe excuse not to feel self-conscious or afraid.
When I’d kissed her forehead earlier, the sight of her cradling a baby had stirred something deep and possessive inside me. She was my mate. One day, she would carry our children. I was only an alpha male red-blooded and instinct-driven and that image hit something primal.
I headed upstairs to use her ensuite. Normally I had my own bathroom attached to the guest room, but with extra lodgers in the house, the idea of sharing space with teenagers was not appealing.
I showered faster than usual. The pull to return to her to my mate made me rush, movements efficient and impatient.
Once finished, I pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. The day was already heating up, mid-morning sun promising a sweltering afternoon. The clothes should have been comfortable.
Instead, they felt unbearable.
The moment the fabric touched my skin, I wanted it gone.
Then again, I’d been burning since the moment I met Bee.
I’d found my mate I just couldn’t be with her yet.
No other woman had ever tempted me away. No one even came close. Bee was everything I would ever want in a mate. She just didn’t trust herself. Didn’t trust her instincts. She let her human side dominate too much, silence what her wolf was trying to say.
I wasn’t naïve enough to believe others wouldn’t find her attractive. She was devastatingly beautiful grey eyes split with yellow like a cat’s, blonde hair framing a face that turned heads without effort.
A younger version of me might have gone feral over the way Gilles hovered near her. But his boyish infatuation was nothing compared to the fire inside me the certainty that she would be mine, that I would claim her when the time was right.
Still, I was eager to rejoin her. Not threatened by Gilles but irritated. Annoyed by how close they’d become. By how he’d abused the access Damien granted him under the excuse of finding his sister.
The incident at the quarry had only cemented my resolve to keep Bee as far from him as possible.
I crossed the room toward her bed and my foot crushed down on something solid beneath the carpet.
I stepped back, crouching down.
A white pill.
“What the”
I lifted it between my fingers.
Pain flared instantly.
“Mother fucker,” I hissed, dropping it as the burn bit into my skin.
I picked it up again despite the sting, letting the sensation crawl over my nerves as I examined it more closely. Then, without thinking, I touched it to the tip of my tongue.
My wolf surged forward immediately, his senses snapping sharp.
Wolfsbane, he growled inside my head.
I dropped the pill like it was molten.
Why would our mate be taking wolfsbane?
My gaze snapped to the rucksack half-hidden beneath her bed. My wolf didn’t hesitate. Privacy meant nothing when danger was involved especially not this.
Wolfsbane was banned on pack lands.
Banned on royal property.
Banned anywhere children were present.
I tore open the bag.
Inside was a brown envelope stuffed with more white pills than I could count, sealed in a plastic sandwich bag.
Rage ignited like a match to gasoline.
Was she taking these?
Why would she be so reckless so self-destructive?
“Bee!” I roared as I stormed down the stairs, the bag clenched tight in my fist.
I burst into the sitting room to find her rocking Frédéric, irritation etched on her face as she tried to hush him.
“Maurice you woke Frédéric,” she scolded, clicking her tongue
Then she saw the pills.
All color drained from her face. Her body went rigid, eyes flicking toward the doorway as Didier and Caroline entered behind me.
“Maurice?” Damien demanded, confusion sharp in his voice. “What’s going on?”
Bee’s eyes pleaded with me.
Don’t say anything.
I couldn’t let it go.
Not with children in the house. Not if she’d been doing what I now suspected.
Six months.
Six months she’d been gone.
Had she been poisoning herself that entire time?
Goddess only knew the damage she’d already done to herself, to her wolf.
“She’s been suppressing her wolf,” I growled, my alpha aura surging outward.
“What?” Damien snapped, his own aura flaring in response, bristling for confrontation.
He might be King but Bee was my mate.
I answered to no alliance. No crown.
“Look!” I shoved the bag into his chest. “Wolfsbane pills like the ones Gaston gave her.”
My eyes never left her.
My wolf was raging, furious at her recklessness. Furious that she’d denied him his mate.
“Bee?” Damien whispered, shock cracking his voice as he sniffed one pill and recoiled when it burned his fingers.
“I can explain”
“You’d better,” he snarled. “How could you bring these into my house? Where my children live?”
His anger burned hot but it still didn’t touch mine.
“Everyone needs to calm down,” Gilles said, stepping between us between Bee and me.
I saw red.
“How long?” I demanded, teeth clenched.
“Almost six months,” she said quietly.
Six months.
I’d been right.
“Where did you get them?” Damien asked, passing the bag to Lucas.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said desperately. “I just need them.”
Her eyes widened as Lucas took hold of the bag.
“Why?” Damien demanded, his aura intensifying.
Bee didn’t flinch.
Unlike Caroline, who trembled beside her brother.
That explained it.
Why she couldn’t feel his aura. Why none of us registered.
Her wolf was muted. Drugged. Shackled by her human side.
“I’m not like you,” she said softly. “I’m human”
“Bullshit!” Damien roared. “You got scared just like at the fucking lake house! You panicked and ran!”
My instincts snapped violently toward protection.
“Damien!” I roared, forcing him back.
“Don’t ‘Damien’ me!” he shouted. “These can kill your wolf!”
She knew.
I could see it in her eyes.
She’d been counting on it.
“No.”
I ripped the bag from Lucas’s grasp.
“Wait what are you doing?” she cried, carefully placing Frédéric into Aurélie’s arms before chasing after me.
“Maurice, please I need them!” She reached for the bag, fingers grazing my arm as she tried to grab it.
I lifted it above my head, far beyond her reach.
“I can’t believe you’d be this careless.”
“No Maurice, no!” she screamed as I dumped the pills into the downstairs toilet and flushed.
One by one, they vanished.
She clawed toward them as I pulled her back.
“What did you just do?” she sobbed.
“I’m cutting you off, Bee,” I said, voice iron-hard. “It’s time you accept what you are.”
I leaned down, my presence overwhelming.
“And it’s time you accept that you are mine.”