Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
The Wolf’s Bullied Mate Chapter 15

Isaiah

The coffee pot was mocking me.

Since last night, it had sat on my bedside table full of the good stuff of which I had only taken one sip. One lousy godforsaken sip was what had turned me into a gigantic pile of judgmental prickery.

"I don't get it," I whispered to the pot as if it could hear me.

It wasn't like I had anyone else to talk to about this shit. Alpha had other things to worry about. Elias was busy doing that play thing. Wendell was caught up in the field, or doing a run, or doing something for his new alpha. Irritation clouded my thoughts.

"I've done worse things," I continued. "Why can't I give you up?" "Addiction is a bitch."

Her voice caught me off guard. I should have scented her the moment she walked in, but the cold coffee smell must have masked her mocha scent. I didn't like to be surprised. I didn't like to be discovered as one of those loser addicts who couldn't keep his cool. Every bit of that realization-that I was just some scummy loser-made me avoid her gaze. She didn't want a guy like me in her life. What had I done to her that she hadn't already experienced? An entire damn childhood full of rude kids who didn't understand things that weren't in their realm of understanding.

I had made things worse for her. I had reopened boxes of memories that she probably hadn't wanted to remember. That loose mouth of a friend had spilled some pretty dirty stuff in the Jeep the other night. Jada hadn't expounded on those things. And she didn't have to if she didn't want to.

Yet even now as the wall shot up between us, I could sense her desire to talk. She didn't say anything as she wandered into the room and slowly sank into the bed beside me. I couldn't look at her. All I felt was sheer stupidity over how I had acted yesterday. Losing my shit over a sip of coffee was bad enough.

The truth was that she had made me happy. Her presence was comforting and her scent did things to me that the smell of coffee couldn't. The way she treated me was unparalleled, something I had never truly experienced in my life. Women like her were rare, both in the way she treated people and the way she carried herself.

She was a proud woman. She was a strong woman. She could be my woman if I just got my damn head on straight.

"I don't get it," I repeated for my new audience. "It's just coffee. It's not like it's heroin or some junk."

She shrugged. I felt the mattress shift as she angled herself to look at me. "Some things are hard for some people. There's no right or wrong."

"I feel like it's wrong."

"I only got mad because you made a promise you couldn't keep."

I hated how right she was about that. I'd told her I would give up the stuff. I had meant it at the time too. Every ounce of my strength had been given over to actually trying to quit coffee. Stranger things had happened in my life, but this was odd enough to last for the next few years as an awful and awkward memory. How could I give up coffee when that was exactly what I drank at recovery meetings?

Gods, it was confusing. It was maddening. It was the stuff of nightmares. Coffee of all things-and I'd decided to lose my cool over it. On a woman who was just trying to help.

That was definitely addict behavior.

I sighed and scooted toward her, closing my eyes to focus on the way my shoulder touched her shoulder. She didn't move away. She didn't lean closer. She just sat there and existed with me without trying to change a thing. That was what set her apart from everyone else. She didn't force change on me. She inspired it.

Regardless of how I felt about her, I could respect that. She instilled in me a desire to be better and do better. Just by way of existing. That was new for me. No matter how many times I had listened to some old guy drone on about his fifteen years in sobriety, I couldn't have possibly been moved more than I was now with Jada and her patience.

Even her energy echoed peace.

Such soothing contentment didn't seem to exist anywhere else. Not even in coffee.

I opened my eyes and dared to look at her. She didn't quite meet my gaze. She simply extended her hand for me to take-and I took it, clinging to the comfort in touching another shifter. There weren't any meetings around here for sober shifters. Everywhere screamed human. While the examples helped, they weren't the same.

This was the connection I desperately needed. A shifter on my level. A shifter who wouldn't back down when challenged. She knew her limits and she stuck to them. It wasn't a perfect situation, but then again, nothing was ever truly perfect. Aiming for perfection was a fool's errand.

It was better for me to lean into my faults. That worked better than anything.

Still, the way she held my hand and nursed me did something that no one else could do.

She made me feel seen.

"I used to do a lot of drugs back in the day," I told her. "I wouldn't recommend it."

"I wouldn't dream of doing drugs recreationally."

I eyed her carefully.

She wore a subtle smile. "I'm a wine kind of gal."

"Except for gas station vodka."

Her gaze fluttered to the window behind me, eyes shifting back and forth quickly. "Oh, I get it now. That makes sense."

"Yeah, alcohol is a no-go for me too."

"I just thought you were picky about your liquor or something."

I shook my head. "I wish that was the case. But I just can't control myself. Once I put something in me, whatever it is, then I just can't stop."

"Like coffee."

"Coffee has limits."

Her eyes glittered with amusement.

I sighed as I wiped my forehead. "I can control it. Sometimes."

"I don't doubt that."

"I wish you believed me."

Her smile faded. "I wish you hadn't lied to me."

"I didn't lie, Jada. I just..."

She pointed at the coffee machine. I had to hand it to her. She was good at handling my bullshit. A lot of times, it was Troy or Elias dealing with this. Yet here she was taking it like a champ and poking holes in all my reasoning and logic. None of it was particularly logical to begin with, so that wasn't terribly hard.

Still, for a woman to catch on so quickly? A woman who hadn't liked me from the very beginning? That was nice.

It was more than nice. It was necessary.

But forget why it was necessary. I just wanted to get through this explanation so there weren't any holes between us. Or walls. Or weird expectations about habits.

"I was out of control for a long time," I went on. "Troy had to keep me in line. I used to puke all over the compound. I'd bother people. I'd steal things."

She sat quietly with my hand tucked in her lap.

"I drove my car right into a tree one night. Went through the windshield. Tore myself to bits. But survived."

She smirked. "Obviously."

I ignored the tiny jab. "It hardly did anything to teach me shit about my situation. I just kept pounding them back even when my body told me to quit."

"What made you stop?"

I stared at her numbly.

"Izzy? What was it?" she asked gently. "If it wasn't the accident, then what?"

I looked at our hands, how our fingers entwined so nicely. She had such soft skin. It felt good to feel it in my palm. Warm sweat beaded the surface of my skin, the temperature in the room turning up about ten degrees from pure embarrassment. "Elias had a kid," I said in a low voice. "I crashed on Elias's couch one night. Didn't wake up till maybe thirty hours later. Stunk up the whole den."

She cocked her head to the right.

"Archie, the kiddo, well, he had wandered in wanting to play on his Xbox, but his drunk Uncle Izzy was making the house stink, and he made a point of saying so."

Her lips spread slightly with a hint of a smile.

"Yeah, he gave me a good talk, that kiddo. He said I was making his dad worry left and right about me. He said how much I stank all the time. He said he wanted me to live to see his twelfth birthday so I could teach him how to drive a car." "He thought he was going to drive at the age of twelve?"

I shrugged. "Back then, things were different, you know? Troy ran a nontraditional pack with nontraditional rules and regulations. We wanted our kids to survive whatever wars were going to sprout back up." I huffed indignantly. "Shit always hit the fan, you know? It happened here too with your pack."

"I guess we see things differently, but that doesn't mean they're bad."

"Archie didn't make it when the compound got raided by Gilbert's fucked-up experiments. Those wolves tore through us like we were ground beef."

She flinched. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Elias was..." I shuddered at the memory. "Gods be damned, he was torn to bits. He hides it all behind that smile."

"I'm so sorry, Izzy. I had no idea..."

I squeezed her hand. "How could you know? I didn't even tell you. Some little kid convinced me to quit the hard stuff and go easy on the booze, and eventually I just quit the booze too. It was that simple for me." I rolled my eyes. "I mean, it wasn't very simple, but do you get what I'm saying?"

"I get it. Sometimes, it's the smallest thing that can help us along."

She observed our hands like she was seeing them together for the first time. What was she thinking in that beautiful skull of hers? Why did it make me want to kiss her forehead?

"I can't say I understand addiction," she admitted. "And I can't say I know how to handle it either. That's just not my forte."

"You don't have to handle it. It's mine to handle. It's my problem. I'm the one who needs to solve it and-"

She touched my lips. My gods, it was the lightest touch in the world, yet it held the heaviest weight of affection as she did it.

"No, Izzy, that's where you're wrong," she whispered. "That's where I know for a fact that you are absolutely wrong."

I stared at her so long that I forgot where we were. I forgot about the coffee pot and the cold coffee. I forgot about the pack, the new alpha, my true alpha, Elias, Archie. Wendell came to mind briefly if only for the fact that I just hadn't seen him around much. Our original pack was torn apart. It was just the four of us now.

I blinked. Jada leaned forward. She removed her fingers so she could kiss my lips.

Damn it to hell, she really did just have a magical effect on me. How was she doing that?

"You don't have to do it alone," she assured. "You can do it with me."

A rowdy feeling broke through, forcing me to smirk mischievously. "I can do a lot of things with you, sugar tits."

As her eyes cut back, a laugh broke from me. Apart from the fact that nothing had truly been resolved, I felt lighter than air. And I felt like I owed it to her for that feeling resonating inside me.

Maybe there was something to this matched mate business. If not for love, then for friendship. For connection.

Perhaps for healing.

She gave me an entertained grin while her free hand climbed my arm. She roamed over my shoulder, slid up my neck, and then cupped my face like I was the most precious thing she had ever beheld. I-a goddamn giant of a shifter wolf with a bad attitude-was precious to her. I felt it in her fingertips grazing my skin. I witnessed it in her expanding pupils, in her eyelids that lazily drooped.

I saw in her what I had wanted to see for ages.

Love. I thought it was love. But I could have been mistaken.

"Come on, sugar dick," she joked as she tugged me to my feet. It didn't take much tugging. I wanted to follow her. My wolf insisted. "If you're going to drink caffeine, then you should at least get the good stuff." "Like what?"

She smirked. "Like real tea."