Elder Tommaso’s POV
I don’t know what exactly I was doing going to Luciano’s office. The truth was after staying up almost all night thinking about everything. About how I had been unable to get any information about him and Arabella, I’d begun to wonder at how apart we’d grown that I could no longer trust his words as he could no longer trust mine.
I didn’t want that sort of relationship with Luciano. He was like the son I never had. Maybe he had been onto something when he’d said that in being ruthless, we were losing ourselves. When I spoke to him, I would explain that everything I did was because I cared about him.
I had raised him too well to be bothered by whether he was lying about Arabella being awake or not. If he liked the girl so much, he could keep her. If that was what it took for us to be on the same wavelength again then I would allow it gladly.
I reached his office. I opened the door. It was empty. I was shocked, it was almost 10 am. Luciano had a strict work ethic where he was always in his office by 7:30 am, latest 8 am. I checked his desk. The reports for the past two days lay there unattended to.
I didn’t need to go to his room to know he wasn’t there. He was in the old pack house. Of course, he was. That girl had warped his mind so that all he could do was stay with her even while she was unconscious when he had obligations to his pack.
All thoughts of letting them be left my mind. Luciano needed to be saved from her deadly clutches before it was too late.
******
Alpha Luciano’s POV
“Say it again.” Arabella’s brown eyes twinkled with mischief and I nearly rolled my eyes to the back of my skull as I reached for my phone next to her.
“Arabella, I need to get to the pack house. I’m late.”
Not just late in fact. I had been away for the past two days. I wish I could have blamed it all on Arabella, but I couldn’t. It was as much on her as it was on me.
Whenever I stood up from the bed, I’d catch a glimpse of her side, her bare back, hell, her freaking toes and I was back in bed with her. I thought I had it bad when we’d just gotten mated but it had nothing on this. Absolutely nothing.
It was as though allowing ourselves to confess our feelings for each other had opened the floodgates of desire for us.
That first time I told her, she’d looked at me, slack jawed as though she couldn’t believe what I’d just said, which was fine because even I couldn’t believe it myself. I could believe that I’d said it but I couldn’t believe the way in which the words resonated within me.
In the following hours and days, Arabella constantly requested that I tell her again and again that I loved her. I was almost ready to throw her out the window at this point. Yet I caved every single time finding her insistence somehow unbearably cute. Saying no to her seemed impossible for some reason.
But not today. Today, I had a ton of work waiting for me at the pack office. Mikah wasn’t around to help me out so I had to leave as soon as I could.
I ignored Arabella’s pouts as I pulled on my underwear. I heard the rustling of sheets as she left the bed.
I put my hands through the sleeves of my shirt and began to button it up.
Arabella came to stand in front of me, completely naked. This woman was going to be the end of me. I didn’t look below her eyes as I quirked a brow questioningly. If I even looked at her lips, it was possible that I wouldn’t leave the house that day.
“Arabella.”
Her eyes widened almost innocently as her hands went to where my hands had been buttoning my shirt.
“I want to help you dress up for work, that’s all.” Her voice was soft and guileless as she removed my hand from the shirt replacing it with hers. I didn’t believe a word of what she said.
Maybe it was because of how close she came as she buttoned the shirt. Or the way she lowered her lashes suggestively, or it could have been the way that her fingers lingered on my abs nowhere near the buttons.
She finished buttoning the shirt and stood on her tiptoes to straighten my collar, meeting my gaze as she pressed her naked body against me.
My fine hold on my control broke and I pulled her close and kissed her aggressively.
I felt her laugh into the kiss smugly and neither of us spoke for a while.
Later when we were on the bed, exhausted and sated, she cuddled against me, she turned in my grasp to look at me.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. What happened to Emery?”
Right, I should have asked her for her opinion about Emery. It was just that she drove me to distraction, sometimes that it was difficult to remember important stuff around her.
I rubbed circles around the small of her back. “She has confessed to her crimes. She doesn’t have any accomplices.”
“Oh.” Arabella relaxed into my touch. “What punishment did you decide to give her?”
I dropped a kiss on her chin. She was so beautiful that sometimes it hurt to look at her.
“I thought you should decide that.”
Arabella froze as she turned her face up to regard me waiting for the punchline.
“Me?” She squeaked finally when she realized that I wasn’t joking.
“Of course. You were the most wronged by her. It is only right that you would get to decide the severity of her punishment.”
“I guessed I never saw it that way.” Arabella muttered almost to herself.
“Did she come out with the reason why she did any of it?”
I didn’t see the relevance of that question. Emery had done many unforgivable things, how would knowing her motive change anything? But if that was what she wanted to know then I was good.
“She claimed it was because she loved me.” I barely held back an eye roll as I spoke wondering why we were talking about such an unpleasant topic when we were naked on a rather nice bed, there were far more pleasurable pursuits to engage ourselves in.
“Oh.”
Arabella might have been in my arms but it felt like she was leagues away. Then she looked at me.
“If I told you to let her go, would you?”
*********
Arabella’s POV
I wasn’t someone who forgave and forgot easily. In fact, I will say that I was extremely terrible at that. Initially, after finding out the extent of her betrayal, I’d wanted her head. But now? Looking at Luciano, thinking of all we had now because of her kidnapping me, I couldn’t be too angry at her.
I still wanted justice for my child, I think I always would. I didn’t think I would ever be able to forgive her for that but when I thought of how many years she had invested in Luciano, I couldn’t help but feel a modicum of pity for her.
She would end up all alone, with nothing to show for all those years of service.
“Arabella, what are you saying?” Luciano sat up looking at me like I had lost my mind.
“Please do this for me, Luciano. I know she doesn’t deserve it. But that is my decision. You said it was my decision to make as the person most wronged by her. This is what I choose.”
Luciano looked at me with new eyes. As though he was seeing something he couldn’t quite understand with me.
“I must have been so stupid to think you were anything like your father. You have a big heart, Arabella. I can pardon her life for your sake but she needs to leave this pack. I no longer trust her enough for her to stay here with us without planning something else. I planned to exile her parents for their contribution to her plans but now perhaps she will join her people.”
My cheeks burned and I embraced him. “Thanks, Luciano. Thank you very much.”
I had done my very last favour to Emery. If she tried anything funny, she deserved anything she got. I just hoped I wouldn’t regret it.