The Council Ch. 10

"Nors, you have to understand," she started to say only for him to cut her off with a low, angry growl which made her sigh deeply and square her shoulders more firmly.

"I don't have to do anything, Ashleigh," he ground out through clenched teeth. "You've made your decision perfectly clear. You're going to do what you want and to hell with how I feel about it. Not a lot of understanding required for that, is there?" He stalked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed his car keys, studiously ignoring the hurt expression on her face.

"Nors, will you listen to me?" she sighed wearily. "I'm just saying we need a little more time to get used to all the changes. I'm not saying I don't want to be with you. You know I want that. You're my mate."

"How many of your pack who have mates share separate bedrooms?" he countered, the dark scowl never leaving his face. "And what the hell is there to get used to? I love you and you love me! What else do we need to know about each other, Ashleigh? "

He waited for her to reply and then cursed under his breath as he stalked out of kitchen when she just gaped at him wordlessly. If she wasn't going to bloody answer him then he was going to work. She could have the whole day to think about what she needed. He wasn't going to hang around looking like a complete fool while he waited for her to formulate her thoughts. He knew he was being irrational but he wasn't used to feeling the pain he was currently experiencing.

"Nors, please!" Ashleigh called after his retreating back, hurrying out to the entrance hall. "Don't be like this. I know you're cross with me but don't leave the house angry. We'll both be miserable all day long and you know it."

She was right, he would be miserable but he was too angry to give in. He needed her to accept him unconditionally and she just wasn't ready to do so. And it hurt him so much he couldn't deal with it at the moment.

He turned slowly to face her, seeing the anxious expression on her face. His heart wrenched painfully and he struggled to moderate his temper. He didn't want to be the cause of any pain for her, even if she was hurting him. "We'll talk about this later," he finally said, managing to achieve a semi-civil tone. "I have to get to work or I'm going to be late."

If he'd thought his more even temper would take the stricken expression from her face he was wrong. She looked even more upset. "You own the company, Nors," she countered quietly. "You can be as late as you want and no one would give a toss about it. You're running away and you know it. Don't lie to me about needing to be at work. You could stay until we sorted this out if you really wanted to."

He growled loudly, his frown deepening. "You're right, I don't want to talk about this right now," he answered slowly. "You keep saying you need time or you need space, well now I do, Ashleigh. I can't have this conversation with you right now so let's just drop it. Perhaps later when we've both had time to calm down, we'll be able to discuss it reasonably. That's the best I can give you at the moment."

Ashleigh bit her bottom lip as she stared up at his hard face. She knew he was hurting, that he didn't mean to suddenly be so cold with her. He was probably right about both of them needing some time apart to cool down. She just couldn't bear him leaving the house so angry with her. "Will you at least kiss me goodbye?" she asked quietly.

The hesitant note in her voice almost broke his heart and cut through a lot of his anger. Sure, they were having a disagreement but surely she didn't think that he had suddenly stopped loving her just because they were fighting? He watched her bite her bottom lip nervously, uncertainty in her eyes and he groaned deeply. He couldn't do this to her.

Nors was instantly gathering her up against him tightly, kissing her soft lips almost desperately. He didn't want to be fighting with her ever. Her soft sigh against his mouth brought an answering groan as he deepened the kiss and picked her up bodily so she could wrap her legs around his waist as their lips duelled frantically.

"God, Ash!" he groaned against her mouth. "I don't want to be fighting with you, little wolf. I hate it so much."

"I hate it too, " she whispered softly. "I'm sorry, Nors." She couldn't stop the sigh of relief that shuddered through her body as her mate held her so tightly, his lips travelling all over her face in soft gentle kisses. She could feel the tension leaving his body, his hands stroking gently down her back.

He groaned again and buried his head in the side of her neck. "I just want you with me, Ash. I don't ever want to be apart from you even though I know I have to be sometimes. You belong in my bed permanently, not this separate rooms thing where you can go to be apart from me. My room is your room too, my beautiful wolf."

"I understand," she sighed softly. "I'm not rejecting you, Nors. I do want to be with you too. Only I need some time to adjust to the changes. Just a little time, not forever."

Nors sighed too, raising his head and stroking her cheek gently as he drowned in her big brown eyes. There was a plea for understanding in them and he fought to push away the last of his own hurt and smile gently at her. "Whatever you need, love," he finally said. "You can have all the time you want as long as I know that one day you'll be where you belong. I'm sorry I reacted the way I did."

Her wide smile and the love shining from her eyes was enough to set his heart racing and soothe the remaining ache in his heart. He would gladly give her anything she ever wanted as long as she kept looking at him with such adoration on her face. He kissed her gently, drinking in her moan of pleasure as his body reacted to her soft curves pressing against him and he stifled down a groan. He did need to get to work.

Reluctantly he released her lips and slid her down his body. "Despite owning the company I do have a business meeting that I'm now late for," he said with a rueful smile on his face. "Making up will need to wait till later but the kissing part was very nice indeed."

She laughed softly and gave him a big hug before stepping back to allow him to leave. "I love you, Nors."

"I love you too, Ash," he smiled stroking her cheek one last time. "Have a great day off and I'll see you when I get home from work." He dropped another quick kiss on her lips before he turned and headed out of the house.

Ashleigh sighed with relief when the door closed. Arguing with Nors was not one of her favourite pastimes. She was glad they had managed to work it out before he left.

She stretched slowly wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her day. Annie had given her the week off now she was back from Europe so she had plenty of time to herself and no real idea of what to do.

She ran upstairs, took a quick shower and got dressed, all the time thinking of her conversation with Nors and why it was so important for him to have her in his bedroom. She didn't like seeing the hurt in his eyes as she'd tried to explain her reasoning to him. She knew he still didn't understand it but he was willing to give her all the time that she needed.

She sat down on the end of her bed and frowned slightly. He always put her needs first, had done so ever since she had come to live with him. He was the most selfless person she had ever met and she suddenly felt a deep well of shame rise up inside her.

She didn't know why she was so resistant to moving into his bedroom. It wasn't as if she didn't want to be there because she preferred sleeping with him than she did alone. She just had this need to show him that she was capable of standing on her own two feet, that she didn't need him to look after her anymore. But maybe she was taking it a step too far?

He was right about the mate thing. She tried to imagine any of her pack meekly accepting that their mate wanted a separate bedroom. It was such an outrageous idea that she laughed softly. She lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling frowning thoughtfully.

She was being ridiculous and she knew it. She loved Nors and wanted to be with him forever. She couldn't have picked a better mate for herself. He was kind and gentle, passionate and loving. So selfless.

She groaned and sat up. And she was trying to keep him a little at arm's length because she was afraid that he'd leave her, or that something would happen to him and he would die just like everyone else had.

Losing her family had been too much to bear. She had gone from having a family who had loved her unconditionally to suddenly being alone. Finding their bodies had been the blow that had proven too much for her. Possibly she would have been stronger if she hadn't seen them just lying there, so still and lifeless.

She was avoiding taking this last step with Nors because she was afraid he would die too, that she would be left alone again. He had been the only thing that had mattered to her last year, the rock her wolf had clung to as she fought her way through the grief. If she lost him she knew she would never recover from it and that scared her so much.

But Nors was a vampire, an Ancient even. He had proved endlessly that he would never leave her, that he would always be there for her. He had lived for over two thousand years before he had ever met her. Now that he had, he would make sure that he lived another two thousand because he loved her and would never let her go.

She had to trust in him. He didn't understand her reticence and he didn't deserve it either. He didn't deserve to feel pain because she was too cowardly to take that last complete leap of faith and embrace life fully again.

Ashleigh sat a moment longer and then she rose from the bed and walked over to her closet. She began taking out her clothes and laying them on the bed. She couldn't live her life thinking of what ifs. Bad things happened all the time. She had to accept that and reach out and take what happiness she could find.

Having made her decision she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. A wide smile crossed her face as she thought of the look on his face when he came home tonight and found all her things in his room. The happiness she would see there would be worth all the worry deep within her. Her vampire deserved only good things in his life after all he had done for her.

*****

Nors wearily ran a hand through his hair after releasing it from the leather tie which held it in place at the nape of his neck. It had been a long morning and he was still feeling a bit raw after his fight with Ashleigh. He still couldn't understand just what her fears were but he had agreed to her terms and would stick by his word whether he liked it or not.

His phone rang and he picked it up stifling down a weary sigh. Something told him he wasn't going to like the conversation he was about to have. He had an inbuilt ability to know when trouble was coming his way.

"Nors, you need to do something about Freya," Otis, his warehouse manager said tersely down the line.

A deep groan escaped him as his sister's name was mentioned. Ash and Freya on the same day? This surely was some cruel, unusual punishment the fates were about to subject him to. "What's she doing now?" he sighed tiredly.

"She's been at the warehouse for the past hour," Otis grumbled. "She keeps walking up and down, smiling at everyone without saying a goddamned word, acting like she's ready to pounce any second. Seriously, Nors, it's fucking freaking everyone, including me, out. . Can you tell her to fuck off?"

The amount of cursing his manager was doing was a clear indication of how upset he was. Otis very rarely swore. Nors sighed again. He knew what his sister could be like, how intimidating she could be when she did her 'silent' act. She was doing this to piss him off because he had banned her from his home. They'd barely spoken since she'd come back from Japan because their first meeting had turned into a vicious argument.

"Tell her I want to see her at the office," he finally answered. "Make sure she knows it's not a request, Otis. If she gives you a hard time about it let me know and I'll come down there and get her personally. Make sure she knows that too."

He hung up and lowered his head to his desk, taking long deep breaths. Freya in a snit was a very taxing thing to have to put up with. He was usually quite tolerant of his sister's idiosyncratic little ways but today was not one of those days when he was willing to put up with them.

Freya was wild to her very core and always had been. She was a lot tamer than she once was. In the first five centuries of her life as a vampire she had been almost impossible to tame, sailing so close to the wind that the Council at the time had been debating on whether to order her execution.

He had been warned by Caleb that the possibility was being discussed. He had immediately taken his sister off to a remote place and chained her in a ten foot by ten foot cell where he left her alone for a week. It had been a pretty extreme thing to do but he had known he needed something extreme to get through to her just how off the rails she had become.

She had cursed and screamed at him, spewing hatred and vile words which cut him deeply when he came back for her a week later. He had let her feed from him, enough to sustain her and then he had left her for a second week. He had stayed close. Keeping a careful watch on her unobtrusively as she ranted and shrieked her hatred at him.

Again he returned to let her feed, listened to her condemnation of him as a man, as a brother, as a vampire. His heart had broken at her words but he maintained his tough love stance. He had to get through to her or he would lose her completely. Despite her wildness, Nors loved his sister to distraction. He had to save her.

It had taken four long weeks of the same endless torture. Freya's at being chained in the cell and his at having to listen to his sister's hate filled words. Finally he broke through her shell. At the end of the fourth week when he had come to feed her, his sister had been silent, her head hanging low as she avoided his gaze.

He had ripped at his wrist, silently holding his wound to her mouth. She had kissed his wrist gently, her fangs sinking into his skin as she fed sparingly. When she had finished she raised her head, meeting his gaze for the first time. "Thank you," she had whispered so softly he had almost missed the words.

He had released her immediately, holding her gently as she shed what had to have been the first tears he had seen her cry since they had both been Sired into the life of a vampire. His heart broke as he cradled her tenderly, pleading for her forgiveness even though he knew he had done it to save her life. He hadn't taken any pleasure from hurting her.

His sister had forgiven him instantly now that she could see just how wild she had become. She had understood that he had acted out of his love for her and his fear that she would be executed. She had calmed down a lot after that though she still maintained her wild streak. She was just better able to dance the fine line between what was acceptable and what was unacceptable now.

It had been bleak time in his life but there had been benefits to be achieved from it too. His deep abiding friendship with Caleb Cullen had begun around that time. He was eternally grateful to his friend for alerting him to the danger to his sister's life. Which was why he would support Caleb in just about anything he asked of him. Nothing could ever repay his friend for his warning fifteen centuries ago.

Now he was at odds again with his sister over his relationship with Ashleigh and he was feeling the strain of it. He wanted Freya to like his little wolf, to welcome her into their family but she was too mired in her own self importance, her stupid belief that she was superior to every other creature that walked the planet.

Nors couldn't allow Ashleigh and Freya to meet until he was sure that his sister would behave herself. He shuddered to think how he would react if she hurt his wolf in any way. They were the two people he most loved in the world and he didn't want to have to choose between them. He knew who he would choose, who he just couldn't live without having her in his life. He prayed it would never come to that.

The sound of his office door opening had Nors raising his head to look at his sister as she framed the doorway. She was a stunningly beautiful woman even with her wild hair colouring. Her head was tilted arrogantly to the side and he could see that she was ready for a fight and he stifled down a groan and hardened his expression.

"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, Freya?" he demanded aggressively. "If you're pissed at me then you come to me about it. I don't want you in the warehouse again. Is that clear?"

She rolled her eyes and closed the door, walking nonchalantly over to the chair in front of his desk and sitting down. She swung her legs up onto the edge of the desk and tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

"I wasn't doing anything," she sighed softly. "I was just checking out how the business was running, making sure no one was stealing from you, brother." Her tone was mocking, her body language letting him know that she was not intimidated by him in the least.

Nors stared at her thoughtfully, trying to work out how best to approach her. When she was in one of her moods it was sometimes hard to determine which approach would work best. She wrinkled her nose slightly as he watched her and then she sat up straight and her green eyes turned to chips of ice.

"You let her bite you!" she all but shrieked at him. "Have you lost your fucking mind, Nors? How could you do this? She's a fucking dog for crying out loud! She isn't one of us and she never can be!"

His temper snapped immediately, her denigrating words about Ashleigh pushing him too far. "That is the one and only time you will ever address my mate in that manner, Freya," he said in a cold, hard voice, his entire body tensing with anger. "If you open your mouth and say anything about Ashleigh so help me God I will make you so sorry. And don't think I won't either because I will. This is the only warning you get. I suggest you heed it."

They glared furiously at each other, the temperature in the room nose diving as they breathed heavily, their fury dominating the room. Finally Freya looked away, struggling to calm her anger.

She couldn't believe her brother was being so reckless, so fucking idiotic over a bloody dog of all things. It was bad enough the Romanovs were acting like halfwits. They were fucking halfwits anyway in her eyes so it was almost understandable that they would be so stupid. But Nors? Her own brother? She had to put a stop to this.

"This is unacceptable," she ground out through clenched teeth. "I will not have a fucking d.....wolf in my family, Nors!" She choked on having to amend her words, calling the bitch a wolf sticking in her throat.

"Live with it," he growled back. "Ashleigh is my mate and a part of my life. If you can't accept it then you can fuck off back to Japan and stay there until you can. Don't think to try and come between us, Freya. Don't put me in a position to choose because you won't like the outcome. This doesn't have to be an issue between us, not if you don't make it one. The decision is yours."

He was disappointed in his sister even though he had expected her reaction to be this extreme. He had hoped for some tolerance from her but it appeared it had been wishful thinking on his part. She was as stuck in her cold, vampiric ways as ever. He meant what he said to her. If she refused to accept Ashleigh then she could go the fuck back to Japan because he wasn't given his wolf up for anyone, not even his sister.