Alpha’s Black Furred Slave Mate
Chapter 38

"You let him take our son!!!" I cried to Marlon; I was pacing around his study frantically.

Tears stained my features, and I could hardly breathe. I just watched a light-furred doctor walk out the door with Mateo wrapped in a blanket and wearing a bonnet as a disguise. My body was trembling, and I could hardly keep my composure. Marlon seemed too calm for his own good; he was so wound up not long ago but now he was sitting there and staring at me like I was overreacting. My dark-furred son was heading into a kingdom full of racists that would have a field day with him and wouldn't hesitate to throw him on a slave farm.

"Relax," Marlon said, sounding annoyed as I continued to pace through the study.

I was feeling hot all over with anger when he said that.

"Dr. Lovewitt knows that if anything happens to Mateo, he'll have me to answer to. I assure you, it wouldn't be worth it for him," Marlon assured me.

I knew he was right; Marlon was intimidating and terrifying. Dr. Lovewitt would be stupid if he ever double-crossed him.

After a few moments of breathing deeply, I felt my body beginning to calm itself down. I wasn't going to argue with him anymore; I knew it was no use. Marlon turned away from me and began writing some notes on some documents that I couldn't quite read from where I was standing.

While he was ignoring me, I figured I would go over to his bookshelf and see what kind of books he had stocked up. I've only been in his study a couple of times I never actually analyzed the kind of books he holds or what he was into.

It didn't really matter, but I could use a distraction. My eyes scanned some of the hard and soft-covered books that were neatly placed in their spots. I came across a smaller book that was tucked away and practically hidden. It was a light pink color and when I pulled it out, I saw the name "Ashely Roessler" on the cover in a deep purple color.

As I flipped through the pages, I saw that it was handwritten. It must have been her journal. Looking back at Marlon, he was still paying no attention to me, so I decided to read some of her entries. One, in particular, caught my eye.

Dear Journal,

I see the way she looks at him. He hardly notices but I see it. It's the look of admiration. The look of love. The look of longing. I'm ashamed to say it was something I never truly felt for him myself. I wanted, so badly, to believe that I married for love. But maybe that wasn't what drew me to him. Perhaps it was the money. Or the power. I wanted to be a good wife to him and a wonderous mother to his children. But I fear I have failed him. I fear that our love hardly skims the surface.

Perhaps he would be better off with the maid that looks at him with love.

The entry after that one also caught my eye:

Dear Journal,

Maybe he has noticed after all. We were never particularly close as a married couple but he seem even more distant than usual. The maid seems to be more hands-on. They seem to be flirting in front of me and acting as though I'm not even present. I know I'm not the best wife to him, but I figured he would have the decency to at least try and hide his affair. For our boy's sake. I feel disgusting and hurt by him.

Maybe I did love him after all.

"What are you reading?" Marlon's voice startled me.

I closed the book quickly and he stood up; before I had the chance to put the journal away, he was already by my side and looking at it intently with a timid frown on his face.

"Ashley's journal," he answered the question before I could speak.

"You had an affair..." I heard myself saying before I could stop myself.

Staring up at him, he looked almost shameful.

"I didn't know what Natasha was planning," Marlon said softly; he wouldn't meet my gaze. "I had no idea she was going to kill Ashley."

"The maid?" I asked.

He nodded and walked back over to his desk. I followed him, still holding onto the journal.

"Ashley and I didn't have the best marriage. At one point, it seemed as though we were merely just existing around one another. There was no real love; there was hardly even lust. I didn't think she even wanted to be there most of the time," he admitted; he sounded almost sad.

After reading her first entry, I had to agree with him that it didn't seem as though she really wanted to be there. I felt sad for him.

"Natasha was my handmaiden, and she did her job well," Marlon continued. I couldn't help but feel a bit jealous that he's had other handmaidens and that he slept with at least one of them. "She was there a lot of the time. I would be an idiot if I didn't notice her flirting with me and I would be even more stupid if I didn't feel an attraction toward her. She was gorgeous and available to me whenever I wanted her."

"So, you slept with her?" I asked; I felt my voice growing softer and more distant.

He nodded and met my eyes.

"I slept with her on a few occasions. I was fond of her," he admitted. "But it was never to a point of love. It was just l**t and infatuation."

"But she loved you?" I asked.

He nodded again.

"It appears that she loved me, indeed," he answered. "Part of me felt guilty for the affair, but another part of me figured that it no longer mattered. Ashley wasn't in love with me, and she didn't want to be there any more than I wanted her there. She was a wonderful mother to our sons, but aside from that, there wasn't much else between us."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said in hardly a whisper.

He sighed and looked away.

"I guess it doesn't matter anymore," he muttered.

I stepped closer to him.

"It does matter. You married her, so at some point you must have loved her," I told him, finding my voice once again.

He looked back over at me; a flash of sadness went through his eyes.

"Even if that's true, according to her journal, she didn't love me back," he told me, looking at the journal I was holding.

"I only read a couple of entries, but I think she was conflicted," I told him. "I don't think she knew what love was."

"I always regretted having that affair. I think I always will," he said sadly.

"It was Natasha that killed her?" I asked for clarity; he was hesitant for a moment, but then he nodded.

"Yes," he answered. "It was the night she told me she loved me. I couldn't say it back to her. I told her I was married and that it would be wrong of me to fall in love with someone else while betrothed to another. She put the situation in her own hands and decided to slip wolfsbane in Ashley's milk that evening."

Wolfsbane was a poison that killed werewolves almost instantly; sometimes it took a little while to work, but it's extremely fatal. It was also extremely illegal and punishable by death to obtain. I cringed at the thought of Natasha poisoning Ashely with something so lethal.

"There were a lot of wolves that thought you killed her," I told him.

He chuckled, but it was without humor, and it didn't meet his tired eyes. I knew this was hard for him to talk about and I was honestly surprised he's opened up this much about it to me. I secretly appreciated his honesty.

"I'm aware," he said softly. "Thankfully, they found her in possession of the wolfsbane and she confessed shortly after."

"What happened to her after that?" I asked.

I knew the answer already; it was talked about for a long time, and I remember hearing the guards discussing it back on the slave farm. But for some reason, I really wanted to hear him say it for himself.

"She was sentenced to death by hunting," he told me. "I was one of the wolves that hunted her."

It was a lot of heavy information. But at that moment, I didn't see Marlon as a bad guy; he might be a racist prick of a nobleman and the fiercest of them all. But he was also a man that at one point had his heart so broken that the only way he could heal himself was to have relations with someone else. He felt unvalued, unloved, and lost in his own marriage. Reading her entries, I never knew how true that was.

He didn't know his relations with this maid would result in Ashley's death. There was no way for him to know. He looked completely defeated.

At that moment, my wolf was now taking over my body once again. She was hard to resist, especially when my human self felt so weak; she always found a way to take advantage of that.

I placed the palm of my hand on Marlon's shoulder blade; he looked at my hand, startled before his gaze met mine.

"You are not hopeless, Marlon," I said to him, keeping my eyes locked on his.

His eyes widened and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of gratitude in his eyes. My breath got caught in my throat as he stared around my features; my wolf illuminating her hazy pink aura and his wolf illuminating his silvery aura. I wondered if his wolf bothered him as much as mine bothered me.

The moment didn't last long though; he cleared his throat and jerked his hand away. Standing to his feet he said, "We should get you back to your shack."

I swallowed hard and nodded. He brushed past me towards the door and I followed him without anything more.