The Beast And The Blessed

Four: Charlie

Charlie's P.O.V.

There were three things I knew for sure:

My mate had the most incredible voice in the world. The way he let my name roll off his tongue had been replaying in my head all night, keeping me awake.

I didn't even like my full name. I preferred Charlie.

There was no reason for me to have given him my full name, but it came out instinctively like I was trying to impress him with a long, classy name even though I bathed in a river and slept in the forest. I had hoped he would reciprocate and give me anything in return. His name would have been nice.

He came after me last night, which meant we were making progress. I felt butterflies in my stomach at the idea that maybe, with time, he would be willing to have a real interaction with me.

I didn't chase him when he left me beside a fresh carcass yesterday. Instead, I watched him go, shifted, and ate my fill. It obviously hadn't been his intention when he left it there, but eating the kill of my mate satisfied my beast in a way I hadn't been expecting. He had provided for me... even though I had done something to spook him away from his food and then stolen it. It still counted.

Okay, so it didn't sound so romantic when I thought about it, but somehow it was also the best-tasting meat I had ever had.

Growing up in a castle and being served only the finest, hand -crafted meals, it had been a startling realization that the bloody, raw meat was my new favorite meal.

I was done allowing him to send me on these wild goose... well, bear chases. We had broken down a wall between us yesterday, and I wouldn't humor him anymore in playing these games.

At first, I thought they were cute. I thought maybe my mate was leading me somewhere.

Instead, he was just keeping me busy. I felt his eyes on me the entire time, and each day I got more excited than the one prior.

The thoughts would flow through my mind, 'Was today the day he was going to introduce himself to me?', 'Was he taking me somewhere beautiful he wanted to share with me? ', or the most humiliating one... 'Was he taking me to his den?

That last one was the hardest because I allowed myself to get my hopes up. I had ignorantly thought that maybe he had been taking me back to his den so we could spend time together without the possibility of anyone stumbling upon us. We didn't have to do anything intimate or physical, even though I was eager and nervous to finally be with the man I had saved myself for.

Just talking would have been nice, but he didn't want to do that based on the three words I had gotten from him over the past week.

throw me off his trail and keep me away from him hurt. It

I was known to be, I kept going. Whatever this

because I was done playing by his

me to leave him alone, all he had

around camp and making coffee over the fire while the others slept. They would be up as soon as the sun started

higher as the water pot heated. My mind was swirling with thoughts of my mate and my

had been less than ideal, and I still had the heavy burden of my title weighing on me since my brother was so resistant to finding a mate and

the two of us against the world until he ascended to the throne,

wasn't doing enough to help him with his workload, I was failing my duties. If I had done more, going above and beyond to support him and earn his respect,

and want to see my older brother and be

vocalized an opinion or suggestion that deviated from

publicly, he would berate me for being unprofessional. If I did it in private, he was free to lay into me and remind me that my opinion did not matter since I did

talking to him as my brother. Public or private, I no longer gave it a second thought. All I wanted was

away from the castle was one of the best decisions I ever made

and I turned to face Barley. The

your heart tucked under your sleeve instead of on it. He reached his freckled arm forward, proof of his constant time in the sun, and

about. Roman and

case of an attack. Even in the rain or snow, he would just move to the base of a tree and weather the storm.

so he probably hadn't

I said, resisting the urge to wince at using the f- word. They had laughed about that a time or two when Paxton got into fights with his one-night stands. He was smooth and tended to leave most of them with a smile on their faces, but one or...ten had

and I took in a deep inhale of the rich aroma.

ignoring the burn of overheated liquid on my tongue. "And I will be

to spill my guts, it was Barley. The man was as

on my hip with a few sticks of dried meat, and was ready to go, the other four

over my shoulder and

the bear today," Barley called out, and I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to turn

the big man just grunted in response. "I'm so glad to hear my mate avoiding me is

harder, cracking jokes about a wolf chasing a bear as I went down toward the river. It wasn't funny to

the river, there was a tree we had knocked down to be able to cross and remain dry several weeks back, and I rushed over it, eager to get away from the men still hooting and hollering. The only one who didn't engage was Roman, but that was because his mate had rejected him. He knew how hard it was to survive a rejection. Some days, I would look at him, and there was nothing. His face and eyes were just empty.