His Wolf

Chapter 20: Poorly Kept

"You should have told us," Todd said to Arthit the next day at work when yet another volley of rumours hit the group chat.

The speculations about his relationship with Kongpob had reached a whole new level and he wished he could tell everyone to mind their own business. He didn't.

"I didn't want it to affect the way people saw me at work," Arthit explained hoping it would satisfy Todd's curiosity.

It sounded hollow. Just like him. He felt like a hole had opened up inside him and a cold breeze swept through him whenever he remembered what Kongpob had asked him. When he remembered how it felt to be left standing in his room alone with nothing but his assumptions and fears for company. 

Everything since had left no impression.

The feeling of uncomfortable superiority towards Todd had faded to a respectful comradery. He didn't dare test his theory but he felt like he was himself again; all too human. Except he hadn't felt like that in such a long time, it felt foreign. Like wearing clothes he'd grown out of years ago. Would he ever be the same again?

"I'm sorry for not telling you," he said to P'Earth when he found her alone in the break room.

"Don't worry about it. I already knew."

"You did?" Arthit asked. "How? I thought we did a good job..."

P'Earth's pointed look stopped the remark in its tracks.

"You thought you were being stealthy but he was all over you the first time we met." She pointed out. "You forgot to be cautious around him when you thought nobody was looking. There is no reason for two people to sit as close as you did when he was assigned to our department."

"Oh..."

"That's all you have to say?"

"I didn't think..."

"That's good, isn't it? That he made it hard to think. You should have let it happen. Instead, you thought your way into...whatever this is." Her expansive gesture encompassed Ocean Electric and, Arthit presumed, the current mess he found himself in. But P'Earth wasn't done. "He's the presumptive alpha of the Siam Pack, isn't he?"

"Yeah." The acknowledgement wasn't needed but Arthit gave it anyway. It was long overdue.

"And you're his true mate?"

"True mate?" Arthit asked absently trying to figure out if that's what he was or if it had all been wishful thinking.

"You know...the one the legends are written about."

"Is that what it is?"

"I don't know. I've heard the stories like everyone else. But I've never seen it. Even my grandmother, the ultimate believer in all things pack lore, never heard of true bonded mates. So maybe it is just a legend. Or maybe it's a bag of lies. You have to figure that out for yourself."

"I can hear his thoughts...and he can hear mine," Arthit confessed.

"For real?" She asked but Arthit didn't get the feeling she wanted an answer. She seemed to mull it over for a minute then, like a lightbulb going on in her head, she turned wide-eyed in Arthit's direction. "Is that why you always stood so close together but didn't talk? You could just do it without speaking out loud?"

"You noticed that?" Of course, she had. "Never mind. Yeah...we could just listen."

"But...you aren't mated officially. Are you?" P'Earth asked chewing on the wrapper of whatever she'd eaten while she tried to understand him.

"No."

"Then how do you have a connection like a mated pair if you haven't gone through the ritual?"

"You just said you don't know how any of this works except the stories you've heard. How should I know? Even the books in the Suthiluck library don't give much detail. They were written by someone who thought everything about mated pairs was obvious. We're just supposed to know."