My Professor Is My Alpha Mate (Lila) novel Chapter 20

Lila’s POV

“You don’t want a mate…” I continued, keeping my eyes on the back of my head; his entire demeanor had changed at that moment. “So, why haven’t you rejected me?”

“Do you wish for me to do so now?” He asked, turning to glance at me.

His face was hard to read; I wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“If you don’t wish to be with me then…”

“You are my student; it’s more complicated than that,” he said quickly, silencing my words. “If word gets out that I rejected my mate, it will make me look bad as an Alpha.”

“So, you are trying to protect your image?” I asked, raising my brows. I was trying to keep the hurt out of my tone, but I knew he could see the disappointment in my eyes. “Is that the only reason?”

I thought maybe he would say something else, but his features hardened as he stared around my face.

“Something like that,” he muttered, before turning away and leaving the room. Leaving me with only my thoughts and the soft cries of my wolf.

…

I couldn’t sleep all night.

In the morning, Dee had made us breakfast before we got dressed and left for Elysium.

“Dee was nice,” I tell him as we drove away from the Calypso Pack. I was trying not to think about our conversation from last night.

“She seemed to like you too,” he said, his tone emotionless. Not that it was surprising.

“She said she was like a mother figure for you,” I found myself saying.

“You talked about me?”

He didn’t sound mad; maybe a little curious.

My face warmed just the same.

“She was the one who brought you up,” I clarified. “You are important to her.”

He remained quiet; his gaze fixated on the open road before us. His hands clutched the steering wheel tightly.

I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat.

“What happened to your actual mother?” I dared to ask.

His jaw clenched and I thought I saw one of his eyebrows twitching.

“I don’t talk about it.”

I took that as my cue to stop talking.

The rest of the drive was quiet; I was relieved to see the Nova Packhouse in the distance. That meant I got to see my family and could distance myself from Enzo. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

Enzo parked the car out front, and I quickly got out to be greeted by my mother who was running toward me with her arms open wide.

I laughed as she wrapped me in her embrace.

“I’ve missed you, Lila bean,” she breathed.

“You saw me last week,” I chuckled, hugging her back.

“Yes, but that feels like an eternity ago….” She paused as she held me at arm’s length. “You have your wolf! I’m so incredibly happy for you, my love.”

I was excited to eat my mother’s homemade cooking tonight, but I was even more excited to shift into my wolf for the first time.

“Tonight, you and I will go for a run in our wolf forms,” she said, reading my thoughts.

My dad was the next to greet me; he kissed the top of my head before turning to Enzo.

“Thanks for getting her here,” my dad said to him, shaking his hand.

Enzo only nodded his head.

“I’ve set up a guest room for you. You can make yourself comfortable. As I said, you are welcome to join us for dinner if you change your mind,” my father said to him.

I frowned and glanced at Enzo; I was assuming he was coming to dinner regardless. Did he not want to?

He seemed to have tensed at my father’s words.