Page 22 of The Alpha's Forced Rejected Mate

That was a nice thing to hear after all these years. I met her gaze with a confident snap and grinned. “You’re going to lose this game, Robyn.”

“No, I won’t. I’ve been practicing.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

Her eyelids fluttered but never closed. “Swear on your life.”

“I swear on my life, Robyn, he saidreindeer games.”

Her eyes widened, the color of marigold bursting with brilliant drops of golden honey. This close, her irises were like miniature planets perpetually bursting from a black hole center. Yellow layered upon yellow with crystalline stripes that circulated her dilated pupils. The longer she stared at me, the wider her pupils got until they were practically swallowing the mustard.

“I’m calling Hector,” I repeated, using my peripheral vision to navigate my phone, “and he’ll be able to tell us what to do.”

The speaker phone trilled as I held eye contact with Robyn. She flinched slightly when I sighted, but ultimately, she held up her end of the game without blinking. After five trills, the line clicked.

“Yeah, what’s up? You got an update?”

I held the phone between me and Robyn. “Bill is possessed.”

“Son of a bee sting.”

“It’s worse than that. His helpers are possessed, too.”

Robyn leaned forward. “Just three of them so far.”

“Is that your girl?” Hector asked. “Hi, Robyn. I’m glad to hear your voice.”

Robyn grinned politely. “We’ll save the pleasantries for later. We have a predicament.”

Her left eye twitched.

I grinned. “Need to blink?”

She pierced me with a deep glare. “In your dreams.”

Hector said, “Huh?”

I cleared my throat. “Robyn, tell them about what you said earlier. About Bill following you around.”

As Robyn recounted what she reported to me, I watched her carefully, noticing how her eyelids threatened to snap shut on the hardest parts of the story. She outlined how Bill had been keeping tabs on her whereabouts, showing up at her house unannounced, and actively rejecting any potential mate who came to her door, me included.

“I’m afraid he’s become controlling,” she said, “and that he won’t stop until he’s got me as a mate.”

Hector sighed. “That’s bad. That’s real bad. And you said it’s been about two years with the possession?”

“About,” Robyn replied. “I’m not sure what to do. Most people in town won’t work for us because of this rumor that Bill sold wolf pelts on the black market.”

I cringed. “Wolf pelts? Are you serious?”

She nodded and sniffled. “Some wolves got stuck in their animal forms coming back from the vampire-wolf wars. He had them stripped when they inevitably died from going crazy.”

“That’s sick, Robyn. Why did you stay?”

She gave me a pleading look.

I hung my head. “Right. Sorry. You probably didn’t have much of a choice with Sydney.”

“Bill told me about the pelts in confidence very recently. Even if I knew back then, I would have been too young to do anything significant about it.”

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