Page 33 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

There’s a vicious friction in my chest that feels like some manifestation of violence, but instead of wanting to hurt, I want to just crush her into me and destroy these awful words and feelings by any means possible. Yearning hits me like a freight train, and there’s an absurd urge to just pull her close and kiss that gorgeous mouth of hers. Maybe it’s the mate bond, maybe it’s the wolf, maybe it’s the boy who’d once loved her.

Either way, I have to pull every emergency break I can in my mind to not just ambush her with a brutal kiss.

My hand slackens on her arm and I stage myself back a step, no longer towering over her.

“I’m not embarrassed by you, Gwen. I’mworried.If I’m embarrassed about anyone, it’s my sister for forcing the issue and upsetting you.”

She doesn’t reply with another sharp, ready retort. Hopefully that means I finally managed to break through to her, even just a little bit.

“You’re not?”

“No.”

Gwen goes silent and stares down at the ground between us long enough that I start to get nervous.

“I’m—... That’s surprising. I just thought, after everything… That you were. You’d been ashamed of me back then, for not being able to shift reliably at all. And then after you rejected me, I haven’t been able to… So being rejected by my ‘fated’ mate and then not being able to shift made me a complete reject by pack standards. I became an undesirable. It was a mercy when Cherrywood Pack dissolved, because it gave me an excuse to escape that life.”

I stare at her, stricken, guilty, and confused.

“Your ability to shift had nothing to do with it.”

Her own confusion mounts enough that I see it in her face and hear it in the pause of her breathing. She opens and closes her mouth repeatedly before her voice lifts in careful question.

“If it wasn’t that—... Why did you reject me?”

Everything in me goes uncannily, suffocatingly quiet. The why invites the when, and I feel my memories broaching back towards those years.

The hand at my side forms a shaking fist, and I have to police my other hand to carefully release her arm so I don’t hurt it.

I close my mind down with the cold certainty of steel.

“I had my reasons. But that wasn’t one of them.”

Pain fractures through me as I watch her face settle into a brittle agony. Of course she’d be hurt by that response. But I can’t—

I justcan’t.

Her features shift into a locked, acrid intensity, all lines and dubious exhaustion.

“How kind of you to give me enough rope to hang myself with there,” Gwen deadpans caustically. “God, I almost had a very silly spark of hope for a second that you might tell me anything. But glad at least my expectations were sound.”

Each stab is well struck and warranted. I know that I deserve far, far worse.

“Did you leave Rowan behind? I’ll go and watch him, and you can go join the run. I’m sure you’ll be able to catch up if they’ve left, unless my meltdown ruined the whole night for everyone.”

She starts to head back with a rigid stride, and I move to follow.

“Don’tcome near me. We might be going the same way, but I don’t want to see you right now. I’m going to go get the baby, and you can go back toyourpeople without having to deal with either of us. He needs to get put down for bed anyways.”

I falter, and the words come without a moment of hesitation or processing.

“You are one of my people.”

She stops and looks back at me, and I see a flicker of pain in her profile before the firm fury sets in.

“If that’s the case, I’m owed the truth.”

I can offer her no reply.

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