Page 51 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
I couldn’t place why, but last night had felt like a goodbye. I shouldn’t have called him my mate. I shouldn’t have done that. Shouldn’t have confided in him,trustedhim. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in his arms because I’d never felt safer, despite all he’d done. Aidan wasn’t the same person I had known even over a week ago. I was seeing that side, yes, but there was another side coming out, as if it was just for me.
My mate. I knew he was. He couldn’t confirm it, couldn’t reject the bond, but hadn’t accepted it either, and I was glad because the only thing I knew was that leaving him would feel like hell.
“Aidan?” I asked into the empty bedroom. Floorboards creaked, and the door opened. Aidan walked in, his face devoid of any emotion. Completely flat, distant, and my heart dropped. “You left,” I said quietly. “Again.”
Instead of answering immediately, he threw a bundle of clothes at me. It was a plain black jumper with the Oak Hill college logo on. With it were the pants I’d been captured in. I froze.
“Aidan, what’s this?”
“Get dressed,” he said, instead of answering me properly. His face was emotionless, but his eyes betrayed him. Pain, hurt, a war in them. He pressed his lips into a line. “You are being returned to your pack. Isn’t that what you’ve been asking for this whole time?”
“My pack…” I repeated under my breath, but he was gone before I could ask him properly. I screamed as I darted to the door, banging my fist on it. “Aidan!” I yelled. “Aidan,no. Aidan, we have to talk about this!”
The asshole was on the other side of the door. I could hear the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. Then he walked away with little more of aget dressed; Dakotamuffled through the door. And, bit by bit, my heart hardened as I grabbed the items of clothing and dressed. When I was done, I wrenched open the door and stormed through the house but Aidan was gone.
I found him eventually in the garden, sat before the pond, his head in his hands.
“Aidan?” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” he answered, monotone.
“No, no, I deserve more than that.”
He lifted his head. “No, what you deserve is your pack. The alpha who can give you a home away from this town. So go back to them, Dakota. You’re no longer part of my plan to get back at Fenrys. I don’t even know if Iwantto get back at him anymore. That’s all you were here for.”
His words pierced my chest, right through my heart, and I gasped. Tears stung my eyes even as I lifted my chin. “I trusted you, asshole.”
He stared at me. “Did I ever claim to be anything but an asshole, Dakota?”
His words left me stunned.
“I thought you were tired of running.”
“I thought Fenrys gave you a place without ever knowing you needed it.”
I stared at him, appalled. Was he really going to use my words against me while sending me away? I gritted my teeth. After everything. Finding familiarity and friends in his pack, the sex, the mating, the function, the late-night conversations. How was this all I was worth to him?
“Fine. Fine, let’s go, then. The sooner I’m away, the fucking better.” It was a lie but I had to dosomethingto hurt him.
Aidan’s face flickered as he winced. “I’m staying here. Jase is taking you back.”
“Nice. Real nice, Aidan. You’re too much of a coward to even see me back yourself? I thought you were tired of being scared. I don’t know why I ever believed you. Once a coward, always a coward, huh?”
He flinched, and I knew my words had landed too sharply. But I didn’t apologize. I spun on my heel and walked out. Jase was waiting for me out front in the SUV, looking nervous.
“Hey, Dakota, listen—”
“Just drive,” I snapped. “Please.”
I got in the car and turned my face to the window, tears falling free before I could hold them back. How had I given myself to Aidan? Thought thathecould be my mate? But he was. I knew it. And he hadn’t even rejected me. Hadn’t even given me the closure that would have been so, so painful to endure but at least I could work on it.
“He doesn’t mean any of it,” Jason said when we were almost at Silverlake Valley. He’d sped down the highway, pushing one hundred. “Aidan, I mean. He doesn’t mean any of it. He’s trying to push you away.”
“Yeah, well, he can tell me he doesn’t mean it himself. And he’s doing a pretty good job of doing it, regardless.”
Jason fell silent. To her surprise, he pulled up at a dirt road just outside of Silverlake Valley. “This is where I’ve been ordered to drop you.”
It didn’t take me long to realize. “This is where he waited the night you captured me.”
