Page 39 of Talk About… Secrets
I don’t know why I was feeling so angry toward him, but I couldn’t shake the annoyance that he’d never looked back again when he left me behind.
Which was exactly why I’d struggled with believing my pack would be happy with me in Rockwood Valley.
Because he hadn’t been.
I wasn’t enough for him. Plus, just like now, I was unwilling to compromise.
My stomach churned as I waited for Drew to speak. He was studying me, those sea glass green eyes wide as he read every emotion likely displayed on my face.
“Can we talk for a minute?”
Then he was close enough that my heart stopped. He was big, years of football making his muscles well honed. I had to tip my head back to take him in.
His scent wasn’t blocked anymore, either. It was also nothing like I remembered.
His once fruity and sweet scent had changed, shifted to something stronger and laced in spices that deepened it, turning it into something masculine and intoxicating.
“You can tell now, right?” he asked, almost desperate. This explains why he was so strange the last time he caught me. He’d seemed strange and stunned.
It was the same day I washed off my blockers.
Fuck.
My heart was pounding and palms sweaty, but my omega was dancing inside of me like she was a dragon finding her hoard… only it wasn’t treasure, it was mates.
“Want to fill us in, freckles?” Spencer asked. His voice was curious and cautious at the same time.
“She’s my scent-match,” Drew answered before I could. His eyes were hard, as if daring them to fight him.
“Wait, I thought you were friends, how did you not know?” Beck demanded. He seemed annoyed and suspicious.
“His scent has some of the same notes, but it’s changed,” I admitted.
“Yours, too,” he agreed, his face softening as he looked back at me. “We just came into our scents back then, I don’t think they were fully developed. God, I’m so fucking sorry, Grace. I should have known. I should have never left.”
The words I’d waited to hear before I gave up on that pipe dream hit me and I nearly folded. Even when I thought he was a chosen mate, it broke me when he left.
It still hurt, after all this time.
“Don’t say that,” I pleaded. Could he not tell that I was barely holding it together, here?
“We need to move this somewhere else,” Beck said, gently leading me down the hall like I was fragile. It felt like I was at the moment, too. My body was moving on autopilot and my mind lost in a fog.
I’d wanted a pack, but I never imagined the little bubble of happiness I found being shifted again.
“It’s going to be alright,” Beck promised, his voice gentle but I could see the frustration there.
Was this going to be the point of no return. The moment I become ‘too much’ for them to handle?
As if they could feel my stress, Spencer and Cade moved to my sides, touching me and erasing some of the fear.
Though, their support didn’t make it any less tense as the door closed behind us and the alphas faced off.
Grace
“Iknow this is likely not what your pack had planned, but I’m not walking away from Grace unless she tells me to,” Drew said firmly. “I was an idiot once. Never again.”
“If you had stayed, you never would have had the career you loved,” I argued. My voice was rough, as if it was unused. Or maybe the anxiety just made it sound like that. A bit breathless and raspy, and not in a cute way.
