Page 8 of Rejected Sold Mate
I didn’t even tell them goodbye; I just sent out a group text saying I’d gotten sick and had to rush home. It was a lie, and a goodbye, all in one.
It would be the last they ever heard from me if I had anything to do with it. I’d failed to go rogue so many times before, but maybe this time I would succeed. There was nothing left for me to do but run. It was the only thing I was good at anyway.
I couldn’t exist another day so close to Jayce, whom I hated and ached for in equal parts. The idea of having to see him around town and pretend like I’d never been in his arms was too painful.
So, when I got home, I dug out the faded old duffle bag that I’d packed more times than I could count, and started gathering the important parts of my life I couldn’t bear to leave behind.
I was going to make it alone this time, or die trying.
Chapter 4 - Jayce
I don’t know how it’s possible, but I become more and more of an asshole with each passing minute.
I’d fucked up. I knew I’d fucked up as the words were still coming out of my mouth, but I was in too deep and way too proud to back down. Even when the hurt on her face was crystal clear.
Even when all I wanted to do was touch her, hold her, and ease the pain that I’d been carrying around since the night I’d taken her home.
The ache I felt for her had coiled in my stomach from the second I’d left her lying in the cabin bed, and had only grown since then. It felt like something poisonous coiled in the pit of my stomach, ready to eat me alive if I didn’t give it what it wanted. And it wanted Rhie Watson.
I was an idiot, but I was also an Alpha, well-versed in pack dynamics, and I think part of me knew even at the beginning that Rhie was something more to me than a one-night stand. The wolfish part of me knew it, at least, and was gnawing at the bars of the human-shaped cage I held it in, wanting to get to her and make things right.
To claim her as the mate, the most basic parts of me knew that she was. But instead, I shamed her and left her shaking in the back of the bookstore like a fucking asshole. When I got home and looked in the mirror, all I could see were the shadows of my ancestors.
My grandfather, the coward.
My father, the killer.
I’d spent my entire time as an Alpha trying to find the balance between the two of them, to be both strong but empathetic when necessary, and Rhie threatened to undo all the work I’d put into it. She made me feel feral, all animal and no man.
Sure, my pack was doing well in our new territory. They were settled, fed, and safe. That should have been enough to let me relax some, but instead, I was even more on edge than ever. It was like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it didn’t seem real that things could actually be easy. I didn’t know how to be anything other than a fighter, didn’t know how to begood.I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I let my guard down, all that I had gained would be taken from me.
I should still have been able to handle it better, not like a jackass.
The truth was an ugly thing, and I struggled to swallow it in the hours after the incident at the bookstore. She’d looked so small and frightened there that it had nearly broken me, but once I had time to gather my thoughts, I knew that even if I’d reached out for her, she’d have pushed me back in the moment. I was acting erratically, and Rhie didn’t deserve to have me push myself onto her instead of pushing her away like I had. Instead, what she really deserved from me was an apology.
The truth was ugly because I’d lashed out at her, not because of anything that she’d done wrong, but because I was still more damaged than I was willing to admit. Rhie shouldn’t have been able to get under my skin like that. An Omega, someone I’d considered so far beneath me, shouldn’t have been able to shake me up enough that the worst parts of me would come roaring out.
I drove to an overlook where I could park and watch the ocean wash over the rocky shore, cut the engine, rolled the windows down, and just tried to think. If I were being honest with myself, it wasn’t just Rhie or my leftover weaknesses from my long-dead family that had made me act the way I had. It was also how different the packs around me were.
In Crystal Creek, where the Alphas gave a damn about their mates, who treated their Omegas like they were treasured and not just property, something in me had started to crack. I was so sure I didn’t want a mate, but the way Samson touched Kiera like she was the most precious thing in the world, the way Scott would tear the world down to protect his pregnant Nayeli, and the way Joe couldn’t be in a room with Gwen without having a hand on her waist…it had all dug its way into my head.
I never thought I’d envy something like their connections, but I’d be damned if I said I didn’t. And then Rhie walked into my life, stunning and mysterious, and I’d let myself imagine that maybe I’d be worthy of something like the other Alphas had.
Then I’d realized who she really was, a lowly Omega, not someone prestigious or someone that could be beneficial to my pack, and I’d panicked. I’d shot her down, and done it cruelly, out of shock and as a way to make sure that she never wanted to see me again. I thought I was protecting us both, but when I woke up the next morning, the wanting was still there, stronger than ever.
Was she really all that different from the other Omegas who had become pack Lunas? Or was I just drawn to destroy the things I wanted because deep down, I didn’t think I was deserving of them?
Fuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she must have felt like, standing there in that bookshop, cornered while I toreher apart with practiced, painful precision. I’d been cold, trying to hurt her any way I could, desperate to sever whatever was growing between us and terrified the other Alphas might see what I felt for her and consider me either weak or someone who preyed on the weak.
I’d seen her fear, her humiliation, and I picked at it, worsening the wound. Just like my father would have done.
Even if Rhie had been someone shameful for me to have been with, she still wouldn’t have deserved what I’d done. But she wasn’t shameful, was she? Rhie was…someone deserving of protection.
Scott would try to tear my throat out if he knew I’d spoken to Rhie, who was not only his wolf but his mate’s friend, the way I had.
Hell, Nayeli would probably do it for him. All three of the Lunas, really, and I’d deserve every bit of it.
Part of me was self-loathing enough to want to admit it, to let them punish me because I was too much of a coward to face up to Rhie. I’d take a beating before I’d say I was sorry.
