Page 17 of Reclaiming His Lost Mate
After my night with Selina, I had chosen to put hundreds of miles between us, convinced that the vast distance would grant me the reprieve my heart craved and the ability to push her from my thoughts. But my hopes proved futile. Even with the protective walls of Shadow Moon encasing me, Selina’s presence clung stubbornly to my mind, refusing to fade, a constant torment. Selina’s face was still every-darn-where I turned.
I’d been so blinded with rage when I woke up beside her—with no recollection of how I got there and only a splitting headache, whichtold me that I’d been drugged—that I didn’t pay attention to my actions until days after I returned home to Shadow Moon Pack.
My memories from my night with her were blurry at first, but the details all rushed back to me before long, every last one of them. Since then, I hadn’t been able to help but feel like I handled things poorly and way out of character.
“Are you with me?” Rhys snapped, momentarily yanking me from being drowned in my well of thoughts. Rhys, my twenty-four-year-old Beta, one of Shadow Moon’s most skilled combat men and my most trusted ally, was currently standing behind the free chair in my private home office, posture astride, and hands clasped in front of him as he brought me up to speed on pack matters as he did once every week. He had been speaking for a while now, but… “you barely heard a single word of what I said in the last ten minutes, did you?” Rhys completed my line of thought, and I sighed in exhaustion.
“My apologies. What were you saying, Rhys?” I asked, looking up at him from my seat as I wiped a hand down my face like that would help reduce how much I saw Selina’s charming smile or her delicate qualities.
Rhys’s dark green eyes stared back at me, and if not for the fact that I had a reputation to uphold as Alpha, I would have broken the gaze first. There was no way Rhys wouldn’t see through me.
“Still can’t stop thinking about your mate?” He asked, confirming my last thought, and I shook my head once.
“No. The fated pull won’t let me,” I said, feeling as if there were barbs under my skin, working their way deeper into me at the thought of the insufferable bond that, even with so much distance between us, I was still fighting against.
That was all this was, Selina’s allure—the intoxicating promise that the fated mate bond induced. But what had that fated connection brought my parents? A descent into despair, culminating in death. No, I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted by such illusions. Rhys, thinking in a similar line, raised his eyebrow in question. “Did you not reject her publicly and choose to marry her sister instead?”
I nodded, trying to reaffirm the much more sensible choice I’d made a month ago by accepting Marissa as my intended mate. I’dwitnessed her sharp edges with her malicious streak, but she was by far the more pragmatic choice than Selina, who was surrounded by the uncontrollable force of fate.
“Then why do you think it’s the bond’s doing?”
I thought about his question for a second, and not finding the answer, I shrugged. “I don’t know. What else would it be?”
Rhys considered me for a moment, emotions sifting across his face, and then he switched from his soldier stance, easing his make-believe, stoic features. Rhys did this sometimes. He was a good friend to me, always had been, but he never crossed the lines when it came to our positions. He maintained his respect and due courtesy for me as his Alpha, but there were times that he let his guard down and stepped in his brotherly shoes, even though I was a year older than him. It was one of the reasons why Shadow Moon prospered more than some others, having a good Beta as well as an Alpha.
My eyes tracked Rhys as he came forward to occupy the free seat he was earlier standing behind, and I waited for what he had to say.
“Are you going to be honest with yourself, Alexis?” Rhys asked, leaving behind all formalities.
My eyebrows drew together in a frown, but I knew that Rhys was right. I needed to be honest, so I nodded again.
Rhys adjusted in his seat, inching forward, hands clasped together and propped under his chin, saying. “So tell me, what about her is bothering you right now.”
My answer wasn’t thought of. It just rushed out of me. “I can’t stop thinking about how much I hurt her all through the time I knew her. I should have given her a chance to explain herself after our night together because she seemed at a loss when I accused her of drugging me, but I shut her down.” I took a deep breath, thinking about how Selina felt under me, how she shattered apart with my name tumbling out of her seductive lips, and how perfect it felt to bury myself deep inside her. “I miss her,” I admitted, chuckling at how unfair I was to her. “I miss her after I broke her, and I hate myself for it.”
Rhys’s face had no judgment on it. “It’s been a month since that happened. She may have moved on,” he said, if only to comfort me, but I shook my head.
“No. It doesn’t feel like it.”
He sighed in response to my words, thinking about his words before voicing them out. “I’d say, go get your mate, man. Or at least talk to her and apologize for walking out on her. You’d feel so much better.”
I looked up at him, considering his words. His words held some promise to it. “Yeah. I think you’re right, Rhys. Thank you. Thank you for the advice.”
“Always,” he responded, rising from the seat and moving to get back to his many duties.
I spoke before he could leave. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I need to make it right. I’ll be back as soon as I can, in a few days at most, so will you please look after things for me? Again?”
“Of course, Alpha. Our pack is always in safe hands,” Rhys said, getting back into character, and I let out a forced chuckle.
New purpose filled my heart, driving me forward as I chased the woman I wanted, for real this time, and it was the first time in years that I could beat my chest and say I was nervous and excited about something at the same time.
My excitement was cut short, nervousness taking up the whole space, as I arrived at the now-accustomed lands of Nightwing Pack, specifically the pack’s treatment hut, which was where Selina should have been since I was already in sync with her daily activities, and was met with not only her absence but a shocking, heart-riddling news as well.
The unrecognizable face I found in the hut squeezing a herbal plant behind Selina’s usual spot had only two words for me. “She left.”
Thinking that Nightwing Pack’s treatment hut had received an added set of hands within the month, I asked.
“What time is her new shift, please?”
