Page 21 of Outback Mate
What can’t he do? I don’t understand. I’m so sure he wants me. His Alpha scent is still thick with desire and need. His arousal is like a heady drug, my Omega begging me to submit.
“I can’t be your Alpha.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
He steps back as I reel from his rejection.
“What?” I gasp, blinking up at him as my hands clutch at the thin paper sheet beneath me. “But… We’re scent matches. I’m your mate.”
He sighs deeply, his eyes darting around the room. He’s avoiding looking at me. I want to crawl into his lap and hold him. I want to nuzzle against his neck and inhale his scent. I want him to tell me he’s joking, and that this is all a misunderstanding.
“I can’t have a mate, Poppy.” His words are like a sucker punch to the gut.
“You can’t have a mate?” I repeat on an exhale. “What does that mean?”
He looks at me with an unreadable expression, and I feel like I might be sick.
“It means I can’t be your Alpha, Poppy. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I wanted more with you.”
My throat is thick with emotion as I struggle to fight back tears.
His eyes are sad as he looks down at me, his jaw working as he tries to find the words.
“I’m going to put in your IV and get you hydrated. You can’t sleep for more than two hours with a concussion, so I’m going to wake you up during the night,” he says clinically, his passion fully retreated, leaving only the cold doctor.
I nod, feeling numb and empty.
I don’t know what I expected. He’s a stranger. I know nothing about him. I’d assumed this was fate, but maybe I was wrong. I’m always doing the wrong thing, getting myself into strife.
I ignore the hollow ache in my chest, the tightness of my throat and the burning in my eyes.
I swallow back the tears and bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from protesting.
He snaps on another pair of gloves and slips his glasses back on. I’m so devastated, I can’t even appreciate how handsome he looks.
There is a pinch in my hand, and he attaches me to a saline bag. Cool liquid floods into my veins, and I wonder if this iswhat flows through him. Ice cold water, extinguishing the heated desire he gave me a taste of.
My aura sickness is weaving its magic once more. Bad luck following me into the Outback like dark storm clouds outside.
I should have known that I wouldn’t be so lucky as to find my mate.
Do you know what? No.
He doesn’t get to decide my fate for me.
I haven’t come this far, enduring years of my aura sickness embarrassing me or straight up trying to kill me, only to have my scent match reject me.
He hasn’t even given us a chance.
Hell to the no.
I ain’t going down without a fight.
…Okay, so maybe I need a nap first, but then I go to war.
Chapter Seven
Doc
