Page 107 of Howl You Doin?
The words are a blow, but I can’t feel it. I’m numb.
He would strip everything away, throw us away when we just found each other? The taste of betrayal coats my mouth at how easily I’m tossed aside, for something I never did, for something I had nothing to do with! And the undertone of his threat is clear, as if the very ground I’m now standing on is tainted.
I know it’s probably a lie just because he’s mad, but it doesn’t stop the way it hurts for him to say that.
He doesn’t even want to listen or talk, like a fucking meathead!
Yellow blazes across my mind and determination floods me.
Fuck him. He will have to make me leave.
“I’m not going anywhere!” I shout, clenching my fists at my sides to keep from trying to smack him. I will make him see reason, because this can’t be something that comes between us. I won’t let it be. “You turned me into a lycan, and now you’re trying to make me leave? I didn’t ask you to do this to me!”
“If you were a normal human, you wouldn’t have turned at all.” He gives me a disgusted look as a rude laugh falls from him. “But no—instead, you’re one ofthem.”
That hurts, but I brush it off. I never even knew them, so how could I be one of them? “I didn’t know.”
“You did know,” he bites out, refusing to listen. “And just like them, you’d rather lie so long as it benefits you. How the fuck am I supposed to trust you’re even my true mate, and this isn’t some fucked-up ploy to finally end me? Were you just waiting for me to let down my guard until you could find an opportune moment to kill me? It’s just too convenient that you turned up here, of all places.”
He stares at me like a stranger would and my eyes well, blurring my vision. Oh my god, I can’t believe he would think such a thing after everything.
“Connor, I would never do something like that.” I blink furiously, warm tears slipping down my cheeks. “How could?—”
“You’re a Van Helsing!” he roars, throwing his hands up as his claws curl. “That’s what you people do! You are cruel, dishonest, vile humans who would kill their own family! Get the fuck out, Whitley. Leave before I do something stupid!”
“I’m not one of them! My last name is Whitt, you bonehead!” I scream back at him while needing to fight the shift that threatens me. I’m so scared and upset, my heart breaking, that I’m moments from imploding. I can feel the bond between us, still as strong as ever. There’s no way he can mean what he’s saying. “My contract says I have another three weeks, and I will finish it. If you won’t listen to me, you’ll at least let me finish my contract so I can buy my bakery!”
I know it’s a desperate bid to stay, but surely after a few days, he will calm down and it will be fine.
“If money is all that matters to you, then I’ll fucking pay you out and consider your contract fulfilled. I would rather cut my own arm off than touch you. You are literally what I hate the most in this world, and I don’t even want to look at you.”
My heart sinks in my chest, sorrow bleeding into the fibers of my being.
It registers that I’ve betrayed him on a level I can’t comprehend, and I have no way of understanding. He’s been alone these three hundred years, and I can’t imagine what he has been through, but that still doesn’t mean I want to leave him. I understand he’s hurting, and this isn’t the Connor I know. We have to be able to work through this.
“But I love you.”
His yellow gaze flashes. Instead of warmth at my admission, his features twist into a disgusted cringe. “I don’t care about your feelings, Whitley. I don’t even want to be near you.”
Pain ricochets through me, even as I refuse to believe it.Lies.
“Well, that sounds like ayouproblem, because I still have weeks left on my contract, and you have no reason to fire me.” I jab a shaky finger in the general direction of the castle kitchen. “I’m staying, and you can’t make me leave.”
My heart stutters in my chest when he steps closer and roars in outrage, making my skin crawl, and I shrink into myself with fear as my pulse gallops.
“Then I will!”
He leaves the library without looking back, taking the shattered pieces of my heart with him.
Connor O’Doyle
I stare downat the murky brown water as it ripples and waves, lapping against the stone of the drawbridge, my hands planted on my hips while the wind tears at my hair and what’s left of my shirt and suit jacket. I tore through all the layers flexing my tense shoulders on the way outdoors, and I’ve been staring at the moat for the last hour wondering what horrid deed I must have done in a past life to deserve this bullshit. I’m no closer to any answers.
Luckily, none of the remaining guests or any employees witnessed my outburst in the hallway as I made my way outside. I needed away from the bloody castle and Whitley’s presence before I did something truly fucking stupid.
My mate is a Van Helsing. A derisive chuckle escapes my chest, even as the thought makes me want to batter my fists into something until I don’t feel this rage. Terrible hate spews within me like a volcanic eruption, eating at my insides even as I try to process what I can’t readily accept. How could she keep this from me?
I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust her when she literally comes from the most horrible family known to monsters. Theydidn’t care how innocent the creatures they were butchering were. They tortured me, and killed so damn many of my dear friends.
