Page 24 of Brody
“What?”I managed to say, the word barely audible.
He was already walking away, his powerful body rigid with what looked like physical pain.For just a moment, his shoulders hunched as if carrying an impossible burden.
“Find someone else,” he called over his shoulder, but his voice cracked on the last word.
The casual dismissal snapped my shock and replaced it with pure, righteous fury.“Are you fucking kidding me?”I snarled, my voice carrying enough venom to make him freeze.“You just told me I’m your fated mate, and now you’re walking away?”
“That’s right.”His voice was hollow, empty of the heat that had filled it moments before.
“No.”The word exploded from me with such force that nearby birds took flight.“Absolutely not.You don’t get to drop the fated-mate bomb and then just leave.”
“Watch me,” he said without looking back.
“Wait!”I called after him, my voice breaking.The sound emerged raw and wounded, nothing like my usual controlled tone.“You can’t just…”
He kept walking, each step driving daggers into my chest as the partially formed bond stretched and began to tear.
“At least tell me why!”I shouted, hating the desperation in my voice but unable to stop it.“You owe me that much.I don’t even know your name!”I called after him, the absurdity of it hitting me like another blow.My fated mate was walking away, and I didn’t know the first thing about him.Not his name, not where he came from, nothing but the scent of him.
But he kept moving away, his powerful strides eating up the distance between us, leaving me alone with the wreckage of what should have been the most profound connection of my life.I stood there, shaking with anger and disbelief.I pressed my hand to my chest, where something vital felt torn open.
My fated mate had rejected me.
Weak male,my inner cheetah said.Fury bled through our mental connection.
He abandoned us.Fuck him.He’s not worthy.
“Fine,” I whispered to the empty savanna.“Fuck you too, wolf.”
My cheetah hissed inside me, claws raking against my human control.For the first time in my life, I felt her fighting to break free, to chase him down, to make him pay.
And for the first time in my life, I was tempted to let her.
Hours later, after his rejection in the savanna, I sat in Dr.Haku’s field lab, staring blankly at the data sheets she’d asked me to review.
My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.Every cell in my body felt wrong, like they were all vibrating at the wrong frequency.
“You look like hell,” Haku said, sliding a flask across the metal table.“Drink.”
I took a burning swallow.“I met my fated mate today.”
Her eyes widened, a smile starting to form until she registered my expression.“But that’s…” She faltered, the smile fading.“What happened?”
“He rejected me.”
Haku went completely still, like prey sensing a predator.“That’s not possible.”Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper.“In twenty years tracking shifter populations on three continents, I’ve never seen a mate rejected.Not once.”
“Well, congrats,” I said, taking another burning swallow.“You just witnessed shifter evolutionary history.”
“Listen to me, Rozi.”Haku leaned forward, her face intense.The scent of her anger, hot metal and desert sand, filled the small lab.“What he did isn’t just cruel, it’s unheard of.The mate bond isn’t some romance-novel bullshit.It’s the most sacred connection in shifter existence.Every shifter spends their life hoping to find that one person the universe created just for them.”
I stared at the data, numbers blurring through unshed tears.My fingernails dug crescents into my palms, the small pain a welcome distraction from the gaping wound in my chest.My skin felt too tight, like my cheetah was trying to claw her way out to howl her rage at the moon.
“Guess I’m just special that way.”The words tasted like ash on my tongue.Bitter.Poisonous.
“No, you don’t understand.”Haku’s voice sharpened.“Rejecting a mate bond is like cutting off your own arm.No one does it.No one.It goes against every instinct we have.”
I finally looked up at her, letting her see the raw devastation I couldn’t hide.“Then why did he?”
