Page 60 of Awakened
“Wait, what?”
Grandma Rose smiled like she was keeping the biggest secret in the world. “Celeste, sweetie, there are a lot of things I don’t tell people. A woman’s got to keep her secrets.”
“Okay, but since you brought it up, are you going to elaborate? I’ve never heard of anyone refusing their mate. It isn’t possible.”
She laughed and got up. “I think we need coffee and something sweet if we're having this chat.”
In the kitchen, she started the coffeemaker. Taking a ceramic cookie jar out of the pantry, she put a few cookies on a plate and asked, “Chocolate chip still your favorite?”
“You know it.”
She set the plate in front of me. “Still take your coffee black?”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, biting into the most perfect cookie. Her cookies were always so soft. It had to be witchcraft.
The tiny spoon collection on the wall caught my eye. “You finally got Maine?”
She nodded as she poured creamer into her mug. “I went this past fall for the leaves changing.” Glancing up, she smiled. “It was beautiful.”
“I bet.”
“I’ll have to show you my mementos from the rest of the world sometime.” Grandma Rose placed a mug of coffee in front of me and sat at the counter.
She took a drink and let out a content sigh.
“So . . .” I tossed the last bit of cookie in my mouth before grabbing another.
“I grew up being taught to wait for our mates. Everyone I knew found their mate, and taking a partner outside of the bond was seriously frowned upon. In some places, it was even illegal. When I was 16, our pack got a new warrior, and he was all anyone talked about. Some said he was an alpha’s son who refused to be the beta to an older brother. Some said he was an assassin sent to take out our alpha.”
Grandma took a sip of coffee and then pickeda cookie. “The more romantic girls said he was searching for his mate. My chance to finally see him came at the monthly pack meeting where he was being sworn in. I knew he was it for me the moment he walked into the room. Tall, dark, and handsome didn’t even begin to describe him. When he swore allegiance to our pack, his voice was so deep and velvety it gave me goosebumps.” She smiled dreamily as she nibbled her cookie.
“As his eyes scanned the room, they landed on me.” She smirked. “Then quickly moved on.”
With a full mouth, I interrupted, “Wait, what?”
“He wasn’t my mate. Nope. Like a couple dozen other girls, I had fallen for a man who already had a mate. Over the next few years, we found out more about our new warrior, Jack. His mate had died during a land dispute with the government, and Jack left knowing he couldn’t continue to act as alpha.
“He slowly gained the esteem of the entire pack, making our future alpha nervous. Jack befriended my older brothers and became an unofficial member of the family.” She laughed. “On my 18th birthday, he asked what I wanted as a present. I asked for a kiss, and before he realized what I had said, I grabbed his face and laid one on him.”
That sounded like her. What a badass. No wonder Alpha Williams always said she was a bad influence on me.
Grandma Rose’s eyes got a little misty, and a soft smile pulled at her lips. “Jack didn’t come around the house for a month after that, and when he eventually showed back up, he wouldn’t even look at me.” She shook her head and laughed.
“Despite the awkwardness I caused, Jack remained close to my family. He even took on my training despite me being an unshifted female and made me the best female warrior in the pack. When I finally shifted, I discovered I was the future luna. I prayed I was mistaken, but it was confirmed when William, the future alpha, shifted a few weeks later, and his soul recognized mine. Suddenly, William was the sexiest male I’d ever seen. Theboy I’d been friends with my whole life became the living embodiment of everything I found attractive, and yet . . .”
Grandma Rose bit into her cookie and looked thoughtfully at the wall.
“To say I was disappointed that Will was my mate would be a lie. Had I never met Jack, we would’ve probably had a very happy life together. But I did meet Jack, so . . .” Her lips twitched down. “Truly, I was just disappointed that I had a mate at all. I’d always hoped the Goddess would keep me from my mate so I could be with Jack.”
“Wow,” was all I could say. No one wished to not meet their mate.
“It wasn’t as if Jack and I had any kind of relationship. After that stolen kiss, he kept things strictly platonic, but there were little things that gave me hope. I would catch him looking at me during meals. He would sit close and whisper to me during pack meetings.” She let out an airy laugh. “And he threatened to beat up Jacob Daniels when he got fresh with me at a pack barbecue. As far as I knew, he had no other serious attachments, and I hoped he would grow to see me as more than a friend.”
She tapped her nails on her mug. “I felt so guilty wishing my mate away, but it also felt like I was betraying Jack by having one. My heart was being pulled in two directions, and it took two years, a lot of pain, and me finally running away and losing my family and pack before I was able to be with the man I loved—Jack.”
I reached out and grabbed Grandma’s hand. “Thank you for sharing this with me, but I don’t understand what it has to do with me or Seth.” I was really trying to see some parallels. The best I got was me and Aiden, but he had chosen some stranger over me. To find out he could have made another choice, that if he loved me enough, we could have been together, hurt like a son of a bitch.
That realization was the final nail in the coffin for the past Aiden and I shared. We weren’t meant to be. Butinstead of heavy heartbreak, I felt lighter. I knew that I was, in fact, ready to give my all to Seth. There were no more hesitations or fears. Seth would choose me. I knew he would.
