Page 24 of Rejected By Blood (Mated in Silence 2)

“I feel very lucky I ended up here.” Dean changed his shirt and ran a comb through his hair. Shane’s hair was damp his shirt was also clean. He must have changed wherever he lived. Actually, he pretty much lived in our yard, so...he must keep his things somewhere else. I felt a pang at the thought that my mate was not able to be comfortable in our own home. That would have to change.

Dean grabbed a hoodie. “Even if nobody is getting beaten, we’d better start out. It’s disrespectful to be late, and I don’t want to make that kind of an impression. It’s only my second meeting.”

I’d nearly forgotten Dean had been to one meeting without me. It had been not too long after he came here, and he hadn’t said much about it, leading me to believe there were secrets involved, but he just grumbled about long-winded speeches and people who would argue about whether the day was partly sunny or partly cloudy.

But I didn’t let that bother me. Delighted to be included for once, and to be going with both my mates who seemed to be displaying their best manners, I flounced down the path, enjoying the swish of my skirt around my ankles. It was a gorgeous, windy afternoon with the sun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds scooting across the sky.

While we weren’t late, we weren’t the first to arrive either, and we ended up having to sit right in the front row. As we passed all the others, I could feel their stares on us and didn’t know what to make of it. Was my appearing at a meeting that shocking?

It seemed the front was not a popular spot, but three seats together were available only there. Dean sat to my right, Shane to my left, and we were no sooner settled in than the alpha appeared at the front with Jerad and Ruston flanking him.

“I looked for that guy for months,” Dean muttered, jerking his chin at Ruston. “He was supposed to assign me work, and finally I had to get Jerad to do it. And you know how hard it is to get Jerad to do anything.”

“I heard Ruston was away for a while, and not with permission,” Shane told him. “Rumor has it he nearly lost his status.”

But there was no more time to talk about betas because the alpha called us to order. He brought up a few items of business that were indeed boring unless maybe you knew more about what was behind them. How many acres of what compared to last year, who was in charge of the farm stand for the summer, and a new quartermaster. I hadn’t been sleeping well, worrying about my mates being able to make peace, whether Magda should still be living alone, and whether I was Callista, and my eyelids were fluttering closed when I suddenly felt the alpha’s stare join those behind me. Everyone, I knew without turning around, was looking at me.

Suddenly it didn’t seem so awesome to be included.

I waited for him to say something that related to me, but my name never came up. Not specifically. Instead, he said, “We’ve been having some encroachments lately, and it’s time to set up a patrol to end this. We do not tolerate any of our pack members being menaced and the damage done to Magda’s place was completely unacceptable.

Now the meeting was interesting.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dean

My palms grew sweaty. I knew what I had to do, but my heart and my wolf rebelled against it with everything they had. Still, if I wanted to give Jillian all of me, it had to be done.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, stalking over to the garden where Shane put in overtime. It was his gift to Jillian, that much I could tell. When someone is working on something for their mate, others could just see it. It was in the way he spent extra time, fishing out the weeds one by one.

When she looked at it, he practically beamed like I did when I brought home firewood or a freshly killed rabbit.

There were two reasons for what I was about to do.

One: I really thought these two deserved a chance at being alone. After all, we lived in a one-room cabin. But even if we didn’t, even if we lived in a mansion, it would still feel too small. That was my mindset talking. There was a barrier, a fence topped with barbed wire, inside me that I just couldn’t hurdle.

No matter how hard I tried to get over myself.

“Sure. What’s on your mind?” Shane stood and dusted off his hands on his work pants. I’d noticed he tended to finish his other assignments early.

“I need you to give this to Jillian, but not until tonight. Gives me a few hours to get away.”

His face blanched. I held the envelope with Jillian’s name on it in front of me, and when he didn’t take the damned thing, I shook it a little.

“Don’t do this, Dean. It’s going to break her heart. She loves you. Anyone can see that.”

I shrugged one shoulder and fought my anger. “Doesn’t matter. She’ll have you.”

I had a mate and new amazing abilities. Bitterness shouldn’t be inside me, and yet it bubbled and gurgled from a fountain I just couldn’t cork no matter how hard I tried.

In my mind, it was okay, Jillian and Shane. Just because she loved him didn’t mean she loved me less. If I tried, I could work out the details and logistics until it made sense to me. But then my heart got in the way. It was jealous and bucked against any thought of it.

Jillian’s harem and my part in it was a heart issue.

“It’s not the sam,e and you know that. She’ll never feel complete, her or her animal, unless both of us are around. We both have roles to play in her life. It’s going to crush her if you leave.”

I blew out a breath as the spring wind whipped me in the face, trying to slap some sense into me.

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