Page 25 of Rejected By Blood (Mated in Silence 2)

“But I’m not worth anything to her like this. I’m bitter and jealous and angry. I have to learn to let go so I can learn to come back and hold on tighter than I ever have before.”

He took the letter from my hand and stuffed it into his back pocket. I knew I was putting him in a predicament by making him the messenger, but leaving it on her pillow seemed cold. What I was about to was cold enough without adding to it.

Shane kicked at a pebble in the path between lettuce rows. “You still love her, then?”

I scoffed. “Of course I love her. I’m doing this so I can get my shit straight and love her better. Love her like she deserves. Love her despite and because of the fact t I’m not her only mate. I can’t do this until I get my head screwed on straight.”

He stepped forward with steely rage in his eyes. My chest tightened, thinking this was it, he was going to lay me out right there and beat the shit out of me. “When you come back, you make sure you’re steady with this, okay? She will be able to handle this because she’s the strongest female, or male for that matter, that I’ve ever met but you don’t get to break her heart over and over again while you find your balls. This better be a one-time thing, or else I’ll end you. I’m saying that as her mate, someone who is supposed to defend her and protect her. You get me?”

His voice was terse and strong, and I believed every word he said. Actually, my respect for the man grew a hundredfold in that moment. Jillian would be in good hands while I was gone, that much I knew.

Me? Yeah, I still wasn’t sure if I had the nads to leave.

“If you’re going to do this, you’d better do it fast. Once her wolf alerts her something is up with you, she’s going to go berserk.” I paused and hefted my backpack onto my shoulder. “I’ll take care of her. I swear it.”

I shifted and took off at a run with my backpack in my teeth. My wolf wasn’t pleased, and that was the understatement of the century.

Leaving Jillian would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Shane

No matter what I’d said to her other mate, as I watched Jillian read the letter from Dean, tears trickling down her cheeks, I wanted to go find him and beat him until his eyes swelled closed and his lips looked like one of those Hollywood celebrities with lip-filler gone wild. Nobody should hurt my mate this way.

I’d struggled all afternoon not to open the envelope and read the letter, not to just throw it away and tell her what he’d said in my own words. That he loved her and was going away just to make himself right for her. That was the gist, wasn’t it? But somehow I couldn’t do it. I tried stuffed the envelope in my pocket and tried to go back to gardening, but finally gave up and sat on the stoop, leaning my back against the door. I had no idea what would happen—or precisely what was in the letter burning a hole in my pants.

Despite my anxiety, I’d been up since well before dawn and working hard, and as the afternoon sun warmed my cheeks, my eyes closed. I woke to the crunch of a shoe on the gravel pathway to the door and jumped up.”

Jillian was carrying her basket, piled with some sort of herbs. I knew about gardening for flowers and vegetables, but the art of herbs was not in wheelhouse. She cocked her head to the side, one brow raised in question.

“I have a letter for you…from Dean.” I fumbled in my pocket and yanked out the crumpled envelope. “Here.” I thrust it at her. “It’s from Dean. He said to give this to you.”

She let the basket fall, but I swooped to catch it before all her hard work spilled onto the ground. Tearing at the flap, she moved into the house but then came out again. I knew why. Unless someone lit a lamp, which we rarely did during the day, it was a bit dark to read in the cabin. I wasn’t in there much, but enough to know that.

Jillian sat on the bench Dean made for her under the flowering cherry tree near the fence. I could have sat there, but my worries had made it more of a stoop sitting time. She pulled out a single sheet of paper and bent close, lips moving as she read the words.

Most people learn to read and write very young, but Jillian hadn’t had any schooling at all to speak of, and considering Dean had only begun teaching her a few months before, she was doing very well. A pang of guilt jerked my stomach muscles. He was so much better for her than I was. Why didn’t I just say I’d leave and let them be? But I knew why. My not being around wouldn’t make me any less her mate. Not at all.

After a while, Jillian looked up from the page, her eyes shimmering with tears.

“C-can I read it?” I wasn’t sure I had any right to ask, but she held it out to me.

I sank down beside her on the bench and read the words that made my mate cry.

Dear Jillian,

First, I want you to know I’m leaving for you. That didn’t come out right, but I don’t have another piece of paper to start fresh, so…let me try to explain. I’ve been doing my level best to be a good mate to you and to understand that you need us both, that we are both your mates, me and, and him.

But I didn’t even know I was a shifter until last winter, and the only reason I learned about mates was by falling in love with you. I’m aware they are two different things, but kind of the same I think.

It is going to take me a little time to come to terms, and I don’t think I can do that right here while you are forging a bond with him. So I called my friend Christie, in the town I came from, and we had a long talk. She has three mates, and her friend Wendi has four. I think it’s four. Anyway, I’m going to go visit them and see how they live. How they make it work between them. Of course, they don’t live in a small cabin, so I imagine privacy is less of a problem, but I don’t even really know that.

Heck, for all I know they all sleep in a giant bed.

I really hope that’s not the case. Christi said her relationships with each one of the guys is separate, yet together they are kind of a family. Makes my head spin, but I want to know. I want to learn.

I want to be the best mate for you possible. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back because I’d die without you. Of that I am sure. But if I cannot get it together, I have no idea what to do. Let’s be positive. I’m going to visit friends who will help me, kind of like therapy…or research? Also I can pick up any of my belongings that might still be in my old place, if my roommates haven’t stolen or tossed them. And withdraw from school. Lots of loose ends when you run away and turn into a wolf unexpectedly.

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