Page 25 of Wolf's Rejected Mate

“Are you really going to make me slap you again?” she rebutted, spinning toward the door. “There’s camping gear in the corner. Make yourself comfortable.”

With that, she left me inside, staring at the closed door with mild amusement and deep regret.

I should have never let her go. But maybe it’s not too late to get her back. She’s my mate, after all. We’re bound.

Chapter12

Abby

My mother used to have a saying: “If you can choose between doing the right thing and being polite, do the right thing and fuck decorum.”

It was an adage I borrowed for myself, priding myself all through life as someone who had the sense to understand the difference between right and wrong. It wasn’t until I had fully shifted, after Elijah rejected me, and I had gone to work for Orson, that I realized that “right” and “wrong” weren’t always so neat and tidy.

Elijah was such a case in point.

The right thing to do would be to tell my employer that his former employer was back in Pario City and looking to usurp him. Or was the right thing to protect my mate who had stupidly wandered into territory he no longer controlled for reasons I still didn’t understand?

Orson had claimed me when I had no one, and Elijah had rejected me.

Orson had set me up with a job, a house, a future.

Elijah had let me think he was dead for two centuries.

Orson owned Pario City.

Elijah was my mate.

No matter how infuriating I found that. If he had been anyone else, I would have made the call the second I returned to my house after leaving Elijah in that shed. Instead, I collected blankets and pillows, locating other means of comfort to ensure that the man who had broken my heart would be comfortable for the next few days.

By the time I returned to him, he had set up a sleeping bag and located a small plastic table.

“This is making Seven Rock look classy,” he informed me lightly. I didn’t smile, dropping the pile in my arms onto the ground in front of him.

“Where is Seven Rock?” I asked. I’d never even heard of it. “How far from the battlefield?”

Elijah twisted his neck, cracking it lightly against his open palms.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” he said brusquely. “A farming community, out of touch with everything, really. I never realized how much technology had advanced until I headed this way—until now. Most of the residents live off the land, eating what they produce, building and trading amongst themselves.”

I frowned, trying to imagine such a place, but it was like nowhere I knew.

“But what region is it in? Forny?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s hundreds of miles from here and from where I… woke.”

Clearing his throat, he went on. “Like I said, I wandered from that spot somehow, looking for answers, but beyond my name, I didn’t have much. No one was looking for me. The first time I shifted, I scared the shit out of myself.”

He snickered, and I couldn’t suppress a smile at the image, but it faded when I looked at his expression. I read the pain in his face, but he covered it with his usual charming façade.

“Where did you end up? Before Seven Rock, I mean?” I asked, eager to hear all the details of how he had come to be lost for so long. But Elijah didn’t want to dwell on that, the memories rousing too much for him.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all the past now. And now I’m back where I belong. With you.”

Any sympathy I’d been feeling evaporated with his words. I snorted and rose off my haunches where I’d been crouched, stepping back.

“You remember our deal,” I told him warningly. “You stay here, out of sight. I still think you should get out of the city, but if you’re going to stay, and you want me to keep it a secret, you stay right here. If you don’t, the deal’s off.”

He snorted. “You drive a hard bargain.”

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