Page 50 of Obsessed Mate

She stared at me. “Why do you care?”

“Am I not allowed to care?”

“No, don’t deflect the question, Andres.”

Flaky ink caked my fingers. I got too tired of it and rose from my chair, walking into the kitchen to wash my hands. It seemed to be good timing too because the tension in the room was getting to be suffocating.

While drying my hands, I turned back to Sadie. “Why do I need a reason to care?”

“Why can’t you just answer adamnquestion, Andres?”

“Language. She must be angry.”

Her face bloomed scarlet and then I realized the mistake I had made. I’d pushed her too far. Sometimes, I liked pushing Sadie’s buttons because it usually helped her think outside the box. Right now, that wasn’t exactly a good move. She’d been irritated all day. Shoving words in her face was only worsening her mood.

She looked like she was about to explode. “You know what? Fine. This situation has served its purpose.”

I dropped the kitchen towel. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Andres,” she snapped while flinging open the porch door. “I know you did.”

She left me then, stranding me in the middle of the kitchen with my jaw wired shut and my heart lurching up my throat. She left me, and I didn’t think she was coming back.

Chapter 17 - Sadie

Run, run, run. Don’t look back. Don’t even think about that look on his face.

Wild moonlight shed through the trees. Cold static swarmed my ears from the breeze crashing into my face. Tears had come earlier, but they went away with my rapid shift, leaving one of my favorite skirts torn on the ground behind me. It didn’t really matter anymore. I wasn’t sure if I was going back to that house unless it was to get my things.

This is bad.

I knew things would come to a head eventually. I knew his kindness would run out. He was asking too many questions after making too many assumptions. He thought those smiles at the luncheon were fake—crap, that wasn’t going to bode well later on. What if he decided to start asking my mother questions about it?

It was up to me to keep things under control. The family couldn’t find out about my mother and father fighting all the time. That day had barely been kept together as it was, and I was holding on by a thread.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

My head flew back, and I howled viciously. Tired muscles aching from last night’s encounter screamed for me to stop sprinting. But I couldn’t stop. I refused. I had to get as far away from Andres and his eerie way of knowing things about me. He practically read my mood. Did I really think he wasn’t going to point it out?

More tears came. Crying like this in wolf form was dangerous, especially since I was still running. I had to slow down. I had to find a place to rest. One giant leap through the trees spat me into a field, and I raced for a spot in the meadow where the grass was tall. As soon as I felt safe, I collapsed.

And then I shifted into my human form to sob.

I clawed the cold dirt and wept into the silky blades. I called for my goddess and earthy mother, begging for hot rain to wash away the tears staining my cheeks. An inner war threatened to demolish everything in me that I had built without needing a mate, withoutwantingone.

Now that I had a taste of what it was like with Andres, I despised myself for ever getting into this situation. I could have faked a date with just about anybody in the pack. Hell, Izdor would have probably agreed to go if I had asked nicely enough. The Elderling seemed to have eyes for me.

Would Andres still have gotten jealous?

What a question for my turbulent mood. It wasn’t like I had enough things to worry about, much less Andres’s jealous mood swings. He didn’t seem to keep an eye on me outside of when a guy was giving me a little bit of attention. And it was always Izdor. When Spencer spoke to me, he didn’t have a problem with it.

I didn’t get it. Did Andres care or not?

Why does it matter?

That was a much better question to ask myself. Because this whole fake engagement thing was getting on my nerves. I missed the freedom of having a short workday and a long walk home. I missed sitting on my couch with a mess of cookies around me and the latest ice-skating competitions up on the television.

I didn’t have much, but I had a home.

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