Page 28 of The Runaway Mate

“Someone you loved and trusted just hit you; of course you did nothing!” Wally looked like he wanted to shake some sense into me. “That’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“No? Well, I feel ashamed. Ashamed and embarrassed. I don’t want people to know what an idiot I am. I don’t know how I feel about Ryan, but I don’t want to see pity in his eyes when he looks at me,” I pleaded with him. “They can’t know. If I have any chance of looking at myself in the mirror, then I have to deal with this by myself.”

Wally studied me for a minute. “How?”

“How, what?”

“How are you going to deal with it?”

“I… Well, I just will.” Okay, even I knew that was a lame-assed answer.

“Girl—”

“Not now, Wally,” Thomas interrupted. “Give her some time.”

Wally glared at him. “We don’t know this motherfucker, Seth. We don’t know if she has time.”

“Wally,” Thomas said again, more firmly this time.

“Fine, fine.” Wally threw his hands up in defeat. “But this conversation is not over, girly. I think you need to tell them, and I intend to keep telling you that.”

“Thank you,” I replied, relieved that he was going to drop it for now.

“But in exchange, I do have a question I want an honest answer to.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What’s the question?”

“What are you going to do about that big heap of drooling wolf that’s sitting outside our house?”

I frowned. “What?”

“Ryan, girlie, what are you going to do about Ryan? It’s all over town that you’re back, and everyone knows that you’re his mate. So, what about it? You gonna jump that thang?”

My heart thumped in my chest. “Everybody knows?”

“Sure, everyone’s talking about Jem’s lost little sister who Ryan rejected and then spent the last four years pining after.”

Wally’s words hit me like a ton of bricks. Everyone in the northeast knew about my rejection, but now they also knew I was back and that Ryan had been pining for me? It made me feel exposed and vulnerable.

“So? What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, feeling my cheeks heat up.

“But you want this, right? You guys are fated mates.”

“Yes, we’re fated mates, but honestly, I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“Well, you better figure it out soon. That man is head over heels for you. And let me tell you, I don’t know Ryan particularly well, but I know enough that Ryan is not the type to let the woman he loves slip through his fingers twice.”

I swallowed hard, feeling a mix of emotions stir in my chest. Anger, hurt, confusion, and desire all battled for supremacy within me.

Wally’s eyes softened. “Did Thomas tell you about how we got together?”

I shook my head.

“I knew he was my mate the first time I set eyes on him. I was visiting his Pack for a business meeting, and something happened when I looked at him. I felt hot and cold, I couldn’t breathe, it was like, in that moment, a part of me knew that my world had turned upside down and nothing would ever be the same again.”

His words stirred something within me—a familiar blend of excitement and dread that I’d felt before but tried to forget.

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