Page 3 of Betrayed Bullied Mate

The door slams open, and in typical Aris fashion, he comes pushing through. My insides twist, and I shrink back against the wall, expecting some of his meathead friends to follow after him, but he’s alone.

It’s almost worse for it to be just him.

His eyes lock on mine, then break away to roam over my features, taking in my tears, rumpled dress, and shaking hands desperately trying to push the hair from my face. As he comes toward me, I tell myself that Aris has never actually put his hands on me—only bullied me verbally, and I’m not sure there’s much he can say to make me feel worse than I already do.

“Linnea,” he says, and I jolt, realizing he only ever calls me by my last name. This is the first time I’ve ever heard him use my first. “What are you doing out here?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I could tell him what Tommy did, but Aris would probably just laugh and congratulate him for ruining my night.

Aris is suddenly much closer than I thought, leaning in, one hand braced on the wall above me. His deep brown eyes bore into mine with an intensity I’ve never seen anyone match. That’s what separates Aris from the rest of the bullies—there's a light behind his eyes the others don’t have. It’s what makes him so much more brutal—because I can’t tell myself that he’s just a mindless brute.

He knows what hurts, and he always goes for the kill.

Now, he’s leaning down, dipping his chin, and I’m torn between dream me and real me. Dream me doesn’t know what’s about to happen. The real me knows and hates what comes next.

The second his lips touch my lips, it feels like I’ve left my body. It’s more than a kiss. It’s primal, a connection that goes deeper than our bodies. His hands roam, touching my hips, squeezing my sides, rubbing the small of my back, gently pinching inside my thighs.

I can’t breathe. It’s like he’s sucking the air right out of my lungs. I can feel his chest heaving against mine and realize he’s as caught up in this as I am.

There’s a feeling similar to what I experience when I have a vision, but no image comes with it. Instead, it’s just an absolute certainty. A fact branded inside my brain.

“You’re my mate,” I gasp, hands on Aris’s shoulders, pushing him back away from me. In a moment, I realize he has me up against the wall, my Prom dress bunched around my hips, and his hand dangerously close to the lace panties I’d chosen for the special night.

Aris is still breathing hard, his lips swollen and red, his eyes glinting in the low light. In the look he’s giving me, how completely our bodies took over just now, I know he knows it too. That first mating spark—I’ve learned about from other pack members—they always say you’ll know it when you feel it.

At the end of the hall, a door opens and closes, letting in the sound of a loud pop song blaring in the gymnasium. Aris startles visibly, some of the cloudy look on his face dissipating.

“Are you kidding?” he laughs, looking me up and down with a scornful eye. He gives me a pitying look, shaking his head. “I just wanted to see if you would actually let me kiss you. You’re so delusional, Harper. Why would you be my mate? You really think the son of the alpha is going to be with… You?” Aris gestures to me, and I know he’s referencing my weight. The fact that I’m not twig-thin like the other girls in the school. It hits home like it always does.

A thought in the back of my head manages to wiggle through the self-doubt for just a moment. He didn’t have a problem with that extra weight a moment ago when he had you off the ground and against the wall.

Aris steps back like he can hear what I’m thinking. He chuckles again, shaking his head and holding his hands up as he retreats, as if I might try and kiss him again. My body urges me to, but my pride holds me back.

“Whatever you felt, you were the only one feeling it, Harper.”

With that, Aris turns on his heel and disappears down the hallway. I stand frozen, waiting for the dream to end. This is where it has always ended. And yet, I’m still standing in the hallway, the muted slow dance oozing out from under the gymnasium’s doors.

My hands are shaking as I smooth down the dress again. I take a deep breath, trying to break out of the dream. Usually, I have better control than this.

And then a scream ripples down the hall, deep and guttural, like a wounded animal. My body leaps into action before I can think, bursting toward the door the sound came from. When I reach the doorway, a massive man falls into my arms.

Over six feet and hulking with muscle, he nearly crushes me under his weight, and I have to lower him to the ground the best I can in my heels. My ankles wobble dangerously, my arms hooked under his armpits. He smells like pine, deodorant, and blood.

“Are you okay?” I ask frantically, his groans of pain echoing through my brain as though they’re my own. The feeling is almost unbearable.

He can’t answer. His body is seizing under my hands. A trickle of blood runs down the corner of his mouth.

A moment later, he goes still, and when I pull my hand back, I see a glinting silver liquid coating my fingers.

***

It’s not the sun shining through the windows or birds chirping outside that wakes me up, but a searing, ripping pain through my head that has me sitting up in a cold sweat, groaning and covering my face with my eyes.

I haven’t had regular visions since high school, since I started suppressing them, but it’s harder to keep them out at night. Prom night with Aris comes back frequently as a dream, which is particularly vivid because of my brain and how it holds onto scenes like that. When I see visions, it’s like I’m walking through a different world, experiencing the future as it happens. Dreaming about Aris, the same thing happens, except it’s the past.

Each time I have this dream, I try to get out of it, to wake myself up. When that doesn’t work, I try to change the sequence of events, but it’s not like lucid dreaming. Ultimately, I have no control. Leave the hall, leave the school, go back to the dance floor, find Tommy. It doesn’t matter what I do. The dream always ends with Aris telling me I’m not his mate.

This is the first time it’s ever been different. I think back to the man, his screams of agony, how he’d fallen into me. I close my eyes, trying to remember what his face looked like, but it’s too fuzzy. The feelings of grief and terror are far too powerful to picture his face well.

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