Page 42 of Forsaking His Mate

“I never expected to find my fated mate.” It’s not rare, but it doesn’t happen for every wolf either. Some choose to imprint instead, taking partners they care for and severing any future ties to their fated mate.

“I didn’t either,” she admits, “but I was ready to give it a chance, to work through everything and find solutions. You didn’t even give us a shot.”

I didn’t. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”I close my eyes, knowing I need to give her the truth, that only that will save us. “Moon sickness is something that runs in my family. All males are afflicted with it. Most went mad, some managed to bind it using magic, but my father—” I break off, my chest suddenly aching. “He thought he could control it. He thought his love for my mother was enough.”

It hadn’t been. The mate bond and the depth of their love for each other had been no match for the feral anger inside him.

“What happened?”

“He lost his mind, Tessa. He’d partly shifted, his claws and teeth ripping her apart like she was nothing to him.” The horror on Tessa’s face should stop my words from spilling from my mouth, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop talking. The numbness I always feel when I talk about the past spreads through me, leaving an unpleasant feeling in its wake. “I tried to stop him. I dideverything I could, but I was no match for him. He was stronger, harder, and unreachable. It took several pack members to stop him.” I pause. “And they stopped him permanently. I lost both my parents that night.”

“Oh, Abel.” Tessa reaches out to take my hand, and the comfort I feel from her small palm in mine is surprising. “You’re not your father.”

“No, but I couldn’t risk that I might be. When I felt the mating bond, I was terrified. The sanctuary was supposed to be safe, somewhere I was guaranteed never to come across a mate. I didn’t think tau wolves could join with full-blooded wolves, and neither did Hester.”

“And I screwed that up.” Her smile is wry.

“No, baby, you didn’t screw anything up. I did. I should have talked to you. I should have explained my fears rather than reject you the way I did. I was terrified that I’d hurt you or worse, kill you. I couldn’t risk it.”

“If you’d explained this, I would have understood,” she says, a hint of criticism in her tone. “I wouldn’t have stopped fighting for us, though.”

I drop to my knees in front of her, my hands wrapping around her hips as I press my head against her stomach. “I will spend a lifetime making this up to you,” I tell her, meaning every word of it. “Please, forgive me.”

She doesn’t say anything for so long that my chest tightens.

And then, she surprises me by urging me to my feet and pressing a kiss to my mouth. My wolf is content as I capture her lips, and I want to fuck her right here, mark her again. My mouth moves to her neck, kissing over the claiming mark, my tongue licking over it. She whimpers against me, the vibration of her throat purring against the surface.

“Abel…”

The sense of contentedness that washes through me is indescribable. I nuzzle her throat before I pull back and meet her gaze.

I smile. “I need you.”

“And you have me,” she says.

Mine.

She’s mine, and nothing is going to take her from me again, not even myself.

Epilogue

TESSA

TWO MONTHS LATER…

The way the sun is shining off the lake makes it shimmer like diamonds. I’m sitting on the porch of the cabin, a mug of steaming coffee in my hands, and a blanket over my legs. It’s early, and there’s a chill in the air that will only slightly dissipate as the sun rises higher on the horizon. In a few weeks’ time, the ground will be covered in snow and frost. The sanctuary will look amazing in white, though I know it will stress Abel because it makes hunting more challenging.

The door opens beside me and I twist my neck to see Abel step out. Despite the coolness of the morning, he’s wearing only jeans, slung low on his hips, and showing off the perfect lines and planes of his chest and abdomen.

I swallow down the moisture gathering in my mouth and focus on our bond. I get a sense of serenity from him and that makes me relax.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going tofuck you on the porch,” he says. It’s meant to be a threat, but it makes my pussy throb in a delicious way.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I fire back.

Since I found out about the moon sickness, I understand why he rejected me. I hate that he thought he needed to be alone to protect me, but I understand it too.

He has slowly opened up to me more about what happened to his mom and it broke my heart to hear it. She died horribly. His father too. Abel had tried to stop it and hadn’t been able to, so he carries guilt about that.

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