Page 103 of Rejecting his Mate

So do I, mating bond be damned.

That fuck doesn’t give two shits about Halle and I—Well, I don’t even know how to describe my feelings for her.

The first time I caught her scent in those woods, it mesmerized me. I followed it until I found her sitting alone. The solitude she sought always surprised me. Wolves aren’t solitary creatures. The pack is life, and yet she spent so much time alone.

I didn’t realize Dalton was hurting her until the day I saved her from him. Had I known, I would have torn his throat out before.

Halle isn’t delicate, not by any stretch, but she was weaker in that relationship, and he took advantage of that. He used his strength, his dominance, to control her, and I can see it in her. She’s never been taken care of, despite having a mate all this time.

Something is happening to their bond, though. I don’t smell him on her anymore. Their scents are no longer mingled in the way they were when we first went on the run, and the claiming mark has nearly completely faded.

I don’t know what it means, and I don’t care because whatever happens, she’s not going near that asshole.

She's mine.

Mine.

That word resonates through my mind, and as soon as I hear it, I know I’m never going to give her up.

I leave her sitting in the water, her knees pulled up to her chest, and rummage in the cabinet under the basin. There are some supplies under there, so I grab a bottle of shower gel and go back to the tub.

Then I strip out of my clothes. “What are you doing?” she demands.

“Scoot forward.”

She does as I ask without question, though her face suggests she has plenty of them. Climbing in behind her, I grab the shower gel and squirt some onto my hand. “Lean forward.”

She does and I massage the soap onto her back.

“Are you okay?”

She tips her head forward as I massage her back and shoulders.

“I’m tired,” she admits. “It was a lot. My magic and my memories came out at the same time.”

“What was your mom like? Do you remember her?” I knead her shoulders, making her moan a little.

“I don’t really know. Kind of like me, I guess. I got most of my looks from her, I think. I don’t know what my dad looked like.”

Just another thing that has been taken from her. I don’t understand why her aunt never gave her pictures of her father. Surely she has them. I make a vow to myself that I will find at least one fucking photograph of her father so that she can at least see him.

She sits slightly forward, hugging her knees tighter to her chest. “What I remember is that we were running for our lives from hunters. They were in their wolf forms, pursuing us like we were easy game to them. Mom seemed terrified.” She sniffs, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

My chest caves in watching that. I want to kill every single wolf involved in giving her those memories. I gather her against me, pulling her back against my chest. I want to hold her, to keep her tight in my arms and never let go.

“I’m sorry, little wolf.” It’s an inadequate thing to say, but I can’t tell her about the rage filling me. My wolf and I both agree that blood needs to be shed to make this right for her.

I reach down and swipe her tears away. She peers up at me through watery eyes.

“I hate that she's so scared in all the memories I have with her.”

They’ll pay. I don’t care how long it takes, but I will make every single member of the Order suffer for what they have done to Halle.

I force my voice to remain calm, knowing this is not my time to be upset, and go on. “You think she was tau, like you?”

“I don’t know.” She shifts her shoulder. “I don’t recall her ever doing magic in front of me. Or at least I’ve not seen it in any of the memories I’ve had, but I know she had a wolf, like me.” She blows out a breath. “When I first became ‘aware’, that freaked me out the most. I didn’t understand why there was a creature living in my consciousness. Adeline had to explain it and assure me it was normal, but for a long time, I wasn’t comfortable with who I was, and neither was my wolf. I had to learn everything about myself again. It was all taken from me.”

My teeth mash together, my jaw so tight it’s painful. How could they do that to a little girl? She was a pup, barely grown, and they stole everything she was. The more I hear about it, the less I can justify what Adeline did. Maybe she thought she was protecting her niece, but there were other ways of doing it, less cruel ones. They could have gone lone. They could have lived in the human world, away from wolves and any risk of being caught. She could have explained to Halle the dangers of telling anyone what she could do.

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