Page 42 of Rejecting his Mate

“I don’t know what I am,” I mutter, “and you know I don’t. If I knew, I’d tell you. No one ever even hinted I was not a full-bred wolf. All I heard my entire life was that my bloodline was as pure as unicorn dust. I expected to go through my shift like every other wolf in my pack.”

“It’s strange your pack noticed nothing, especially your alpha.” Sawyer’s voice has an air of musing about it.

“There’s nothing to notice,” Cade says. “She seemsnormal.”

“I am normal, asshole,” I grouse. “Quit talking about me like that.”

Sawyer twists to look at me. “Were your parents both wolves?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. Adeline, my aunt, is a Beauford. My dad too.”

Sawyer snaps his head around to me. “You’re a Beauford wolf?”

The tone of his voice makes my skin prickle, and an uneasy feeling goes through me. I know my family name means something—both Adeline and my pack told me that often enough over the years—but hearing someoneamazed by this outside of my pack is strange. “I guess so. That’s why Dalton wanted to bond with me.”

Sawyer faces forward, whistling under his breath. “Didn’t realize we had a legit celebrity in the truck with us.”

I scoff at his words. “Hardly.”

“You do know the Beaufords are one of the purest bloodlines among our kind.”

I try to stop my eyes from rolling, but I don’t succeed. “Don’t tell me you buy into all that purity bullshit.”

“No, but I’m surprised you don’t. I can imagine Klaus drummed it into you, especially considering his own past.”

That makes me sit a little straighter, even though it makes my ribs twinge. “What past, and how do you know Klaus?”

Cade grips the steering wheel tighter. “Sawyer.”

“She should know.”

“I want to,” I add. “What did Klaus do?”

Sawyer glances at Cade, whose fingers have tightened around the steering wheel, the skin tight over his knuckles. “You know about his sister?”

I frown. As far as I know, Klaus has no family except for Dalton. His mate was killed when I was maybe twelve or thirteen. She broke her neck during a pack hunt.

“No.”

“Esme. She was wolf, but her dad was human, making her half of both. Klaus’s mother had an affair, and it was a scandal in the shifter world for a wolf aspowerful as her to step outside her own kind and get pregnant.”

“What happened to the sister?”

“She grew up with her mom, within the pack, but Klaus hated her. She was a stain on their family name. He lured her out into the woods and killed her. Made it look like a rival pack, but everyone knew it was him. She was six years old, barely big enough to fight him.”

The ripple of shock and disgust that goes through me makes my stomach clench. This was the same Klaus I respected and even loved on some level, who was always kind to me—until he wasn’t.

He kicked me out of the pack and removed my pack bond without a thought. I have no doubt he would have killed me if he thought it would save his precious son from being shackled to me.

No wonder Dalton has no hangups about ending my life. He’s the son of a man who killed his own blood, a pup no less. Bile collects in the back of my throat. I had been eight when I came to the pack. If they’d known I was different, would they have ended my life too?

I close my eyes, trying to ignore the pain settling in my stomach.

“Halle?”

Cade’s soft voice, something I’d barely heard from him, has my eyes opening. “Klaus killed her just because she wasn’t full wolf. That… that’s so sickening.”

“Klaus is a piece of work,” Sawyer agrees. “We keep away from his pack as much as we can. Or most of us do.”

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