Page 46 of Rejecting his Mate

I hear the fizz and hiss as Sawyer opens his own. “She’s exhausted, which isn’t surprising. Her face is all kinds of fucked up.” He takes a sip of his drink. “The mate is a piece of work, huh?”

I finally give him my attention, twisting my head to look at him. “He’s an asshole,” I confirm.

“He gonna come looking for her?”

It’s a legitimate question, one he deserves an answer to. I brought her here, and I delivered this shit to our doorstep. “He’s a prideful fucker.”

“That’s a yes, then,” Sawyer says. I watch as he rolls his bottle between his hands. “The others are worried.”

They should be. “I didn’t expect this to happen,” I admit, even though my position is indefensible. I put the life of a stranger over the wolves who have become my family, my pack.

“I’d guess you didn’t,” Sawyer drinks before leaning forward, his hands clamped around the bottle. “I like her. Sure as hell like her more than those fucks who think we’re abominations.”

“I like her too,” I admit. More than like her, even with that claiming mark on her neck that says she belongs to someone else.

“I can tell. You’ve been stalking around her pack lands for months.”

He noticed, then. I wasn’t careful about hiding what I was doing, but I didn’t think I was that obvious. “Something draws me to her.”

“It’ll be the red hair and the perfect tits.” I smash my fist into his side, making him grunt. My knuckles burn, but the satisfaction I get from hurting him makes it worth it. “Ass.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Sawyer rubs his side. My brother is five years younger than me, but sometimes he acts like he’s still apup of fifteen. “This one really has you by the nuts, but I couldn’t help but notice the large claiming mark on her neck, Cade.”

The very visual elephant in the room.

“She doesn’t want him.”

“No, but she chose him, and she let him mark her. What if you fall for her, and she decides she doesn’t want you, either?”

I hate him for saying that, for putting that paranoid thought into my head.

“Dalton tried to kill her,” I snap at him. “He was a chosen mate, not a fated. He can easily be erased.”

“Easily? No. As far as I know, you don’t have any witches on speed dial, Cade. How are you planning on breaking the mating link?”

I have no answer to that, so I hold my tongue.

“I’m all for helping damsel wolves in distress, but if she is a tau—” He breaks off.

He doesn’t need to say anything else. We both know what it means.

“You suggesting I throw her back to her old pack?”

“No, of course not, but she’s a beacon for the Order. They make a sport of hunting hybrids, especially those.”

I sigh, letting my gaze go back to the grounds of the house. The breeze ruffles the leaves of the trees and shrubs, the smell of them catching my nose. “We’re not that far down their shit list,” I counter.

“Exactly. We’ve remained living because we’ve stayed out of trouble and off the radar of those demented monsters. You really want to put us back on their list by hiding a tau?”

I don’t, but that ship has sailed. “I killed three wolves. Think it’s safe to assume we’re top of that list once the hunters find out.” They’ll believe I’ve lost my mind and gone feral. They’ll be looking for ways to put me down.

Sawyer says nothing for a moment, and I wonder what my little brother is thinking. I don’t sense his anger, not even through our pack bond, but there is a feeling of unease from him. “You know I’ll fight anyone who comes at us and you, but are you ready for what is going to hit us?”

I take a sip of my drink, needing a moment to just center my thoughts. “I don’t know what it is about this female, Sawyer, but I can’t walk away.”

“She really has a hold on you.”

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