Page 47 of Rejecting his Mate

I don’t deny it because it’s true; she does. “I understand if you and the others want to get gone before trouble comes—ifit comes—but I won’t leave her.”

Sawyer doesn’t take the offered olive branch. He places his bottle on the wooden slats beneath the bench. “We’ve been fighting against the world since we were pups. You’ve always had my back, Cade. You think I’m going to walk away the first time you need me?”

Warmth fills my chest, and my throat feels clogged. My brother has been at my side from the moment we knew we were different and that society does not favor things that don’t conform to what they deem normal.

“She makes my wolf lose his shit,” I admit. “I struggle to control him when she’s around, but she soothes that rage he has too. It’s strange.”

“Yeah, it is. Never heard of that happening. Thenagain, I’ve only ever known four vargr in my life, and I’m among that number, so maybe it’s totally normal.”

He stands, moving to the rail that surrounds the porch. “There’s a lot of shit about her that doesn’t make sense, Cade. Know you’re in this, know you care, but watch yourself too. If you lose control of your wolf along the way, you’re going to force everyone to make some difficult decisions.”

If I turn feral, Sawyer and my vargr brothers will have no choice but to stop me in any way necessary.

“I’m in control,” I assure him, then I frown at my brother. “You think she knows more than she’s saying?”

“I think we don’t know enough about her to gauge that.”

He pushes off the rail and makes his way across the gravel driveway to the workshop. I watch him go, my mind stuffed full. I have questions. So many of them, but there are no answers.

Why does Halle make my wolf feral yet calm him too?

Most of the time, I can control my inner beast. There are few occasions where he’s taken command from me, and his behavior has been all animal, but when I started to lose control, she’d brought me back, almost like a mate would.

She can’t be my mate, though. She is wearing another male’s mark on her neck. She smells of him, too. Even though he is not here, his presence very much is, and I fucking hate it.

I push up and head inside the house. When I stepinto the living room, Halle isn’t lying on the couch where I expected to find her.

Panic momentarily renders me immobile before my feet move, rushing from room to room, searching for her.

Eventually, I catch her scent and follow it toward the back of the house. I freeze in the kitchen doorway.

She’s bent over, rummaging through the fridge. Her red hair is tussled and loose down her back. I watch her for a moment, but I know the moment she realizes I’m watching her.

“You always spy on women you hardly know?”

“Depends on the woman,” I say.

She turns to face me, holding a carton of milk. I don’t miss the way she winces as she straightens. Her ribs probably need binding.

“Nice to know I’m on your list. Did you know your milk expired two weeks ago?”

The quick change of direction has my lips quirking at the corners. I don’t give a fuck about the milk. “You look a little better.”

“I wish I could say I feel it. Aside from the demonic eyes, my throat is pretty sore, and my ribs ache like a bitch.”

Her eyes are still bloodshot and more red than white. Knowing that son of a bitch caused her injuries makes me want to go after him and slit his throat. “Should you be up?”

“I’m hungry, but you’ve got nothing in the fridge. What do you guys eat?”

I stride over to her, ignoring the way her scentinfuses my nose. Halle smells so good, and I want to nuzzle against her neck and take in more of her scent, but my eyes trail over the claiming mark, and I step away to open one of the wall cabinets.

Halle is right. There isn’t much food, but I manage to find a can of soup, which I hand to her with an apologetic shift of my shoulders. “I’ll send Wyatt to the store once we’re safe.”

“Is there one out here? It seems pretty remote.”

“There is,” I say, but don’t elaborate. We’re about thirty minutes from a small town, and that’s where we get most of our supplies.

“Is it safe for them to go?”

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