Page 51 of Rejecting his Mate

“Cade—”

“Jackson’s in trouble.”

The pack bond flares to life inside my mind, as Cade speaks.

Wyatt,we gotta go now.

Wyatt respondswith a clipped message that I don’t hear because I’m focused on Cade, who isn’t meeting my gaze.

“Are we going to ignore the fact we just kissed?” I demand.

“We need to go.” He jogs down the porch steps, making his way over to the truck.

Clearly, we’re ignoring this.

Confusion burns through me nearly as hot as the sting of his dismissal. Even Dalton rejecting me publicly didn’t hurt this much. Mostly because I had no interest in Dalton, but Cade… I feel things for him that I shouldn’t.

I rush after him, not allowing him to walk away, and brush what just happened aside.

“Stop,” I order. He doesn’t. He opens the driver’s door. I rush to him before he can climb in, grabbing his bicep. My lips are still tingling from his touch and feelhot. He jolts as I touch him, and I understand it because I feel the same way.

“Are we just going to pretend that never happened?” I repeat.

He doesn’t remove my hand from his arm as he meets my gaze. Then his eyes drop to my neck, to my claiming mark. “Get in the car.”

He climbs in himself, leaving me standing there as Wyatt and Sawyer rush out of the house with two big holdall bags each. They put them into the trunk, oblivious to the turmoil between Cade and me.

I don’t move, my feet rooted to the ground, my heart cracking a little more.

“Get in the truck, Halle,” Cade snaps before closing his door.

“What did you do to piss him off?” Sawyer jokes as he heads to the opposite side of the car and gets in the back.

Numbly, I climb in and try to hold myself together. Getting rejected at my first moon ceremony didn’t hurt as much as this.

Sawyer leans over me and grabs my seat belt from over my shoulder, tugging it down. His eyes are questioning as he hands me the clip. “Buckle up,” he says in a soft voice.

I pull my seat belt on as Wyatt gets into the front passenger side, and then Cade peels the truck out of there.

Through the pack bond, I can sense a little of Cade’s annoyance, and I’m not sure if it’s aimed at me, or my old pack coming for us, but I wonder if theothers sense it and are wondering why he’s feeling that way.

I keep my eyes locked on the side window, not risking meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror, and I don’t speak. I’m not sure I can, anyway. My throat is clogged tight with emotion. Is Cade angry he kissed me or pissed I kissed him back? His eyes had gone to the claiming mark, and that was when he seemed to come to his senses.

My fingers drift to it, and I scratch my fingers over the mark. I hate this thing. I despise it declares me so completely as Dalton’s. I wish I could remove all traces of him from me.

“You okay?” Sawyer dips his head a little so he can see my face.

I don’t look at him. I can’t.

“Fine,” I mutter.

“I see Cade wired you into the pack bond.”

“I think he’s probably regretting that choice now.”

Sawyer glances between us while Wyatt chooses, sensibly, to hold his tongue. “I feel like I’ve missed half the movie and walked in on the climax.”

“Don’t you think bringing her into the pack should have been a pack decision?” Wyatt says, his words so soft I barely pick them up.

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