Page 34 of Broken Rejected Mate

“You know?”

“My mother told me, the day I went to see her.”

“Okay,” I bite my lip. “So—I came to see you because I didn’t want you to just…take off like that, Veva. Things were complicated with us, but that doesn’t mean I wanted you to run off to the Grayhides—”

“I haveneverbeen a Grayhide,” she says, emotion filtering into her tone for the first time since we started this conversation. “Sarina and I lived on theoutskirtsof that pack. Which is basically what I was doing here.”

“Veva.” I’m at the counter now, and I set my hands down, just a few inches from hers. “I—”

“And you know what, Emin?” she straightens up, and I realize she’s still on the last thing I said. “Things werenotcomplicated between us. Icameto you. I tried to tell you—”

“I just couldn’t hear it then,” the words come out through my teeth. “You know the position I was in, with my father. Myparents, both of them, their fixation on us climbing ranks in the pack—”

“Ohfuckyou, Emin,” Veva hisses, standing. Her stool nearly topples over, but she throws a hand out, backward, and steadies it with her magic. The sight of it is mesmerizing, and despite the conversation we’re having, a thrum of pleasure rolls through me at the sight of my mate, her competency. Her strength.

My mate.

“Fuck you,” Veva repeats, her face a bottle of fury as she glares at me. “Do you want to know something? You walk around here like you’re some big, tough guy, but the truth is that you’re acoward. You couldn’t hear it back then? You were fifty percent of that equation, you ass. What I came to tell you that night was just as equally your problem, and you made itallmine.”

“Iknow!”

I don’t mean to raise my voice, but I do. It rings through the space, and for a second, there’s just the sound of Veva’s heavy breathing. I glance up at the ceiling, listening for the sounds of Sarina waking, scared by the sound of a man yelling.

Veva says, “She’s still asleep.”

“I was a coward, Veva,” I meet her eyes, hold them, take another step toward her. “You’re not going to hear me denying that. But here I am now, trying to make up for it. Telling you that I…I knew it back then, too.”

She frowns. “Of course you did.”

“Okay,” I let out a quick breath of air through my teeth. “Yeah. But I couldn’t say it. I can say it now.”

Panic crosses over her features, and she glances at the ceiling again. “You can?”

“Yes.” Reaching out, I take her hands in mine. “Veva—I know you’re my mate. We’re mates.”

It feels so good to say it that I keep going, ignoring the look of confusion on her features.

“I felt it back then. Being with you is unlike being with anyone else. When I’m with you, it just feels right.”

The Veva I’ve come to know—so prepared, mature, resolved—is gone, and instead, standing there, is the Veva from when we were teenagers. Scared, confused, her face wide-open to me.

“Emin,” she says, her voice shaking with something I can’t identify—rage? Fear? “Please tell me you’re fucking with me right now.”

Now it’s my turn to frown. “No. I’m not. I—”

She pulls backward, shaking her head, her back hitting the wall as her eyes catch mine.

“Emin,” she spits, “I didn’t come there that night to claim you as my mate.”

I blink. “You didn’t?”

“No,” she laughs, and the sound is wet, almost hateful, but whether it’s toward me or herself, I can’t tell. “I came to tell you I thought I waspregnant. With your baby.”

Chapter 19 - Veva

The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I didn’t mean to say them, didn’t mean to let them out. All this time, I thought Emin knew what I was saying.

It’s hard for me to think right now. Usually, I know exactly what to do, what to say. But this is scrambling the past for me, changing what I always thought of to be the undeniable fact.

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