Page 12 of His Rejected Alpha Mate
Dakota
Thewarehouse’sbackgroundnoisedimmed as Kade and his mate entered the building. I heard him announce he was leaving Mercury Delivers and felt relief that he wouldn’t be working here without me. Maybe I could hold off on telling him my news until things were a bit more settled. I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer any information to him about his papa unless asked directly. I wouldn’t lie to Kade to cover for Jasper.
“Lunch sounds good.” Isaac agreed. Ugh, the sound of his voice was grating. I’d suffered through the whole of the previous day and part of this morning as I took him through the routines I’d implemented.
“We’d better go and speak to Dakota,” Kade spoke, his voice heading towards me.
He knocked briefly before entering. “Kota? Are you alright?”
“Hmm?” I looked up at Kade, pretending that I hadn’t been aware of his presence in the building since he’d arrived. “It’s nothing, just a few things on my mind.”
“You know we’re here for you if you need us,” Blake said, earning a doting smile from his mate. The pair were good together. I thought I’d find it hard to see them like that, but every ounce of feeling I had for Kade was paternal. He was my best friend, or the closest thing to it, and should be more to me. It killed me that in denying our bond, Jasper was preventing me from having a family of my own.
I’d lain awake the previous night again, itching to find a way to contact Jasper to ask for another shot. Briefly, I’d even contemplated heading over to Kade’s house to see if he was still staying there. I hadn’t gone because I hadn’t wanted to wake Angelica if she was in bed. At least that was my excuse, and not that I expected to be rebuffed again.
After a brief pause, I replied to Blake. This was an actual sign of his acceptance of my place in Kade’s life, not that he knew my true role. “Of course, thank you, Alpha.”
Kade handed over his things. “I might be quitting work here, but I’m not quitting our friendship, Kota. You are my family now.” Oh, if only he knew! It was a knife to the heart hearing him call me family when I’d been denied that. “Thank you for all you did to help me over these last weeks. I’ll never forget it.” I wouldn’t either. Janet’s words about my place in his life made sense. I should have never doubted the ancient omega bear. She often received visions from our goddess, The Luna, and was never wrong.
I could feel tears rising, and I stood, wrapping Kade in my arms. Needing the reassurance that I wasn’t going to lose him when this all came out, I gripped him to me. Where would he land when he found out? Would he understand whatever reasoning Jasper had for not even talking about our bond?
The unknowing hurt the most. If Jasper would just have a conversation with me, then I would try to understand his reasoning. Just to reject me without even speaking about it first? It was cruel. My anger flared, and I pushed it away, since it had no place near Kade.
I managed my goodbyes and sat looking at the computer without seeing a word on the screen. Minutes passed before Isaac came into the office, an odd look on his face. With him taking my job, for being the reason for losing my job by making those complaints, I just couldn’t find it in me to ask what was wrong. I had my own shit to deal with.
We sat in silence with him looking through something on the tablet he’d carried in. Why was I still here?
I stood without speaking a word and went out into the main depot and spotted Avery, one of the ogres we had on staff. “Hey, Avery, could you find me an empty box?”
“An empty box?” they echoed.
“Please.”
They nodded and went off in search of one. I saw the other two ogres that we employed chatting with Shelby, the nymph that dealt with the customer side of things, pickups and the like. I approached them and thanked Avery when they handed me a large empty box. “Perfect. Okay, I’m about to go pack up my things and head out.”
Four stunned faces looked at me. “What the heck?” Shelby finally stammered.
“Come on, you’re bound to have suspected what’s happening.” I thought for sure that the rumor mill had been having a field day over my name plate being missing. The ogres shared a look and said nothing. Ah, they hadn’t told Shelby.
“Suspected what? What’s going on?” Her voice became sharp, and I winced, my shifter hearing sensitive.
“They’ve fired me.” I told her simply. “Isaac is now your boss. He knows what he needs to do, so I don’t have to stay.”
“Fired? What the fuck?” Shelby looked so enraged it was almost comical. The profanity from her lips almost had a chuckle escaping. I wasn’t used to the language from her. Her anger was why the ogres hadn’t told her.
“Why Isaac?” Taylor asked. Out of the ogres, they were the most talkative and the leader of the bunch. Their baby bump was showing and soon Isaac would have to put them on the customer service desk for their safety. I made a mental note to remind him before I left. Ogres were unique in that they could both carry babies and fertilize eggs, which is why they preferred non-binary terms. Taylor had carried since their partner was in the police force.
I shrugged, though I had a good idea why. Isaac had been making complaints to management on the behalf of our coworkers, but the majority appeared not to have any issues with me. Part of it was that he hated that I’d been interested in Kade. I think he preferred it when Kade was mooning over him and he didn’t want competition. We all knew about Kade’s crush on the vampire. Isaac just loved the attention, even though he had two mates. Ugh, my blood pressure was rising just thinking of the snake.
“Look, I’m not going to draw this out. I’m just going to grab my stuff, leave some notes, and get out of here with as little fuss as possible.”
“But —“ Shelby tried to cut me off. Since she wasn’t a shifter, I didn’t reach for her and try to reassure her with touch, but she sort of leaned into me like she needed it.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you all at the pack run, right? Kade invited you?”
“Blake did.” Alex said.
Nodding, I took my box and headed back to the office. Inside, Isaac was in my chair, or rather his, looking at the computer. His cheeks darkened when entered. “Uh, sorry.”
