Page 23 of His Rejected Alpha Mate
Jumping over logs and ducking under low branches, I heard Kade’s laughter as I caught burrs in my fur and hit my head more than once in my haste to keep up.
Sorry, Kota!he called back to me.
Dakota, fall back if you like and look after the little ones. Deke, stick to Kade.Blake ordered.
Yes, alpha, he replied, the charcoal wolf dashing to Kade’s side. The red-brown wolf was sitting tall, tongue hanging out, looking mischievous. Right away, I felt glad I was being moved to another job. I didn’t want to be Deke.
Sure enough, Deke didn’t have time to stop as Kade turned and ran deeper into the woodland. He gave what looked like a pleading look for patience and hurried after the errant alpha mate.
An hour later, most of the party had broken up, with children taken home by their parents. I’d stood by quietly as Jasper had congratulated his son and son-in-law, disappearing without another word or look in my direction.
“Okay, explain,” Kade demanded, taking a seat on a comfortable sofa in the living room of the mansion. Blake’s brothers had made themselves scarce.
“I can leave,” Roan offered.
I only thought about it for a second. There was no way that we’d be going through this conversation just once. Having Roan leave the room every time we ended up talking about this was going to get tedious. “Nah, you can stay,” I told him.
Roan relaxed in the cushions of the armchair that faced the door. Always alert and ready for an attack. I hoped they finished going through the pack soon to weed out the Rincoln sympathizers.
“Basically,” I said, turning to face Kade, “when I met your papa, we both realized straight away that we’re fated mates.”
“What? This is the best news ever!” Kade’s face voice was incredulous. His eyes were joyous. Slowly, that light dimmed as he figured it out. “Who rejected who?”
“Jasper rejected him.” Roan said from across the room. To me he said, “that’s right, isn’t it? I was there in the office when he saw you. I saw you react to something.” Roan spoke into the sudden silence.
“Three times.” I admitted.
“What?” Kade and Blake spoke together. Kade looked… angry, disappointed, resigned. I couldn’t quite get a read on it.
“At first, I wasn’t sure. I thought… I thought that I’d already met my mate. We were young and didn’t get the chance to find out if the bond was there.” I looked down at my hands.
“When we were at Heatwave, you mentioned a mate, and I never got to ask you about them.” I could tell that Kade wanted to know what had happened.
“It’s a bit of a long story.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about Cooper when I was telling my friends about Jasper being my mate. Then I thought about Cooper and knew that honoring his memory meant speaking about him.
“We’ve got time.” Blake said as Kade yawned and leaned against him.
Kade gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’m tired, but I want to hear about the person you thought was your mate. I’m sorry about Papa, Kota. Tell me, please.”
I ran a hand over my face, mentally bracing myself. “Cooper and I met when his family migrated from another pack. He had an omega sister, and she mated a member of our sleuth. They moved away… after. We were nearly twenty at the time, so we were together for just over a year. Our attraction was instant, and both our families encouraged and supported our bond. Cooper’s family especially. It soon became apparent that something was wrong with Cooper.” My eyes rose to meet Kade’s. “You know, shifters don’t get ill often. Your illness was unusual, but we know the cause. Cooper, he had really intense heats. No one knew why. They lasted at least a full day, sometimes two, and took days to recover from. He’d been avoiding them by using blockers.”
“So that’s why you hate them!” Kade burst out.
“Yeah. We went through his heat together after I got him to stop taking them for a while. Both Dad and Papa had coached me extensively. I was already twenty-one by the time it happened. We thought he would turn twenty-one and The Luna would reveal the mate bond. I think we all hoped, his family, and mine, Cooper too, that having a mate bond would make them easier to deal with. That my bear would somehow stabilize him. The heat… moon help me. It was awful. Nothing seemed to satisfy him. He was constantly in pain and crying. When it came close to his next heat, just weeks before his birthday, I handed him the blockers myself.”
“Kota —“ my name slipped from Kade’s mouth as a plea for a different outcome.
Taking a deep breath, I continued. “As you’ve probably guessed from when you took them, he’d developed a tolerance for them. Cooper had to take more to push his heat back. They poisoned him.” I felt the tears rise. I didn’t hold them back. Just let them fall. “My bear woke me. Changes in Cooper’s breathing alerted him. We’d been really protective of him. No one questioned it. Deep down, I think we all knew that we were losing him. Cooper was gasping for breath, his shift going in and out like I’ve never seen before. It scared him. Terrified me. I could feel his fear until I spoke to him. I tried to coach him to take deep breaths as I used the pack link to call for my dad. Cooper turned to me and told me he loved me. I just remember telling him I loved him too, that it’d be okay. He just needed to hold on.” A sob broke loose. “He couldn’t. His soul was tired. By the time my dad got there, Cooper was gone.”
Kade moved from his mate’s side and climbed into my lap. “I’m sorry, Kota.” He held me while I cried.
“Me too, kiddo,” I finally said, wiping my face. I got myself in order. Needing to finish the story now that I’d started. “So that’s why I don’t like blockers. We held Cooper’s funeral a few days later. His parents left a few weeks after that. They couldn’t stand to be so close to all those memories. Unlike me, they didn’t put any blame on me. Cooper’s sister convinced her mate to move not long after that. Not having the reminders around helped. I moved into a different apartment. Tried to put it behind me. Dad put more research into reproductive issues in omegas. It was his way of honoring his almost son-in-law. After a while, I just begged them to stop reminding me about the best and worst times of my life. We stopped talking about Cooper and I tried to move on. I didn’t think that I had a fated out there until I locked eyes with your papa.”
“Then he rejected you.”
“He did when he ignored me in that room. Then again, when he closed your door in my face after I tried to get him to talk about it.”
“Seriously?” Kade sat straighter in my lap.
