Page 27 of His Rejected Alpha Mate
Even over the phone, I felt his sadness and I could picture his tears. “Si… I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. These last couple of years… you’ve been so good to me. I wasn’t ready for more. Please forgive me, I never meant for this.”
“I know.” His voice sounded firmer, like he’d fought the battle with his tears and won out. He almost sounded resigned. Si was far more mature than I’d given him credit for. “You gave me what you could, but it isn’t enough, Jas. It isn’t enough to uproot my whole life, just for me to sit on the sidelines of your life. Did you expect me to come there, service you, maybe visit with Angel and head home again?”
Fuck!I think that maybe, in the back of my mind, that had been my plan. Only because I knew that Kade and Blake had no interest in meeting Silas, since he was keeping me from Dakota in their minds.
“See? That silence says everything. Would you have let me meet your son? Told him what I was to you?”
My mind stalled out. Silas was only a few years older than my son, but an exceptional fighter that had climbed the ranks quickly. His wolf was fearsome. “I don’t know, Si. He knows about you, that you’ve been there for me, but I don’t know about you meeting him. His alpha is protective.” Not to mention Kade would tell Silas about Dakota with zero remorse.
“Right, Alpha Blake.” It didn’t sound like he believed my excuse. Could he tell that I was leaving things out? “Are you going to get through your heat okay without me?” His concern was sweet, more than I deserved, and I felt truly awful about how I’d treated him.
“I’ll manage. There are toys and things—“ I didn’t want to lie to him anymore, to hide anything. If there was anything we could salvage from this mess, I’d want it to be our friendship.
“What is it?” He asked into my silence.
“Si, I fucked up,” I admitted quietly, tears running down my cheeks. I gave a tiny sniff.
“Hey, don’t cry. What happened?”
“I met my fated mate and because of us, I rejected him,” I whispered.
“What the fuck?” Silas roared into the phone. “A formal rejection? Why the fuck would you throw away a gift from fate? Goddess! Jas, why?”
“No, not formally!” I protested, sounding small.
“Moon help me, Jas! What did you do?” This gave me hope that our friendship wasn’t as dead as our relationship.
“I said I had someone and wanted to focus on the kids and not on a new mating.” Even now, the excuses sounded thin.
“So you weren’t with him or anything?” Silas sounded wary.
“No!” I barked, offended. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I like what we have. Had.”
“I did too, but I kinda wish you’d told me this sooner.” I could hear him pacing off his frustration. “This whole month has been shit. All I’ve been able to think about is us and if we had a chance at making it work. Knowing that we didn’t. There wasn’t enough there for us to work long distance.” He paused, and I heard some sounds on the line that I couldn’t make out. “I can’t even imagine how that guy feels. Do you see him a lot?”
“Everywhere. He works for Alpha Blake.”
“Does Kade know?” There was that tone again, jealousy seeping through.
“Unfortunately, yes. I’m kind of on his shit list just now. It’s part of the reason I probably wouldn’t have had you two meet. It would have been horrible for you to find out like that.”
“So he likes the guy?”
“Um—“
“Jas?”
“Turns out Dakota is Kade’s best friend.”
“Fuck.”
“Indeed.”
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just wanted it to be in person, so you could tell I wasn’t lying to you. I wanted to remind you of how good we were before dropping that bomb. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” I slumped onto the sofa.
“Jas, it might take me a little while, but I still want us to be friends. Things just hurt right now. Will you be okay?”
