Page 52 of Banished Mates
She’d always hidden me from her human husband. Her voice came clearer, as if she was hunching close to the phone.
“Although Hector and I are no longer together, I worry for his safety if you’re around. I hope you make the appropriate choices. Please take care and don’t call me again.”
The call clicked off and the phone fell out of my limp hand. When she ditched me as a kid, she mentioned it over and over that I must never shift and I was cursed to hold the burden. I’d meantthatlittle to her?
The only reason she’d agreed to keep in contact was to answer my questions, stipulating that if she thought us speaking was a danger, she wouldn’t be able to keep a relationship with me. Looked like the time had come. My lip trembled and I closed my eyes. I needed to breathe deeply to help this pass.
She feared me being physically close to her, so I should have seen this coming.
Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I hugged myself.
Still, she was my mother and I’d craved our conversations or asking her questions my dad couldn’t answer. Even if our interactions were short and far apart.
I didn’t want to contact her again. That feeling of being small... I hated it. I’d always had that knot in my throat after communicating with her and it made me feel like shit.
A tear got caught on my eyelash and I sucked in a breath as it dripped off and plunked onto the snow.
I rubbed my ears and my chest shuddered. Arms wrapped around my waist and Camden’s familiar cedar musk filled my senses, causing a shiver down my spine.
“Don’t listen to her bullshit.”
I remained tense in his arms, using every drip of control to not fall apart.
“Let’s go back and forget all this—”
I straightened, frowning.
“Did you forget I’m an Omega?”
“I’d want you even if you were a worm, Willow,” he snapped.
Even as a worm? A warmth flooded my chest, but I forced my brain back on track.
“I’m not leaving. I don’t want to live in the pack. Any pack.”
“That’s fine. It works better for me. I’ll buy you a place wherever—”
“I am not leaving.”I was responding belligerently, but I couldn’t help it. My heart was still throbbing from the hurt after the talk with Nola.“Weren’t you going to be Alpha? Your life was all set for you, why are you even here? Did my dad send you?”I pushed to my feet and faced him.
“No one sent me.” Camden’s jaw bunched and he stood too, I had to tilt my head to keep eye contact. He had the whole unkempt caveman thing going for him. “I never wanted to be Alpha of the pack. I was there for you.”
I scoffed.“For me? Did you take Meridith to our spot for me too?”My hands shook with restrained frustration. This was the last conversation we should have right now. I was feeling explosive, angry, sad. It was all too much. I kicked snow at him, and it smacked his bare chest. His eyebrows were high on his forehead and that telling flush crept up his neck.“How do I know you don’t want me just because I shifted? How convenient that it’s now that you’re making a move?”It sounded illogical, even to my ears. I was the one that acted like I wanted nothing. It was stupid. It was fear. He’d always had my back, and I’d never not felt loved by him.
“Do you have such little faith in me? After everything we’d been through?I was planning our future together,” he hissed.
“You know what? Leave. I don’t need you. I have two other mates.”
I didn’t stop signing and I really should have. It was messed up. Mean. Hurtful. I wouldn’t go back with him, and it was best we have a clean break.
“Enough,” he roared.
I gaped up at Camden. His chest heaved as he stared down at me.
I’d pushed him too far. Rage morphed his expression into something terrifying.
“Willow,” he breathed so low it made the hairs lift on my neck. “You have always and will always belong with me.”
His muscles twitched, chest swelling in a rough gust.
