Page 24 of Rejected Forced Mate
But they never did.
I was so cocooned in my misery that I couldn't do a single thing when Noah kicked the door in. My wolf rejoiced at having our mate near, but the quickly weakening human part of me wanted him to stay away. Noah, of course, had other ideas.
I had no strength left to fight him off, anyway. He could have done whatever he wanted to me, and I would have welcomed him with open arms after a few seconds of fighting. I knew that as soon as he touched me, the relief from having him close would eclipse anything else. Even when he just knelt next to the bed, I started to relax, and when he pulled me into his arms, I almost sobbed at how powerful the relief was.
God, I hated how much it helped, even as I buried my face against his chest to try and get closer to him. Our mate bond glowed between us, buzzing and alive.
"Sage," he breathed, brushing my hair from my forehead to better see my eyes. "You should have told me how badly you were hurting."
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. It was the best I could do, since a new jolt of pain was coming over me and making my muscles lock up. It was like my body was tearing itself apart, trying to accommodate something that it couldn't handle. Then Noah stroked my back with gentle fingers, and the pain eased.
"Sage, what's wrong?"
"Sick," I lied. I knew good and well that he could smell that my heat was on me, but he hadn't mentioned it yet, so I certainly wasn't going to. "I don't want you to see me like this. Please."
"Too bad."
"Why do you have to be such an asshole?" I hissed.
"I'm sorry, Sage. For a lot of things. And for that, too. But not for coming in here and not leaving you alone when I could sense you were suffering."
The pain was gone, for the moment, and I felt the exhaustion settling in. There was no point in hiding it now, not when my heat was a ticking time bomb. Maybe I could soak in the relief he was giving me and then send him away before the need for sex became too much. Cuddling was fine, wasn't it? Harmless. Healing, even. As long as we didn't cross that invisible line...
"You can stay," I sighed, knowing that I couldn't have actually thrown him out even if I wanted to. "But..." I shivered through another wave of sensation—this time pain, but mixed with an ever-increasing need. "Can you distract me? Just...talk to me, Noah."
"About what?"
"Anything. Your father, what happened? Why the pack feels different from before. Anything." Noah hummed in thought, "What do you want to know about my father?"
"How was he injured? I know you told me there was a fight, but that's all I know."
He was thinking so intensely that I could almost hear his thoughts. I got the feeling that it wasn't a forbidden topicfor Noah, but it was one that he rarely spoke about. "Well...you know how things were when my father was Alpha. His father, before him, wasn't much of a fighter, and he preferred to make deals and alliances instead of fighting. It meant our territory was small, and some of the more violent Alphas took advantage of us. My father was the exact opposite, and as soon as he was able to become Alpha, he overcorrected. Dad was overly violent, ruining alliances we used to have and driving out the weaker wolves from our ranks. But his actions caused other packs to band together and fight back."
That all sounded familiar to me, including the fear that I would rank as a 'weak wolf' and be kicked out of the pack by the time I came of age. Except I left before he was able to banish me.
"Eventually, he got old, but Dad still didn't recognize that he needed to calm down. That he wasn't the fighter that he used to be. He'd never lost a fight before, but his luck couldn't last forever. Enemy packs grew bolder after so many years of my father's violence, and started taking out more of our soldiers. When things started to look grim, Dad panicked and challenged another pack's Alpha to a one-on-one fight. The other Alpha was young and strong, but my father was too cocky. He refused to concede, even when he was clearly losing and was badly injured. He's been mostly immobile since."
"That's why you've been changing the pack so much, so history didn't repeat itself."
Noah continued to stroke my back, a cooling sensation radiating everywhere he touched me. "Yes, but also because I want my pack to be welcoming to everyone. Magic users, more dominant she-wolves, those who aren't interested in having pups...all the people my father hated, really. It isn't easy, but it will be worth it. It has to be."
The sincerity in his voice made me turn in his arms so I could see his face, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. I tried not to think about how easy it would be to kiss him, or how this was the closest we'd been to each other since the single kiss we shared years ago. "What do you mean 'it has to be'?"
"I'm sure you've noticed how the lands have changed since you were here last, Sage. You don't have to pretend just to spare my feelings."
I huffed, "Noah, I've barely been out of the house, how could I know what you're talking about?"
"Oh. Right."
"Is there something I should know?"
His expression was reluctant, but I was pleasantly surprised when he actually answered. "We've had a number of dry spells, and a few years ago, it got so bad that our crops began to die. We were losing our livestock, and our water supply was dwindling. Some of the other packs have left, but my father was dead set on staying put. Our only choice is to move on, and I've been trying to find places that are willing to take in the members of our pack. I haven't been successful so far, and it's...disheartening. The old wolves want to stay here, even as the land rejects us. I thought if I changed the pack, made us better, the land might accept us once more...but I'm starting to realize that was just silly, superstitious thinking."
His voice had gone quiet, and his touch had stopped as his attention had shifted to his story. My stomach churned, but this time not from pain, but from the news he was telling me. It sounded awful, and I couldn't imagine how he felt. To think that all of his efforts were being thwarted by the very nature of theplace that he had been born, raised, and had built his home and his pack.
"Noah...I'm sorry."
"Me, too. For a lot of things."
