Page 8 of Rejected Forced Mate
Noah was already heading towards the driveway, where the car Joe had rented for him to drive home in was waiting. I pounded my fists against his back, struggling to get away from him, but the Alpha's grip on me was like iron.
"Put me down! Noah, this isn't funny!" "It's not supposed to be."
I didn't have any close neighbors, but I thought if I yelled loudly enough, someone might hear me. Just as I opened my mouth, I felt the tiniest prick in the side of my neck, and suddenly I didn't have the strength to make a single sound.
"I'm sorry, Sage. I'm so damn sorry." Noah said, opening the passenger door to place my limp body in the seat. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was one of the preloaded syringes of sedatives that I kept in the healer's cabin falling to the ground outside the car.
Then I was unconscious, only distantly aware of the car door shutting and the vehicle beginning to roll out into the road.
***
It was the steady hum of car wheels on the road that woke me up, head pounding from the sedative and mouth bone dry. My neck ached from the awkward angle, and when I went to raise my left hand to massage it, I found that I was tethered to the metal bar beneath the seat.
Completely and utterly trapped.
That was all it took to bring me back to full, panicked consciousness, and my eyes shot open. "Noah," I croaked, and while he didn't look over at me right away, he did hand me a bottle of water.
"Drink this. You're probably dehydrated."
I took the bottle, drinking half of it before speaking again. "Why are you doing this?"
He sighed, his knuckles going white on the steering wheel. "Because it's the only thing I can do. I'm not letting you run away from me again."
I yanked at the tether, but he had secured the knot tight. "It's not too late to undo this. Let me out. Right now."
He ignored me, the same way I'd ignored him back at the healer's cabin. "There's aspirin in the glove box if you're sore."
"I'm not just going to ignore the fact that you drugged me and are kidnapping me!"
"It's not kidnapping if your mate is the one taking you," Noah said, his tone matter-of-fact.
I gaped at him. "Oh, so that's what we're going with. Mating. This isn't the fucking 1800s, Noah."
That made his mouth quirk up. "You're delusional if you think mate kidnapping isn't still a thing in a lot of packs. You know as well as I do that wolves don't exactly abide by the same rules humans do."
"That's not a justification! You can't force me to mate you just because it's legal."
"It's not something I've decided on a whim. You're my mate, Sage. Always have been. And I've thought about how to approach the issue with you since you first told me no. It's time for you to come home, and this is the only way."
I felt hot, humiliated, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. "But I told you no. After all I did to heal you, how could you do this to me?"
Noah's gaze softened, and he reached over, brushing a tear off my cheek. "I know you don't understand it yet, but you will. I'm sorry it has to be like this, but it's the only way."
I turned my head away, refusing to let him comfort me after all the pain he had caused. "Fuck you, Noah."
Unable to look at him, I stared out the window instead, the scenery going by eerily familiar. But it wasn't until I saw a sign that read 'White Pines National Forest' that I knew my suspicions were correct. I'd been knocked out long enough that we were nearly in Silvervine territory.
No. No! It was like a nightmare.
"Please," I begged. "It's not too late. Please let me out."
"Not a chance in hell, mate."
Rage warred with grief inside me. "But why!? I have a life! A pack!"
"The only reason I had to take you the way I did was because you didn't cooperate. If you had just listened to me, it wouldn't have to be like this."
Disbelief hit me. "So now I have to go back to a pack that hates me? Who thinks I'm a magic-wielding freak? All because I dared to deny you? How can I ever feel anything towards you but hate after that?"
