Page 44 of Rejected Mate

I headed to the lobby. As soon as I reached the reception desk, the receptionist greeted me with a smile. She had her blond hair tied up in a bun, and she was human, that part I smelled, for sure. Her eyes lit up as they met mine.

For a second there, I remembered that Fagua greeted me with that same smile after we mated, and it just made me want to imprint on her once more.

When she smiled, it made me want to stay. It made me want to forget our past and only think about how good she felt in my arms.

"Finally, you've decided to come inside." The woman chuckled.

I turned around, thinking that maybe she was talking to someone else. I'd never met this woman before in my life. She couldn't be talking to me. I didn't remember speaking to her before. When I checked in, and when I left to go for a run in the early hours of the morning, no one was at the desk.

She nodded and laughed. "Yes, yes I'm talking to you. I know you don't know me, but my husband said he saw you in the woods in the early hours of the morning. He was out running and said that he's never seen a wolf run the way you do. It was with such pride and joy that he even followed you."

I pointed at her because now it was all making sense. Clearly, she was Darkness's mate, the wolf that I'd spent part of the morning with, and the reason why I'd stayed away from Fagua so long.

"Your husband is Darkness?"

"Yes, yes. He's my mate, husband, my soulmate, my everything," she purred, as if he were standing in front of her.

Part of me was jealous of the way she spoke about her husband. I wished that Fagua thought of me in that way, but she would only glow like the receptionist if she was talking about Winter, or perhaps Sky.

I was the brute. The cold one, and the one she felt forced to be here with. Not because she wanted to be with me, but because she had to be.

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" the receptionist said, and I looked at her name tag and saw her name was Betty. It suited her.

For a moment, I thought about Betty Crocker, who is the icon for cooking from scratch. Or innocent, sweet Betty from Riverdale High who likes Archie in the comics.

She looked like a Betty to me.

The joy in her voice and the smile.

Yes, I could see why her parents named her Betty.

"Betty," I slurred, trying to find the words because my head was a mess. So much so, I couldn't even figure out simple words to say anymore. Maybe it was because everything had become complicated. Or maybe I just didn't know how else to form my thoughts into words.

"Yes, that’s my name." She chuckled, then the tone of her voice changed.

"I saw your wife or is she your mate? Anyway, she was going up and down frantically looking for you. I think she became hungry while doing so because she went to get something to eat at the buffet and then she just kept piling her plate. She must have been really hungry. Did she meet up with you?"

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. And I turned around, even though I knew who was standing behind me. The scent let me know it was Fagua, and I wanted to see compassion in her eyes when she looked at me and hear apology in her voice when she spoke with me, but there was none of that. I wanted to know how much of the conversation she'd heard, but when I looked at her, her gaze was locked on Betty.

"What was that?" Fagua asked, her hand still resting on my shoulder.

"Oh, you're his mate. No. Oops." And then Betty put her hand on her mouth as if she said something wrong.

She corrected herself, as she said, "Wife?" Her eyes darted to Fagua's hand, which moved from my shoulder, and I hated the loss of it. The warmth of her touch had calmed me and reassured me that maybe things weren't as bad as I made them out to be.

Fagua's missing ring had confirmed what she'd said in the beginning.

"Mate, then. Anyway, how was breakfast?" she asked Fagua.

"Good. Nice," Fagua said in a tight voice.

I expected to come to the reception desk, drop my keys, and leave, getting in the car and as far away from here as possible.

There was no situation that Winter couldn't talk himself out of. And Sky had people bending over backward to help him.

I should take Fagua's hand and wrap my arms around her waist, showing her how much she meant to me.

Instead, I grumbled, ignoring what I could have done, sticking to the thing I knew best, and that was to leave.

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