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ChapterTwenty-Five
SUNDAY
“And then he got all snarly and possessive about it, trying to mark me. And being all ‘You know you want me, Sunday.’”
Moira flicked her gaze to me through the mirror as she finished applying her massive batwing eyeliner. Somehow that woman made it look amazing, but I knew if I tried, I’d look like Harley Quinn got left out in the rain.
“Wait a minute, you’re saying he tried toforcea mate mark on you?” Her eyes flashed with violet sparks of power. “I’ll kill him.”
Her threat of violence on my behalf made me feel oddly squishy inside. Though, in this case, her anger wasn’t warranted. “Down, girl. I didn’t say he forced me. He just forced the issue. He stopped when I told him to.”
She turned around on the stool in front of the vanity and assessed me. Her hair fell in long platinum waves all the way to her waist today. It made her look like a faerie.
“Ooookay, I guess I don’t really understand the problem then. He was helping you. He stopped when you asked him to. You said he even brought out more of your wolf. Why are you mad?”
“Because I—” I stopped. WhywasI so upset? “Because he—” A growl of frustration slipped out. “Because I don’t want to feel that way about him.” AndI’m already feeling that way about someone else. Several someones.
“Do you think he’s not your mate? That they were wrong when you were matched?”
I wanted to say yes. That would certainly make things easier. But the truth was, there was very clearly something between us. There had been even on the night we’d been brought together by our packs.
“No. It’s just. After I rejected him, Kingston went out of his way to make my life hell. We weren’t in the same pack, but that didn’t matter. Our community rallied around him, and he did nothing to lessen their reaction. After that night, I was completely ostracized and never got to set foot off pack land again. Until now. It’s hard to just put all that aside because of some cosmic bond.”
Moira twirled a lock of hair around her finger, then released it, over and over as she let my words sink in. “Remind me why you rejected him? I’ve always heard it was nearly impossible for mates to avoid the pull.”
Memories of that day swirled through my mind, filling me with guilt and shame once more. “Because in order to accept the bond, you have to shift. And I couldn’t. Rejecting him was the only way to protect my family’s legacy. Not that it mattered in the end. Word got out anyway, but it was the only thing I could do to try and prevent that from happening.”
“I see. And what happens once your wolf finally appears? Will you reject him again?”
No, my wolf vehemently protested. She wanted our mate. If she was the one to choose, it wasn’t a choice at all.
“I never really thought about it, to be honest. I mean, I didn’t expect him to want me after that, so what did it matter?”
She shrugged and got to her feet, her layers upon layers of bracelets filling the air with a metallic jangle. “I suppose if I knew someone was my mate, even though I rejected them once... or in your case, eleventy-billion times, I’d want to be on good terms with them. Because it sounds like he’s never going tonotbe yours.”
I opened my mouth to argue and then immediately closed it again. I hated to admit it, but the witch had a point. “There’s just so much bad blood between us now. Can we really just pretend all that never happened?”
“No. I never said you should pretend it didn’t happen. That part of your story is written. But the rest is still blank, and you are in charge of where it goes.” She winked. “To a point. There are some things fate has sway over. He’s acting like a wounded animal. Lashing out, protecting himself from a threat. I wouldn’t let what happened when he was hurt keep you from giving him a chance to prove himself worthy of you now. You were teenagers then. A lot can happen to change someone over the years.”
I hadn’t ever stopped to consider the reason Kingston had said such awful things. I assumed, perhaps naively, that it was bruised pride. But was it possible he’d been hurt? Something shifted in me at the possibility. Was I the bad guy here? All this time, I’d painted Kingston as the villain, but maybe it was me.
Fuck.And then I had to go rub salt in the wound time and time again when all he was doing was listening to the instincts of his wolf trying to repair things with his mate.
Guilt started to eat at me. I worried at my bottom lip, casting Moira a sideways glance. “I think I, uh, might have overreacted. Maybe. Just a little.”
“I’d be inclined to agree.”
Ouch.Couldn’t she sugarcoat it, even just to spare my feelings? Then an even worse thought took hold.Crap.
“I’m going to have to apologize to him, aren’t I?”
“Sorry, but yeah.”
She murmured a soft incantation under her breath, and a small kitchen appeared in the corner of our room. I swear she made the space bigger somehow. The countertop was filled with containers of sugar, flour, cocoa, butter, and anything else someone might need for baking.
“Um, did I just step into an episode of Bake Off? What’s happening?”
“Oh, hush, babycakes. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Especially a wolf. Make him lick the icing off your cupcakes, and he’ll come around.”
