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“Why?” Rex steps further into the room and his aura is stifling. He’s not asking, he’s demanding.
“He thinks we’re mates.” Rex’s eyes widen but he says nothing; I can see his brain churning through all the potential reasons that this isn’t a joyous occasion. “But I told him I don’t feel it.”
“Fuck.”
Without another word, Rex runs for the door, thundering down the stairs two at a time and out the front door. When I turn back to the window, I see him emerge from the front entrance below and sprint straight for the treeline, stripping his shirt off as he runs. As soon as he reaches the cover of the trees, he shifts, disappearing into the dense undergrowth to track down his hurt brother.
“It’s always the quiet ones that are the troublemakers.”
Leah enters the room slowly and comes to stand beside me, watching the forest below. Her attempt at a joke falls flat, and I hug my arms around myself tightly.
“I didn’t reject him,” I blurt out, feeling the need to defend myself as I recall the icy glare Rex gave me right before he bolted out the door.
“I know.” Leah wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders and rubs my arm gently, not pushing me to talk if I don’t want to.
“I don’t feel it. I can’t let him mark me if I don’t feel it, no matter how nice he seems.”
Desperate for her to understand, I glance toward her to judge her reaction. She’s stunned but tries to hide it, blinking slowly at me, before returning to look out the window, composing herself impressively quickly.
“No. You can’t. Or not without a conversation first, and mid boink doesn’t count.”
Leah rolls her eyes and sighs. Her gaze flicks toward me and I blush. Did she talk to Nathan via mind-link? Or is she just guessing from the rumbled sheets and my messy hair?
“It was just supposed to be a bit of fun. I thought we were just fooling around,” I grumble miserably, but she smiles knowingly, one side of her mouth quirking up.
“No, you didn’t. But you still weren’t expecting to end up with a husband out of it, either.” With another comforting pat on the arm, she tugs me away from the window. “Come on. It’s probably better if you both sleep on it and have a chat in the morning. Nathan’s not going to be home any time soon.”
Reluctantly, I leave Nathan’s apartment and return to my own. I don’t feel right lingering and snooping after it all ended so badly. I want to wait here to make sure he’s okay, but I guess Leah’s right. It’s better to leave it until the morning. I doubt he wants to see me right now. He must be furious with me for kicking him.
As I cross the corridor to my room, I cast a futile look back down the wide staircase, hoping to see him returning. There’s no way he’ll be there. I know that. I have excellent hearing, even for a wolf, and I would have heard him if he’d come back.
But there is no Nathan. No head of curly hair or a devastating smile to greet me. I continue to my room and open the door, hesitating before shutting the door, full of fear that somehow my actions tonight have closed off something wonderful.
Was I too hasty?
To an alpha male like him, marking and claiming his mate immediately is the most natural thing to do. I should have found a better way to halt proceedings than a hard kick to the chest. He should have asked. You don’t mark a girl without checking she is ready. But the more I think about it, maybe he told me in every way except words. I thought he was flirting, but maybe when he talked about spending every day impressing me, or feeling different, it wasn’t a line.
I close my door behind me with a soft click and rest my head against the wood, struggling to keep my emotions in check and my tears from falling. A lock turning has my ears pricking up and I press the side of my face to the door to hear better. Nathan’s door opening. I stay still as I wait to hear who it is. Is he back already? Did he come back to talk?
Relief floods me because I need to apologise, and I think I’ll burst if I try to wait until tomorrow. Flinging the door open, the words die in my mouth and my jaw drops open in shock as I see a blonde head disappearing into his room. A different blonde. I immediately recognise the woman letting herself into my supposed mate's apartment with her own key. We’ve met before, briefly, and I saw her giving Nathan admiring glances at the party earlier as he made his way through the crowd.
Pain lances through me and I think back to the first time I laid eyes on him, with another woman draping herself all over him. Not the actions of a man eager to take a mate. I scowl as she closes the door behind her. She’s comfortable letting herself in and making herself home, even when he is not there. Did he invite her over? What kind of man am I getting tangled up with?
If he has already asked another woman to come by and console him, then I can’t be his fated mate. Maybe Dean was right. Could there be an ulterior motive here? Could he know about my weakness and be using it to his advantage? To forge an allegiance with a fearsome pack during the Grey Ridge pack’s time of trouble? It doesn’t feel like something that the Joneses would do. That would be extremely deceitful, and these seem like good people. But sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.
Seething at the image in my mind of the blonde sitting on his sofa, or worse, settling herself in the bed we just left, my cheeks burn with fury.
I will be nobody's fool.
CHAPTER 9
NATHAN
Rex’s thundering paws give his presence away long before he nips my heel mid-stride and sends me tumbling across the forest floor in a tangle of limbs, twigs, and leaves. I guess that’s what I get for ignoring him.
“I said stop,” Rex growls as he shifts back into his human form and offers me a hand up off the ground. Shifting myself, I bat his hand away grumpily and slump down, choosing to remain sitting where I am in the dirt. It feels appropriate.
“For fuck's sake.” Rex raises his eyes to heaven at my childish behaviour, leaning against a nearby tree and folding his arms over his chest. “So, you found your mate.”
