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"Why didn't you guys tell me you were my mates when you found out?" Summer's words are quiet, and Brooke leans back, rubbing the back of her neck a little in shame. Or maybe embarrassment. I know I'm feeling a little bit of both.
"For me, at least, I thought you were rejecting me," Mav says, chiming in. "You looked at me like I was every other customer. Didn't acknowledge the bond at all. I was crushed." I watch the devastation trickle into Summer's features, broken-hearted for something she couldn't even control. She's too good for us. "But then when you didn't bring up the bond at all or verbally reject me, I started to wonder why. You clutched your stomach soon after, and I thought there might be something wrong with you. Then, all the times after that, I didn't want to overwhelm and scare you off."
"It was pretty much the same for all of us, babe," Mason confirms, holding tight enough to her hip now that I can see the whites of his knuckles and the indenting of her skin. It's like he's scared she'll jump up and leave. Everyone nods when Summer's head swivels around to each of us for confirmation.
"I guess I get it. I also probably, um, wouldn't have reacted well... or believed you, really, if you had..." My breath catches in my throat. We're finally going to find out more about our tight-lipped,markedmate. Goddess, I'm not sure I even want to hear her story at this point, but she makes eye contact with me, so I put on an encouraging face.
"You've seen my mate marks... during my heat, I assume." Her face and neck flushes a pretty shade of pink, and some of her perfume wafts towards me. My dirty girl. Imagining the way Mav and I took care of her.
Great.Now I'm hard when we're trying to have a serious, important conversation.
"Yeah, pretty girl. I remember." My voice is rough, and judging by the vein popping out of Mav's forehead, he's not faring so well, either.
"Right." She clears her throat. "Well, I have...had...a pack not too long ago. Three alphas." Yep, there goes my heart. Ripped right out of my chest. The living room becomes suffocatingly drenched in burnt sandalwood and rotten citrus and lavender. But Summer musters on. "We met a few years ago, and it was great. Maybe not electric or that kind of all-consuming passion right from the start, but I liked them. One day... it all just changed. They wereeverythingto me. I knew they were my mates. Everything hit me at once. The next few years were perfect. Or at least, I thought that they were... at the time. But then I got pregnant." Summer barely even whispers that last word, tears shimmering in her beautiful brown eyes.
The rest of us are rendered speechless. A shocked silence blankets the living room. Mav's jaw is locked tight, teeth grinding, while Brooke's and Mason’s are damn near touching the floor. Myself, I think my eyes might pop out of my head, but I'm more focused on thinking back to her body during the heat a week or so ago. There wasn't any indication she's had a baby. No stretch marks on her stomach and her tits... yeah. No evidence of a baby there.
"I lost it very shortly after that first doctor's appointment." A tear finally falls, and I watch it skate down her cheek before she wipes it away. "They changed after that. So I left."
"Were they abusive?" I grit out. I will fucking kill them. Useless excuse for alphas.
The sad smile I get in return makes me want to jump up from this couch and run to the gym to hit the shit out of Mav's heavy bag. "It was mostly emotional abuse. But the night I ran, she had hit me when I told her I miscarried." She huffs a laugh, "Part of me wondered if I was too hasty. If maybe we could have worked through it. None of them were ever physically abusive before."
"You did the right thing, babe. Abusers are like a time bomb. It could take weeks or months... maybe even years. But they eventually go off. You did the right thing leaving. It would have only gotten worse after that." Mason's words are somber, his eyes half vacant, and I know he's thinking about that abusive, vile pack that tossed him to the curb when they met their fated mate. They were sort of the same as what Summer's describing. Only Mason was fully aware of the emotional abuse from really early on; he just couldn't make himself leave on his own. That's what makes a good abuser, I guess. The gaslighting and bullshit that made him think it was somehow his fault. Honestly, the best thing they could have done for him was leave him. Because then he found us. And now, Summer.
"I don't understand..." Brooke says, clutching Summer's feet again to get her attention. "So you left them. Is that why you couldn't feel us? Because you already have mates?"
"After I met you guys at the bar, I started having stomach pains. Severe stomach pains and I had no idea why. So I went to the doctor. That's where I met Doctor Tanner. She did a test and found this drug in my system."
"Passion Pack," Brooke whispers. With somewhat dead eyes, Summer nods her confirmation.
"My old pack was drugging me. For two years." The air in the room gets cloying as everyone's scents sour in anger, but Summer continues like she can't smell our reactions to her words. "So when I left them and started taking the bond and heat suppressants, my body started rejecting them. That's apparently why I couldn't feel you right away. Some of the drugs were still in my system. Maybe still are. But every day I saw you–all of you–the more I wanted you and the less I feltthem."
"What do you mean you felt them less?" Mav asks, rubbing his hand across his jaw the way he does when he's trying to puzzle something out. The way I've seen him do numerous times while flipping houses.
"When Doctor Tanner told me I had to stop taking the suppressants, I flushed all of them down the toilet. The next day, I could feel all three of them through the bonds again. Their emotions, yes, but also their voices when I couldn't block them out. Then I started seeing you guys around more. I didn't realize it at the time, but the more I was with you, the less I felt them. I think maybe... I think that was our actual bond." The way she says bond is tentative like she is still having a hard time letting herself believe we're mates. Even though she knows we are now. "They were never my fated mates, but you are. So maybe your bonds were strong enough to stifle theirs? I don't know."
A growl builds in my chest at the thought that she's been suffering for so long, and I couldn't help. That she's had to live with three unwanted voices in her head because some sorry fucking excuses for alphas trapped her into something so sacred and treasured. Something that is supposed to be an act of love.
Not a vehicle for obedience.
"Who are they?" Brooke's voice is calm. Almost eerily. Her eyes are hard and laser-focused on our mate. This is deadly Brooke. It's not often that she lets her dominant side out, but there's a reason she's our pack alpha. When she wants to be, she's absolutely lethal. Summer's eyes bug out when she looks at Brooke. A moment of uncertainty crosses her features like she's almost scared to give her their names. My perfect, intuitive mate. With the way all of our muscles are strained and backs are ridged while we wait for her to answer, it's not a big leap to guess what we want to do to them.
Buzzing sounds throughout the quiet space while we wait on bated breath for our mate's fucking bond's names. I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the screen. But I don't have any new notifications. The buzzing continues, and I watch Brooke and Mav check theirs, too. Both shake their heads, and we all look toward Mason and Summer. With one look, I know immediately it's not Mason's phone going off. Our mate's face has gone deathly pale. With eyes squeezed shut, she pulls her phone out of her back pocket.
After a brief glance at the screen, she hits the lock button again and shoves the phone into her chest to hide what's on it. Mason, the usually very tactful and reasonable one of the pack, reaches around and plucks the phone right out of her hands.
"Mason!" Indignant shock in her eyes as she tries to grab her phone back. But Mason tosses it to Brooke and then wraps his arms back around her to hold her in place. Summer only half-heartedly tries to get away before sort of whimpering in defeat and buries her face in his neck, hiding from us.
"What the fuck?" Brooke hisses, finger-scrolling through what must be a lot of messages. "Is this them? Wait–" She looks up at Summer now hiding her face, and Brooke looks more shocked and scared than I've ever seen her. "You messaged them?"
"What?"
"Who?
"When?" Mav, Mason, and I all blurt at once. She messaged her old pack? Was this when she thought we were tricking her? Did she want to go back to them?
No. That's stupid. She wouldn't go back to a pack that drugged her. Unless those drugs were still in her system. Does she still have feelings for them?
