Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Rejected Mate Chapter 36

"I know how it looks. I had to make you fight back, and I knew that was a surefire way. I had to see. This changes things Lorey, can't you understand? Our packs are verging on a war where more than ever my mate has to be capable of standing by my side and fighting worse than us. You can absorb my gifts, which means you can absorb any that you come up against, turn them into something more powerful and use them with control. You were right when you said I made a choice and I did ... but this is how we change it. My father has to see that you're not a black mark on our people if the fates gave you a gift like this. There's hope that I can have them accept you into the pack and lay claim to what the fates ordained. You as my mate... as we always should have been..." The muscle twinge in his jaw, the flicker of his eyes on mine as he begs me to believe, has me spiraling.

I shake my head at him, so consumed with mistrust, my mind a flurry of conflicting emotions, backing into a corner until I hit the edge of the bed. It startles me and I seem to snap out of my intense focus on him and look around for the first time, really seeing the

room.

It's complete devastation; something worse than the carnage at the orphanage and I gasp as my eyes follow the gouges and claw marks running not just across floor, and walls, but ceilings too. There has been an epic battle in this room.

Furniture splayed or tipped over, trashed, or just balancing precariously. The pictures on the wall either smashed to the floor or hanging lopsided, some clawed through where they hang. Everything is destroyed around us. All the bed sheets are strewn across the floor, most ripped and gashed, feathers floating in the air from cushions that no longer exist, and I crouch quickly to grab the nearest sheet to wrap it around myself. Concealing my body fast.

"There's one problem with that little 'hope'... I don't want you to ever touch me again." I snarl out, penetrating him with my glare, a second wave of anger even though I'm beginning to see that maybe partially, he isn't lying to me. He still made me believe he would, he scared me, I can't be sure he would have stopped, and for that few seconds of panic before I blacked out, I was utterly afraid of him. You never do that to your bond.

"You're upset and angry with me. Baby, I would never do that, I swear on the bloodline of my pack. It was killing me to push you that far and I almost gave in because I couldn't stomach hurting you like that. I had to see, I had to force your hand, and now look at you.... standing there, poised for a second round like a seasoned warrior. You weren't that girl yesterday.... You're changing. Coming into your true form and adapting as you do." He looks almost proud and it tears through me, igniting the wrong bomb. "Changing??? I'm FUCKING furious with you!! I'm REACTING, because you're a sick twisted bastard who laid his god damn hands on me in the worst kind of way. I can't ever know for sure if you did stop. I only have your words! And nothing you say means shit to me now." I scream it at him, not caring if everyone in this house hears me blow a fuse and go nuclear. What he's done is unforgiveable. If we weren't so far at this side of the house, I'm sure a dozen Santos would have been in here already, to see what the chaos and noise from this obvious battle zone was all about it.

"You can trust me; I would never do anything to hurt you that way." Colton goes for endearing and submissively calm. It's the wrong thing to say entirely, and I'm already volcanic. He just makes me erupt.

"TRUST?!?!?! Like I trusted the Santos to take care of their own when our people didn't come home! Like I trusted you to stand for me and honor our bond when we were imprinted.... Like I trusted you to be alone with me in a fucking bedroom and not try to defile my fucking body! Trust, Colton? .... You've denied me, let me down more than once in our lifetime, you fall at every hurdle the second daddy says NO. Maybe Carmen has the right idea and you're not someone I should ever trust. Look at how you discard women and pick them up as you fancy. You're weak, you're no Alpha. Always in your father's shadow. You are the last wolf I would ever trust or choose to bond myself to. Not after this!!!" My words hit him hard and his face closes up, his muscles in his jaw tensing as his eyes dart to the floor, trying to conceal the wounds I just inflicted upon his heart, but I don't care.

He has never done anything to prove to me I can trust him and imprinting stupidly made me think I could. You don't insult a male's pride and ego, definitely not his strength. Especially not an Alpha, but Colton has not been a man for me, he's been a boy doing what he's told and denying what the fates asked of him.

"Carmen slept with someone else, one of my own brothers of Santo. She said it was in heartbreak and anger, to make me feel the pain I inflicted on her. So no, I didn't just discard her.... I had to swallow all of that and stick to my commitment. I made my choice, but she kept using us as a reason to punish me while conveniently forgetting her sins. Her jealousy and mistrust are her guilt. The imprinting didn't make me indifferent to her... she did. She wasn't fighting the bond or the lure of the fates as I was, she was trying to wound me and that Lorey, is something you never do to a mate. That's why I can't feel anything for her anymore. It's why we're not dating. After the forest, I found out, and since then I haven't been able to feel anything but disdain for her." His pained, low toned words silence me and my anger momentarily; not expecting that mouthful, or the knowledge a femme would betray a mate with his own pack brother.

That's all kinds of messed up and I can't believe he is only telling me now. Even if his heart was no longer invested, an alphas pride and ego would have been crushed to have been played like that. His respect in the pack will be dented, especially if he never took out any act of revenge on his pack brother to balance the scales. By Lycanthrope law, he should have publicly shamed her, punished her and his pack brother. Instead he was still trying to fix everything.

With my rage fizzing out and my logical brain easing in to calm my impulse to wreak havoc on him, I slump down onto the floor, completely exhausted and pull my ripped sheets around me in a bid to self-console. My head a blur of what he just said, some weird sympathy for him even, if I should be sill hating his very bones.

"Show me... prove it... that you never...." I can't look at him, the storm has blown out of my sails and I'm tired, but he knows what I'm asking, and he cautiously walks to me. Slowly and surely, keeping his eyes on me as though he expects me to turn and go for him at any second. I can sense his apprehension and that gives me a hint that maybe some of what he said was truth. Something made him afraid, something happened between us and he is taut and ready to defend himself if needs be.

He reaches out when he gets close enough and touches his fingers to my temple, so gently it's barely a graze of a touch as he slides down to his knees, bringing his mind to mine and projects the memory I am missing. I close my eyes and let it flood my mind.