0010
Dane
"Did anyone have a clue?" I demand as I watch my sleeping mate. She was out cold and likely would be for some time. Raven had gone as far as stitching her up once she was certain the tie had been severed and
Neah's body had been pumped full of drugs.
'Someone's head is going to roll!' Aero growls
"No." Eric replies. "Surely if Neah was mated, she wouldn't have left Moonshine so easily."
"But she didn't though, did she?! She practically collapsed at the door."
"I thought you said that was because she had never left? You said a combination of fear and illness."
I turn around to see him leaning against the wall, studying me. He was the only one I had confided in, telling him what Aero had said about Neah being our mate.
"Maybe he was nearby." He shrugs his shoulders at me as my eyes shift to my sister.
She was staring into her coffee, trying to not draw attention to herself, but the silence told me she knew something. The girl barely stay silent for more than a few minutes "Spit it out!" I snap at her.
'Why the fuck is it always Raven?' Aero prowls around the back of my mind. I already knew he wanted to have it out with Raven's Wolf, Midnight
"I don't know anything." Raven keeps her eyes low
"Raven! I nearly killed her by kissing her because of this stupid fucking blood tie! A blood tie can only exist if she has a mate that is still alive."
"Okay, okay. You don't need to go all Alpha on me. She had a mate. All I know is that he rejected her."
"Are you certain?"
She nods her head.
"Did she accept?"
"I don't know. I'm sorry, talking about it made me think of Salem okay. I kind of went off talking about why he rejected me, okay! If I had known that was the reason for this, then I would have questioned her more."
"Come on Dane, you know she is telling the truth." Eric mutters. He moves next to me and peers in through the window at Neah.
"I'm more interested to know how she knew she was mated." "What?"
"You said she was bound, right?" Eric frowns
I hadn't even thought about it. I had been too wrapped up in the blood tie news. "She shouldn't have been able to scent him." I mutter, "How could she have known?"
Sitting by Neah's bedside, I watch her in silence, trying to choose the words I wanted to say. There was a lot of information to unpack, though I already knew it would be too much for her to handle at once.
In the bright lights of the hospital, she looked a little better, her skin wasn't as dull and her eyes no longer appeared so sunken.
Raven appears regularly to check her and to check the newly stitched wound. Each check up, she would apologise to me, telling me that she never meant to keep it a secret and that she hadn't thought much of it.
Because in her words, who creates a blood tie when they have rejected their mate.
Which just adds to the list of questions I have for Neah.
It's almost one in the morning before her eyes open.
She groans and tries to sit up, freezing when she sees me. "I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?"
Her blue eyes flash around the room. "I've caused problems. I didn't.... Ow." She holds a hand to her stomach and lies back down.
"Raven stitched you up. It's probably going to be uncomfortable for a little while."
She blinks back tears, "Am I in trouble?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"The pain came on so quickly."
"No Neah, I'm talking about your mate. Why didn't you tell me that you were already mated?"
She drags her teeth over her bottom lip as she closes her eyes. "He rejected me. He forced me to accept his rejection. He...." she hesitates as she peers though slits at me.
"He beat you?" I finish her sentence
She only moves her head slightly, but she
confirms my question. "Who?"
"Beta Kyle." She whispers
'But she's ours now, right?' Aero grumbles in a panic
'Let me finish!" I snap at him.
"How did you know that prick was your mate?" I study her face.
"I don't know. I could smell him." she screws her face up. "He was the first person I scented since I was a kid. I don't know how or why. But he was so angry. So disgusted." Neah hugs herself as she looks up at the lights in the ceiling.
"He hated me and I paid for it." 'She could scent him?' Aero mutters.
'How if she was bound?'
'I'm getting to that if you will just be quiet for five minutes.'
"How old were you?"
"It was my eighteenth." She keeps her voice quiet and sighs.
"And he was the one who did that to you?"
She looks at her stomach and shakes her head. "Luna Cassandra......I think" She pauses, pressing her pink lips into a thin line. "Was it badly infected?"
"You don't need to worry about it anymore. The problem has been dealt with. It will heal properly this time."
Rising to my feet, I was about to tell her to get some rest. But I couldn't help myself. "Why could you scent him?"
"I don't know. I swear." She shakes her head. "They bound me for a second time after that. I haven't been able to heal since."
I wanted to push for more answers, but I could see she was exhausted even after all the rest she has had.
"Get some sleep. I will be back in the morning."
Leaving the hospital, I find Eric hovering outside, just as I had asked.
"She awake?"
Nodding, "She answered some of my questions. But I'm letting her get some rest until the morning. Eric, she has been bound not once but twice."
"Twice? Are you sure?" He looks puzzled
"I heard it from her own mouth."
"She must carry some fucking powerful Alpha blood if she needed binding twice."
"She is possibly more powerful than Trey. What other reason could there be that would make them treat her like this other than fear? Why else would they set her up for the death of her parents?
I don't sleep. Neah had only slept in the bed for one night and it already felt odd to not have her here. By six in the morning, I was back sitting beside her bed in the hospital. Watching and waiting for her to open her eyes.
She groans first, stretching a little before opening her eyes. I see how she panics before quickly remembering where she is too.
"Hospital?" she whispers, looking for confirmation.
"Yes." I watch her as she pushes herself up on the bed, ignoring her pain and I wondered how many times she had to do that while living in Moonshine.
I wondered if she had ever gotten a break.
If Trey and the others just let her be for a single night.
Neah pulls her top up, studying her own stitches with a frown.
"She made the wound bigger." She mumbles.
"Raven had too. At some point between Cassandra injuring you and me bringing you here. Kyle, blood tied himself to you."
"He what?" She ask confused. She really didn't know much about our kind at all.
"Blood tie. It can be a mate thing. It doesn't have to be."
"I.... I accepted. H...h....he wanted me to accept the rejection. I did." She stutters
"I think because you were still bound to a certain degree, that the rejection didn't work properly. Or at least not how it should."
'She's our mate!' Aero roars inside of my head. 'He's not having her. I won't let him. I will kill the entire Moonshine pack if it means that she gets to stay with us!'
'Trust me, there is no way she is going back to them.'