Chapter 23 #2
“Wh-what? Mistreating? I’ve done everything for her. She’d be nothing without me, and she damn well knows it! Tell them.”
“No,” I said, surprising myself by how easy it had flowed off my lips. “You’ve done a lot for me, but not everything. And I’m coming to realize that it’s you that would be nothing without me. Not the other way around, Ronnie. And from here on out, things are going to change.”
He paled, then fury rose.
“Where’s all this bravado coming from, Daisy? We both know this isn’t you. It’s him, isn’t it? Stupid bitch. I always knew you’d drop your panties for the first guy who came sniffing around. You’re such an idiot.”
Cruz growled in warning.
“Watch yourself. That’s my mate you’re talking about.”
“Mate?” Ronnie bellowed with laughter. “She doesn’t even know what that means. She’s as na?ve as any human and knows nothing about your kind.”
Kyle and Thomas both looked at each other in confusion.
“Your kind?” Thomas asked. “Funny, because I can clearly smell your wolf.”
“He’s hilarious as if he’s not bound by the same laws of the Packs as the rest of us,” Kyle added.
Ronnie’s entire demeanor changed, and from the smirk I knew he was scheming up something.
“You know, you’re right. And there’s one law that I clearly remember.”
I had a bad feeling he was about to drop a bombshell on us.
“Oh yeah, which is that?” Thomas asked.
This time Ronnie turned to Cruz and my stomach lurched.
What was he up to this time?
“You said she’s your mate. If that’s the truth, then I hereby challenge you for her.”
The room began to spin around me.
Could he do that?
Was that really a thing?
What did he even mean by “challenge?”
“You’ve been away a long time, huh? Because they’re true mates and we aren’t in the habit of allowing mating challenges in cases of true mates,” Thomas informed him.
Ronnie growled in frustration.
“But you can still challenge for Pack position, can you not?”
“Well, technically,” Thomas admitted.
My heart sank. He was going to go after Cruz to get total control of me back. I was putting my mate in danger.
“Then I will challenge him for his Pack position,” Ronnie insisted.
Thomas and Kyle conferred.
“It happens so rarely now that I never really considered it,” Kyle confessed.
“I don’t even know when the last time someone issued a challenge like that here was,” Thomas said.
“Can he even do that when he’s not part of your Pack?” Kyle asked.
“I’m happy to seek the Grand Council’s opinion on the matter if it helps,” Ronnie said, smugly.
The two Alphas froze.
I didn’t think it was possible for an Alpha to be scared, yet I had a feeling Ronnie’s mention of the Grand Council wasn’t sitting well with either of them.
“What exactly does the challenge mean?” I asked.
I had to know exactly what was going on.
“If Ronnie officially issues a challenge for Pack rank, then Cruz will have to battle him to the death. Winner takes, or keeps, the position,” Kyle explained.
I thought I was going to throw up.
“We need to talk—right now.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I grabbed my mate by the arm and dragged him from the room.
“No,” I said sternly.
“If he challenges me, I can’t walk away from that, Daisy. I’m just thankful Thomas is holding firm on the mating challenges.”
“What’s the difference?”
“If we went into the mating challenges and Ronnie won, he’d win you, too. He’d become your mate.”
“Ew. Gross! That’s never going to happen.”
“It’s the way of our kind, but several years back a group of Alphas rallied together to inform the Grand Council they would no longer participate in cases of true mates.
As far as I know, the Grand Council never issued a final say in that, so it’s generally accepted that no response means it’s approved, at least until they’re told otherwise. ”
“You are not going to fight him,” I insisted. Tears were stinging my eyes, and I didn’t even bother trying to hold them back.
“If I don’t, he’s going to call in the Grand Council. I can’t let that happen,” he explained, sadly.
“But why?”
“You’ve met Tricia and Kelsey. They’re witches.”
“I know, the top two most wanted on the Grand Council’s list.”
I gasped as I understood what he was trying to say.
“Yeah. Kelsey has a lot of protection around her. Kyle has started an entire elite forces group to keep his mate safe. But Brady doesn’t have that kind of power.
I cannot be the coward who brings them to our doorstep.
I cannot do that to him or to Tricia. She doesn’t deserve that.
And honey, I can’t be that cowardly. If Ronnie formally challenges me, I will accept.
I will never stop fighting to be with you. ”
“That’s insane, Cruz. And it’s not even necessary because we both know this is never going to work. Music is my life. I don’t know that I can just stay put here to be with you. I need to be free to go, but it hurts so much.”
“I know,” he said, softly. “My roots are here. This home, my life, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else or doing anything else. But Luke reminded me that there are more important things in life, and so I have to try, and I have to fight.”
“No,” I told him. “You would grow to resent me just as I would grow to resent you if I were to stay and give up my music. And I can’t live with the thought that you died because of me. That’s never going to happen. I can handle Ronnie. I’m going to be okay. But I need you to be okay, too.”
He shook his head. “I would never ask you to give up your music. Not for me, not for anything. It is as much a part of you as ranching is to me. All I’m asking is that you try. Don’t give up on us, Daisy. I need you to fight, too.”
“I’m expected in Cheyenne tomorrow. I don’t know how to make any of this work. And I’m not risking your life on an uncertainty. This is the way it has to be.”
He started to protest as I fought back tears. My heart was already breaking, but I knew what I had to do, what I had to say, because otherwise, he was never going to give up on us. He would fight to the literal death for me.
I loved him so much. I didn’t even know how it had happened.
But sometimes love hurts, and if I truly love him, then I had to set him free of this obligation.
I had to break the bond, or at least try to.
Even knowing there would always be an empty place in my soul without him, I’d learn to live with it, but I was not going to live in a world where he didn’t exist.
So, I said whatever I needed to say in order keep him alive.
“This isn’t my home and it never will be.
It was nothing more than a fun break from my life, and my life has no room for you in it.
I cannot be your mate. So do us all a favor and give up.
Because there will never be an us, Cruz.
I’m a mega star, and you are just a small-town cowboy. In no scenario would we ever work out.”
It took a lot for me to say that without crying. I wanted to ball up on the floor and physically protect myself from the pain coursing through my body.
Mate, my wolf mourned.
Not anymore, I told her, and that reality nearly broke me.
Before he could protest, I stomped out of the room, wanting to shift and just run away forever. I still wasn’t sure I was strong enough, but I knew I had to. He couldn’t see the lies I’d just told or this would never work and I could lose him forever.
You just did, I thought to myself. But at least he’ll be alive.
Remembering the entire reason for it, I walked back into the room. This time I didn’t even look his way. Instead, I spoke to Thomas and Kyle.
“Let Ronnie go. We’re leaving for Cheyenne. I have a concert to get to.”
I knew it was the right thing to do, but the pain was almost too much to bear.
I had to get out of there. All I wanted to do was run into the safety of Cruz’s arms and tell him how sorry I was and that I didn’t really mean any of it but was just so scared of him going into a battle to the death. But I didn’t. I held strong.
“I’ll be waiting on the bus,” I told Ronnie before turning to run, as my entire world splintered into pieces that I knew could never be repaired, but it was a sacrifice I had to make—because it meant Cruz would live.