Chapter Forty-Nine
Jay
The next morning, I’m woken up by my wolf shouting inside my head.
Mate.
What? I ask.
Mate!
I have a mate?
We have a mate.
And suddenly I smell it, too. Smokey, like from a campfire and spice all mixed together. Warmth spreads all around me. It’s him: my mate.
Who is he? I ask my wolf.
But the only question I really want answered: Is it Caleb?
I don’t know. Let’s go find out, she urges me.
Elated and full of hope, I throw off the covers and run to the bathroom to fix myself up. The last thing I need is to have bad breath and messy hair when I see him.
Once I’m ready, I bolt out the front door, and my nose leads me to the direction of Caleb’s place. I’m trying not to get my hopes up because it could still be anybody.
A thousand questions run through my brain as to who it might be and what they might be like. Will I like them? Will they like me?
What if they don’t approve of me? I don’t see anyone jumping at the opportunity to be with a rogue. Will they be willing to get to know me? Or will they reject me?
Dread washes over me.
What if they reject me?
To reject a mate is rare. It is instinctual as much as it is spiritual. When the situation arises, a wolf just knows that declaring rejection is to be done in your name. To choose another, you have to deny the one you have as they have first right.
If you reject your fated, our Goddess takes it personally.
It is said that the Moon Goddess sends blood-boiling pain to the rejecter’s heart.
But this pain alone doesn’t break the bond.
The rejected will then need to cosign. Once they do, the bond is broken, and they’ll experience the punishment.
After that, there’s no desire, no yearning—you become nothing to them.
If that person isn’t Caleb, would I reject them? Sure, it would be disappointing at first if it weren’t Caleb . . . Okay, it’d be soul-crushing, and I’d probably cry for days, but would I be willing to give my mate a chance? Or is what I know to be true?
There will never be someone better for me than Caleb.
It’s almost impossible to not get my hopes up when my nose leads me to the front step of Caleb’s home. It has to be him, right?
Wait.
What if it’s Tyler? Could I deal with him?
Sure, we got off on the wrong foot at first, but I’ve seen admirable qualities in him in service of Caleb.
My problem with Tyler as my mate is being forced to see Caleb all the time.
The bond must be strong, or I’ll spend an eternity yearning and never truly get to know my Goddess-chosen mate.
It was hard to imagine a bond stronger than what I have with Caleb.
Please let it be him. The front door creaks open. “Hello?”
His scent is overwhelming when I walk to the study.
Mate. My wolf affirms. He’s in there.
I know who I’m smelling.
It’s him. It’s really him. I have to hold back the tears as I thank the Moon Goddess. I don’t know if I deserve a great love like Caleb’s, but I hoped I could keep him anyway.
I place my hand flat against the door, about to push it open when I quickly draw back. It hits me that I’m going to be laying my eyes on him as my mate for the first time. I imagine it’ll be like meeting him all over again. It’s a new chapter for us, and I don’t want to screw it up.
I’m suddenly nervous and jittery. My stomach flips, and my mouth goes dry. I take a second to fix my hair and tug at my clothes, then sniff my pits to make sure I don’t smell.
All good. Okay, here goes nothing.
I push open the doors to find Caleb deep in thought. He’s staring outside his window with one hand in his pocket, the other leaning against the frame. He looks so sad.
I push it open a little further and it, too, creaks.
Caleb doesn’t bother to look at me. I was hoping he would, but it’s fine. Nothing can ruin this moment.
“Hey,” I say. “Can I come in?”
He nods.
Again, he doesn’t look at me. You build it up for so long, imagine the perfect moment where you both lock eyes and run into each other’s arms, then lose each other in a kiss.
If he’d just look at me, maybe he’ll know, too.
I gently close the door behind me. His demeanor isn’t helping my nerves. I just hope my news can cheer him up. But first, I want to find out what’s wrong. “Are you okay?”
He sighs.
“What is it? You can tell me.”
“Medein isn’t willing to help. She says it’s in her best interest to move forward with the deal the dark coven presented.”
“So, what’s next?”
Caleb runs a hand over his face. “Nothing. I’ve done all I can do. I’m out of options.” He hangs his head. I’ve never seen him so broken.
It’s perfect. With what I have to share, I’m practically giddy. Because now that we’re mates, we can be together. “What if I told you there was another option?”
I snake my hands around him, resting my cheek against his back, and he relaxes under my touch.
“I’d say that’d be amazing, but I’ve thought about this at every angle. There’s nothing left to be done.”
“Caleb.”
“Hm?”
“Look at me.”
Slowly, he turns.
When our gazes meet, our wolves surface. “Mate,” we say simultaneously.
This is it. The moment he’ll scoop me up, and we’ll get lost in each other.
We’ll mark one another and get our happily ever after.
It’s when someone chooses me and together, we can fight the council and coven and anyone else who doesn’t approve.
I finally found my partner in crime, my comrade, my person.
Except he doesn’t do any of that. His face doesn’t beam ecstatically. Instead, the longing in his eyes is so gravely apparent that as close as we are now, he’s never been more distant.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” I laugh nervously. “Say something. Aren’t you happy?”
My anxiety is running rampant. Why won’t he hold me?
“I am.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Caleb sighs and runs the back of his neck and averts his eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
My heart and mind race to see who can cause a panic attack first as I wait for his response.
“I’ve known you were my mate.”
“You have? For how long?”
“I smelled you the day you killed my father.”
“You knew this whole time?”
All this time, he’s known I was his mate. While I questioned myself, wondered what must be wrong with me to enjoy the way he treats me, my attraction to him wasn’t my fault. Loving him was inevitable.
Well played, Moon Goddess.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I will spend the rest of my life feeling guilty for all the ways I’ve gone about us.”
You’d think I’d be mad at how he treated me with the knowledge of who I am to him, but I can understand. And I’m ready to move forward. We’ve lost so much time.
“I forgive you,” I say.
His lips part, and his eyes soften. Then, they fill with tears. He quickly wipes them away with his thumb.
“Hey.” I place a hand on his thigh and the other on the cheek farthest away from me, turning him to face me. “None of that matters now.” Our foreheads touch, and we breathe in deeply until his heart returns to a normal pace.
“Now we can be together.”
He moves away from me, so we’re no longer touching. It’s subtle, but the absence of his touch isn’t something I could overlook. His actions are powerful—it means something. What exactly, I don’t know, but my heart goes from calm to racing again.
“We can’t be together.”
“What do you mean? We’re fated mates. The council—”
“The council won’t accept us.”
“Then we can fight.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? With what army?”
“Is it because of something I did for my herd?”
“Do you think my pack will accept you if they find out you killed their alpha?” He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t matter if they did. The coven wants what they want, and they’re determined to get it.”
Silence lingers between us.
“So, that’s it then? You’re just giving up.”
Insulted, he scoffs his retort. “What?”
“You won’t even try to fight for us.”
“Won’t even try? All I’ve done is try. What more do you want from me, huh?” His eyes bug as he points to himself. “I didn’t do this to us.” Then he points to me. “You did.”
This is his fault just as much as mine, and he needs to own it.
“My fault?” I blink in disbelief and point at myself. “I didn’t slaughter an entire group of people.”
“For you!” He sweeps the air with his hands in such a fit as he talks. “For you, I’d slaughter the entire lot of them. But I don’t fight for you, right?” He scoffs.
He looks angry, but that’s not what I’m feeling from him—it’s utter despair.
“So, what does that mean? You’re choosing her?”
“I’m choosing you.”
His choice of words are deliberate. And as nice as they might sound, he’s still avoiding answering my question.
“Are you choosing her?”
“We can’t fight witches, Jay.”
“Are. You. Choosing. Her?”
He won’t look me in the eyes, and it enrages me. I know a caged wolf when I see one, and he’s trapped. And I deserve to know the truth—to hear the words that will break me. Sometimes bones have to break again to heal properly.
I need to hear it. Otherwise, I’ll spend every day searching for slivers of evidence that he still might choose me.
I’d wait forever for him.
But I need him to let me go.
I need him to say it.
“Are you mating her?”
He looks up at me through his brows, his mouth in a tight line, and his jaw ticking.
And there it is. One look, and I have my answer.
And it tastes like heartbreak. My entire body trembles like a volcano ready to erupt. My emotions are powerful, yet I’ve never felt more fragile.
I bite my lip and tears threaten to fall.
I hate him. More than ever. And I hate him mostly because I don’t . . . I can’t.
“Would you say something, please?” I beg.
He looks up at the ceiling, like he’s wanting so badly to avoid this conversation.
“Caleb!”
He whips his head at me. “Yes!” He snaps, causing me to jump. “Yes . . . I choose her.”
The pain becomes too great to bear.
At his admittance something finally breaks inside me. But I gather my heart off the floor and stand for myself. I have my answer. I don’t need to stay. I don’t want him to see me cry.
I turn to leave, but I get as far as the doorway when Caleb says, “I can’t lose you.”
“You already have.”
I walk out the door, shutting it behind me.