Chapter 1 #2
That thought made my throat close up, and a traitorous tear escaped.
My mate had taken one look at me and run.
Why? Was I so repugnant? Did the sight of me repulse him so much that he couldn’t stand to be in the same damn hallway as me?
I screamed at myself that I didn’t care, that he was nothing, nobody, a complete stranger.
But the dreamer in me was howling, wailing, sobbing.
My mate didn’t want me. It made no sense.
Fate and biology and the universe itself had sewn us together, our souls a woven net that would always tie us together.
But the way he looked at me, he clearly saw that bond as handcuffs, restrictive and fatal, a death sentence. Instead of the blessing it was.
My stomach knotted, roiled, revolted, but I clenched my jaw, hardened my expression, and took off down the hallway. I’d been kidnapped and beaten, and this motherfucker didn’t get to reject me. No fucking way. I’d been through too much; the universe owed me something good, something sweet.
“Wait,” the big guy blurted, rushing in front of me and cutting off my path. I glared through my tears. “Let me explain everything to you before you rightly confront Sweetie.”
“That’s his name?”
He nodded, his black gaze beseeching and absolutely wasted on me.
I was too angry and brittle to care about his kind, pleading eyes.
“We’re part of a motorcycle club who take down abusive assholes and give their victims a safe place,” he said, then swore soundly as I ducked around him and continued down the hallway, faster, my bare feet slamming the carpet.
“He’s been through a lot lately, and it makes all this messy and delicate. Three of our people were taken, and put through hell. Let me explain it before you go in there.”
“No.”
He hurried to keep pace with me, this giant of a man struggling to keep up with my furious strides. “You have a place with us no matter what happens, but if you have any expectations of Sweetie, we need to talk about them now, because there are things you should know.”
My chest felt like a wrecking ball had driven through it covered in spikes like a flail, messing up all my insides until I was functioning with mangled organs and shattered instincts.
I hurried my steps, a little frantic, a whole lot…
hurt. I didn’t like the feeling. Corrosive to my stomach, it burned.
The big guy had clearly run out of patience, or grown desperate, because he reached for my arm, lightly clasping his fingers around my bicep.
“Get the fuck off me,” I hissed, ripping my arm free and stumbling into the too clean, too perfect living room.
Not that there was much living done in this room; the white and black decor was cold and uninviting.
Nothing like my home. I wanted to go home.
But first— “I want to know why my mate just ran off like a fucking coward.”
My voice cracked through the room like thunder, startling the men crowded into the hollow room, their black leather and dark clothes a stain upon the pristine white furniture and rugs.
I hoped they’d tracked mud across my buyer’s perfect fucking home.
I hoped they burned it to the ground when they left.
For a moment, everyone seemed to pause, including my mate where he’d run into the arms of a purple-haired beauty also decked out in leather. Among them, she looked like the goddess of bikers and thieves.
The only bit of movement came from the floor, where one of the men slammed his fist into—oh, into my buyer’s chest and stomach, each dull smack making the vile alpha’s body jerk.
Whoever the man beating him was, he’d already made a mess of my buyer’s face.
I could barely make out his refined features under all the blood.
But I knew it was him. I knew his clothes, his hair, his build.
I knew those perfectly uncalloused fingers that curled into callous fists to imprint cruelty and pain on my body.
I held my middle tighter, unable to look away from the wild fury of the man beating up my abuser.
Every smack, every brutal punch, every crack of ribs, every bruise that would stain the bastard’s body until it looked like mine…
they touched the part of my soul that was sobbing and screaming and mourning the protection of my mate.
I dragged my glare to Sweetie as if to say that’s what you should be doing. You should be the one battering my abuser. The woman hugging him stared from his face to mine, and it was like looking into a mirror—the shock, the pain that dug its spikes into me until there was no part left damaged.
“What?” I didn’t hear her speak, but I saw her mouth form the word. And I realised with a bitter laugh—she was his. My mate was hers. Her boyfriend or husband or whatever. He loved her. That was why he rejected me.
My upper lip curled, and I dragged my stare to the floor, where it ended up on my buyer.
I never learned his name; he’d never volunteered it, never asked me to call him anything at all.
I usually called him bastard or motherfucker or coward who gets off on beating women.
None of them bothered him except sad little man.
That one earned me a brutal beating, and fucked with my ankle until I couldn’t put all my weight on it without shooting pains.
“I’m not your mate.”
I was too shocked to laugh, but I’d had enough.
That was my final fucking straw. So many places on my body stabbed with throbbing pain, I’d been ripped away from my home and my family, and this man had the audacity to tell me the bond that hooked itself so deep into me that it was part of my DNA didn’t exist? Fuck that.
“You are,” I bit out. I jabbed my chest. “I can feel it. Here.”
Motherfucker. If I could rip out that bond, give it to his purple-haired paramour, and bond myself to the psycho beating the shit out of my abuser instead, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But we couldn’t choose our own mates. It was literally fate.
I took a step, ready to talk some sense into him, or just ask him to get me the fuck out of this place, but then he growled. The bastard actually growled at me, as if I’d done anything other than exist.
“I am not your mate. I have a fiancée and she’s perfect and I love her more than anything else in this godforsaken world.”
I stumbled back a step, then locked my legs into place, refusing to give up another step.
Fuck him. You know what? Just absolutely fucking fuck him.
His fiancée could keep him. I wanted nothing to do with a man honour-bound to protect me who hadn’t even stopped for one damn second to tell me I was safe or ask if I was okay.
His muscle-bound behemoth of a friend had the courtesy to do that at least, not that I’d believe a single word he said until I got home.
“I’m sorry,” Sweetie said, and only the fact that he clearly meant it stopped me running across the room to kick his balls. I ground my jaw, pressing my lips into a line to stop them shaking. “I know there’s a bond, but I’m not yours. I can never, and will never, be yours.”
A breathy laugh escaped me. At least he admitted the bond was there.
It did nothing to ease the spikes of rejection carving me apart, did nothing to stop my stomach twisting or the pain that stole my breath.
I should have known fairy tales and perfect mates didn’t exist. I should have known the world would fuck me over.
His fiancée backed up, and then fled through the open door, tears in her eyes that might have made my heart pang in sympathy if I could feel anything through the shattered mess in my chest. Yeah, this fucking sucked for all of us.
Why would the universe give me a mate already in love with another woman? How was this ever supposed to end well?
I didn’t bother speaking. Didn’t want to waste the air on Sweetie when he hadn’t earned it. My omega instincts were sharp and bruised, and I knew they were the reason I was so angry and Sweetie didn’t entirely deserve it, but I just ground my teeth and watched him run away.
“Don’t you dare fucking leave,” the psycho who beat my abuser snarled, so suddenly that I jumped, staring at him. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
I massaged a violent ache in my chest and drawled, “I don’t think he values your opinion much.”
Given Sweetie had fled the entire apartment, and there was no longer any sign of him. The whole thing had taken five minutes, from my locked door opening to my mate abandoning me.
I ground my teeth together, pushing back tears, holding myself together. I needed a fucking drink. But mostly I needed to go home.
“I don’t suppose one of you will give me a lift home, will you?” I asked, ignoring the tight, strangled quality of my voice.
A ruggedly handsome red-haired man took a step toward me and sighed, sympathy radiating from him in waves.
So did a powerful dose of alpha vibes—pigheadedness, protectiveness, and stupidity usually.
Often cruel violence, narcissism, and depravity.
I wondered which alpha type this one would be as I levelled him with an unimpressed stare.
“Sweetheart, this is bigger than just that fucker.” He jabbed a finger at my buyer. “He’s part of a bigger network, and until they’re dealt with, you’re in constant danger of being hurt again. It’s better if you come stay with us, where you’re protected. But we can bring your family in—”
I stepped towards him, and smiled. Not sweetly. With all my teeth. “I’m not your sweetheart. And get out of my fucking way, I’m going home.”
I shoved him aside and aimed for the doorway.