The Rejected Wolf and Her Three WereMates

Chapter 7 : Ancient Whatever

HARPER

~~~

"Ancient?" I whispered, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears. "What do you mean, ancient? I'm a wolf. I've always been a wolf."

Dr. Alistair didn't answer. He simply gathered his files, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

"I will be back to explain better," he said with a kind smile. "In the meantime, try to rest."

He exchanged a nod with the triplets before leaving, his assistant following right behind him. The door clicked shut, leaving us in a silence so thick it felt like velvet.

I shifted, wincing from the pain on my back. The room was suddenly too small. Mason, Ryder, and Dallas were hovering near the foot of my bed, their massive frames radiating an overwhelming, earthy heat.

Despite my obvious anger towards then, I couldn't resist breathing in the intoxicating scent that always seemed to cling to them; the pure, Alpha male scent that always sent my heart into raging staccato.

"Harper," Mason started in a soothing low voice. He took a step forward, hand outstretched to touch me. "We are so sorry. We never meant for–"

"Save it!" I snapped, turning my head to glare at him, at all three of them. The pain in my back was nothing compared to the white-hot fury burning in my chest. "Don't you dare apologize. This is all your fault. If you hadn't changed the locks on my lodge, I wouldn't have gone to the pack house. I wouldn't have run into Ruby. I wouldn't be lying here in this bed."

"We wanted to force you to talk to us," he protested, taking an impulsive step forward. "It was a bad idea, but we... I was desperate. You wouldn't answer your phone. You wouldn't see us. We were going out of our minds."

"So you locked me out?" I scoffed. "You decided to treat me like a prisoner again?"

"At least something good came of it," Ryder blurted out, his eyes glinting with a reckless light. "You've discovered what you really are. The ancient magic and all that."

My eyes widened in disbelief. I couldn't believe he actually said that.

"Do you think I care about some stupid ancient magic when my back is shredded to pieces? Do you think that makes up for everything you've all done to me? For all the pain you've caused me?"

Dallas shot Ryder a dark glare, stepping between us to mitigate the damage. "He's an i***t, Harper. Ignore him. But please, just listen to us. We're trying to make this right. We want to atone for everything we did five years ago."

I laughed, a jagged, broken sound. "Atone? You want to atone? How do you atone for the humiliation? How do you fix the fact that you looked me in the eye and told me I wasn't enough? You let the whole pack jeer at me, you let them mock my weight and my body while you just... watched. Like I was a circus act."

They suddenly went deathly still. A strange shadow crossed Mason's face. He walked closer, and this time, I didn't tell him to stop.

He knelt by the side of the bed, his gold-flecked eyes locked onto mine

"We didn't reject you because of your weight, Harper," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "We never, ever cared about that. We loved you."

"Then why?" I choked out, unable to stop myself. I wanted a reason. A real reason. Why you wasn't I enough?

"It was because of our father," Dallas slowly explained, his voice hard. "The former Alpha. Being a wolf in a bear pack was difficult enough, but being mated to us was something he couldn't accept."

"It's not my fault," I murmured tiredly. "I'm a shifter just like everyone else in this pack. It's not my fault that my only form comes in a wolf."

"I'm not saying it's your fault," Dallas continued softly. "Just that, our father saw you as an outcast. A wolf that didn't fit. He told us that if we didn't sever the bond, he would exile you himself and make sure you never survived the winter."

My breath hitched. "You're lying."

"We aren't," Mason shook his head. His large hand hovered near my arm, desperate to touch me but afraid to. "We thought we were protecting you. We thought if we broke your heart, you'd leave, and you'd be safe from his threat. But we were wrong. We should have fought him. We should have stood by you. And we've regretted every single second since."

"Even if that were true, what about Ruby?" I asked, my voice trembling. "You took her as a lover. You let her take my place."

"Ruby was never a lover," Ryder spat, his expression twisted in disgust.

"She told me she was. That she warmed your bed these past years."

"She lied to you," Ryder shook his head. "Ruby was just there. Available. We were trying to numb the pain of losing you, Harper. We were drowning in a void where you should have been. She was just a distraction, a release of tension. She never held our hearts. Not for one second."

The room spun. My perception of the last five years, the narrative I had built to survive, was crumbling. They hadn't wanted the skinny, perfect Ruby. They had been as miserable as I was.

Maybe it was silly, but that thought actually made me feel better.

"We'll give you the lodge back," Mason promised, his eyes burning with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "No conditions. No games. We never should have taken it in the first place. Like I said, we were just desperate to keep you with us."

"Come back to us, Harper, please," Dallas pleaded, lifting my hand to his lips. "Be ours again. If you want Ruby's position, it's yours. We'll do anything, anything to keep you here. Anything to make you forgive us."

I looked at them. The three men who had been my tormentors, my mates, my everything. My body screamed for them, my skin heating up just from the proximity of their presence, but my mind was a battlefield.

"I need time," I whispered, turning my face away. "I need to think. Please."

Mason tried to speak, but Ryder placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He shook his head, the raw, aching longing in his eyes almost too much to bear.

"We'll come back to check on you," Mason murmured and straightened. Turning around quietly, they slipped out of the room.

When the door clicked shut, the weight of their presence finally lifted, leaving my mind spinning from what they just revealed. I lay there in the quiet room, staring at the dark patterns of the wood grain on the wall.

For five years, I had hated them. I had hated my body, believing my weight was the reason they had thrown me away. I had let Derek abuse my self-esteem because I believed I deserved it after being rejected by my fated mates.

Now, the truth was laid bare. They hadn't rejected me because of my curves. They had done it to protect me. And Ruby? Ruby was nothing more than a passing distraction to ease the pain of the empty bond.

A tear slipped down my cheek, soaking into the silk pillowcase. They were offering me everything again; The lodge with no strings attached. Ruby's highly respected position of authority. Their devotion.

The heat of the severed bond between us still simmered in my veins, begging me to forgive them, to let them wrap their massive, protective arms around me and keep me safe forever, like they once did.

But as I closed my eyes, the memory of their cold faces from five years ago flashed behind my eyelids.

Could I truly let go of the pain? Or was I just setting myself up to be broken all over again?