He Can't Reject Me: My Mate Doesn't Know I'm a Woman

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Kaigoso pov

I was still cursing under my breath when Ren finally spoke, calm the way he always was, patient in a way I clearly wasn't managing to be.

*He's swaying,* Ren said. Not an argument. Just a fact, laid out plain, the way he always handled things I was too furious to see clearly on my own.

He was right. I had no sympathy left in me for this sorry excuse of a mate the goddess had apparently decided I deserved, but I couldn't let him die before I'd even worked out what I was supposed to do with him.

I couldn't reject him either. My faith wouldn't allow that, however angry I was underneath it. I'd seen what rejection did to other wolves, watched it break grown men into something smaller and meaner than they'd been before, watched packs whisper about it for years after like the mark of it never faded. Rejection was frowned upon. Deeply. But so, apparently, was having a male rogue handed to you as a mate, and the goddess hadn't seemed too concerned about that particular judgment.

Fuck it.

"I'm taking you home," I said. "We'll figure the rest out once you don't look like you're about to fall over dead in front of me."

"Fat chance."

"Excuse me."

"You heard me." The knife still hadn't dropped. "I don't know you. Don't know your pack. For all I know you're planning to hand me straight to whoever's already looking for me, or worse, and I've stayed alive this long by never following an angry stranger anywhere just because he shouted at the sky a few times."

"That's insulting."

"It's accurate."

I didn't have a clever answer for that, mostly because it was accurate, and I hated that too. "Then stay out here and freeze. See how well that works out for you."

He didn't answer right away. I watched him run the calculation instead, cold and quick, weighing me against the rain, the rain against whatever was still hunting him, all of it against the plain fact that his legs had started shaking hard enough that standing upright was clearly costing him more than he wanted to show me.

"I'm not doing this because I trust you," he said finally.

"Wasn't expecting you to."

"I'm doing it because freezing out here gets me caught just as easily as anything else, and at least indoors I get to choose which threat I deal with first."

"Wonderful," I said. "Truly an honor."

He fell into step a few paces behind me anyway, knife still in hand, and neither of us said anything else for a while.

*****

I cursed the whole walk back. Quietly now, since I'd already used up my shouting for the night, but steady, old temple curses my mother used to swat me for repeating as a pup. It gave my hands something to do besides think too hard about the fact that he was still there, three steps behind me, refusing to fall even though every part of him looked like it wanted to.

"You always talk to yourself," he said, "or is tonight a special occasion."

"Don't."

"Just an observation."

"I don't want your observations right now."

A pause, long enough I thought he'd actually let it drop. "For what it's worth. Doesn't feel great being someone's disappointment before we've even exchanged names."

That landed somewhere I didn't have a ready answer for, so I didn't give him one. My anger hadn't burned off anywhere on that walk. I want to be clear about that. It would be easy to tell this part like the fury cooled and something softer took its place. It didn't. I was still furious. Still turning the unfairness of it over and over like a stone I couldn't put down. Five years of waiting, and this was what I got. I wasn't going to forgive the goddess for that over one wet walk through the trees, and I wasn't going to forgive him either for existing at the center of it, whatever that wasn't fair of me to feel toward him specifically.

I just also wasn't willing to let him die out here. Both things sat in me at once, ugly and true, the whole way home.

"This is it," I said, when the house finally came into view, small and dark against the tree line, tucked back far enough from any path that most of the pack forgot it was even out this close to the border. I liked it that way. Fewer questions. Fewer visitors. "Don't touch anything you don't need to touch. Don't ask questions I'm not in the mood to answer tonight."

"Charming host."

"I didn't invite you here to be charming. I invited you here because I refuse to let something the goddess handed me die of exhaustion three feet from my own door. That's the only reason. Don't mistake it for anything warmer."

"Wasn't planning to." His voice carried the same edge mine did, tired and sharp, like he resented needing the roof as much as I resented offering it. "I'm not under any illusions about what this is."

Good, I thought, and hated how little comfort the word actually gave me.

I shoved the door open, lit the single lamp, and pointed at the washroom without looking at him directly. "Shower's through there. Towels on the shelf. I'll find something dry that isn't three sizes too big on you."

He didn't move right away. Stood there dripping onto my floor, staring at the washroom door with the same wary calculation he'd given me out in the clearing.

"I'm still angry," I said, before he could ask. "In case that wasn't obvious. This doesn't fix anything. I don't understand what the goddess is doing. I don't like what she's done. I'm not pretending otherwise just because I handed you a towel."

"Wasn't expecting you to." He held my stare a beat longer, something unreadable behind those sharp blue eyes. "Doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the roof. Doesn't mean I trust you either."

"Good," I said again, and meant it exactly as little as it sounded like I did.

He disappeared into the washroom without another word. I sat down hard in the chair by the cold hearth, dragged both hands down my face, and let the last of the fury sit there, unresolved, refusing to burn itself out just because the night was ending.

*You're still angry,* Ren said. Not a question.

"I'm aware."

*Good. Stay that way a while longer. Neither of you is ready for anything past that yet.*

For once, I didn't argue with him.