HIS REJECTED MATE'S SECRETS

Chapter Two: However Long It Takes

ZARA

He caught my arm.

Not rough. Not aggressive. He just caught it and I turned around ready for a fight and he immediately let go.

We both stood there breathing hard.

My heart was going so fast I was sure he could hear it. Wolves had good hearing. Alphas had better. I kept my face straight anyway.

The moon was coming through the trees. Just enough light to see his face.

He did not look like the powerful Alpha who had walked into that ceremony tonight. He looked like someone had knocked the wind out of him and he was still trying to get it back.

I hated that.

It was so much easier when he just looked arrogant.

Neither of us spoke for a moment. The bond was doing that thing it always did when we were close. Warm and pulling and completely annoying. My wolf had gone quiet. Not sad like before. Just watching. Waiting.

He spoke first.

"Why."

Just that. No anger. No Alpha voice. Just one quiet word from someone who genuinely did not understand.

"You already know why," I said.

"No. I really don't."

"Then think harder."

His jaw tightened. "Zara. You just rejected me in front of the whole pack. Under the Blood Moon." He stopped. "I think I deserve an actual answer."

"You don't deserve anything from me."

"You're my mate."

"I rejected the bond. So no. I'm not."

He looked at me like I was speaking a different language.

An Alpha who had never been told no in his life. Trying to understand a no that had an audience of three hundred people.

I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"You felt it," he said. "Don't stand there and tell me you didn't because I know you did. I felt you feel it."

"Feeling something and wanting it are two different things."

"So you don't want this."

"No."

"You don't want me."

"No."

Something moved across his face. Gone before I could figure out what it was.

"Why not."

"Because I just don't."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting tonight."

He was quiet. Studying me. And that was the problem with Kael up close, away from the title and the ceremony and all of it. He was just a person. A real one. Looking at me like my answer actually mattered to him.

I did not like that.

"Is it something I did," he said. "Something I said."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"I'm not. I genuinely want to know."

I looked at him and said nothing.

He took one step toward me.

I did not move back. I was not going to give him that.

But I felt it. That pull. Sharp and warm and impossible to ignore. We were close enough now that I could feel the heat coming off him and my wolf pressed forward so hard my hands actually shook.

I crossed my arms so he would not see.

"It's complicated," I said.

"Then uncomplicate it."

"I can't."

"Can't or won't."

Silence.

He looked at me for a long time. Then he nodded slowly like he had just decided something.

"Okay," he said.

I blinked. "Okay?"

"Okay." Then he looked at me. "You want the rejection to stand. It stands. I'm not going to force anything."

I waited for the but.

"But I'm not going anywhere either. This is a small town Zara. There is no avoiding me."

"I'm not trying to avoid you."

"Good." He took one step back. "Because I have questions. And I am very patient."

Then he turned and walked back into the trees.

Just like that.

I stood there and watched him go until the dark swallowed him completely.

Then I let out the breath I had been holding for I don't know how long.

My wolf made a soft sound inside me.

I know, I told her. I know.

I had prepared for anger. I had spent three months building a plan around an angry Alpha. Loud. Demanding. Throwing his title around like a weapon.

I had not prepared for calm.

I had not prepared for patient.

I have questions. However long it takes.

I turned and walked down toward the valley and tried very hard to ignore what I was feeling.

It was not the bond this time.

It was something worse.

It was the feeling that I had just made things a lot more complicated than I planned.

My wolf was pacing inside me.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I get it, I told her.

She did not stop.

I reached the old cave and pushed the door open. My grandmother used to come here alone when she needed to hide things from the pack. Nobody else knew about it. She had shown me when I was sixteen and told me to never tell anyone.

I sat down and put my head in my hands.

Okay. Think.

The plan was still good. The rejection was done. Public. Binding. The whole pack saw it.

That part worked.

What I did not plan for was him being like that.

I thought he would be angry. I thought he would storm off and let his pride do the rest. That was how his father worked. You challenge an Alpha and they pull back and pretend they don't care.

Kael did not do that.

He followed me into the dark. He let go of my arm the second he grabbed it. He asked why without any threat in his voice.

And then he said he was patient.

I pressed my fingers against my eyes.

Patient.

I got up and went to the old shelves. My grandmother had left things here. A small leather book, worn and brown. I had been looking for it for weeks.

I sat back down and opened it.

Her handwriting was on the first page.

If you are reading this then you already know. And if you already know then you understand why it cannot happen.

I did know.

I just did not expect it to hurt like this.

I closed the book.

Patient, he had said. However long it takes.

I almost laughed.

This was Silverpine. Population eight hundred. One grocery store. One diner. One of everything.

There was nowhere to hide here.

Okay Zara. One step at a time.

I tucked the book under my arm and walked out.

Tomorrow the whole town will wake up talking about tonight.

And they would talk. Oh they would absolutely talk.

I started walking home and didn't look up at the Blood Moon, still burning through the trees above me.

I already knew it was there.