HIS REJECTED MATE'S SECRETS

Chapter Three: The Morning After

~ ZARA ~

I did not sleep.

I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling until the sky outside my window went from black to dark blue to that pale grey that meant morning was coming, whether I was ready for it or not.

I was not ready.

I got up anyway.

The healer's room was at the back of the house. That was how it had always been in our family. The front of the house was for living. The back was for work. My grandmother set it up that way and my mother kept it that way and now it was mine.

I started doing what I always did in the morning. Checking my herb jars. Restocking what was low. Grinding what needed grinding. My hands knew what to do even when my brain was somewhere else entirely.

And my brain was very much somewhere else.

I kept replaying it. The way he said however long it takes. The way he just turned and walked back into the dark like he had all the time in the world. Like he was not bothered at all.

I was scared. I was extremely scared. And I was angry at myself for being scared.

I pressed down harder on the herbs I was grinding.

Then the front door opened.

I did not even have time to turn around before I heard her voice.

"Okay I need everything. Right now. Every single detail. Starting from the beginning and do not skip anything."

Leah.

She appeared in the doorway of the healer's room with two coffees, her hair still messy from sleep, wearing a hoodie that was clearly not hers. She looked like she had run here the second she woke up.

Knowing Leah she probably had.

"Good morning to you too," I said.

"Zara." She gave me a look. "You rejected the Alpha at the Blood Moon ceremony last night in front of literally everyone in this town. Good morning is not what we are doing right now."

She put one of the coffees in front of me and sat down on the wooden stool in the corner like she owned it. Which honestly she practically did. She had been sitting on that stool since we were twelve years old.

I picked up the coffee. Took a long sip.

"Thank you for the coffee," I said.

"Do not change the subject."

"I'm not changing anything. I'm just drinking my coffee."

"Zara."

I looked at her. Leah was looking back at me with that face she made when she was two seconds away from losing her mind. Wide eyes. Mouth slightly open. The face of someone who had approximately one thousand questions and no patience whatsoever.

I almost smiled.

Almost.

"What do you want to know," I said.

"Everything. Were you scared?"

"No."

"Were you nervous?"

"A little."

"Did he say anything?"

I hesitated.

Leah caught it immediately. She always caught everything. That was the problem with best friends who had known you since you were eight years old.

"He said something," she said. "What did he say."

"It doesn't matter."

"It absolutely matters. Zara what did he say."

I set my coffee down. "He said he was patient."

Leah stared at me.

"He said he was patient," she repeated slowly.

"Yes."

"Kael Drayden. The Alpha. Said he was patient."

"That is what I just said."

She was quiet for a second. Which for Leah was basically a miracle.

Then she said "Okay that's actually kind of terrifying."

"I know."

"Because an angry Alpha you can deal with. An angry Alpha makes noise and throws his weight around and you know exactly where you stand. But a patient one." She shook her head. "A patient one just waits until you make a mistake."

"Thank you Leah. Very helpful."

"I'm just saying."

"I know what you are saying."

She picked up her coffee. Looked at me over the top of it. "Are you okay?"

And there it was. Underneath all the drama and the questions and the zero filter that was just Leah. The real question. The one that actually mattered.

"I'm fine," I said.

"That was too fast."

"Leah."

"You always say you're fine too fast when you are not fine."

I opened my mouth to say something and then closed it again because she was not wrong and we both knew it.

"I will be fine," I said. "That's the most honest answer I have right now."

She nodded slowly. Accepted that. That was the other thing about Leah. She knew when to push and when to let something sit.

We drank our coffee quietly for a minute.

Then someone knocked at the front door.

I went to open it. It was Old Gerald from the east side of town. Seventy years old, pack member his whole life, came to me every few weeks for his joint medicine. He was holding his wrist and looking embarrassed about it.

"Burned myself on the stove," he said. "Stupid thing."

"Come in Gerald."

I sat him down and cleaned the burn and wrapped it properly. He talked the whole time the way he always did, about the weather, about his garden, about his neighbor's dog. Normal. Comfortable. The kind of conversation that reminded me why I loved this work.

Then right as I was finishing he said it.

"Heard about last night."

I kept my hands moving. "Did you."

"The whole town heard about last night." He paused. "Kael came by the east side this morning already. Early. Doing his patrol rounds like nothing happened."

I tied off the bandage. "There you go Gerald. Keep it dry for two days."

"He looked fine," Gerald said. Like he was answering a question I had not asked. "In case you were wondering. He looked completely fine."

I smiled at him. "I wasn't wondering."

Gerald gave me a look that said he did not believe me one single bit. Then he thanked me and left.

I closed the door.

Leah was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised.

"I wasn't wondering," I said before she could open her mouth.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

She smiled. "I was about to say I have to get to work." She pushed off the wall and picked up her bag. "But call me later. I mean it Zara. Call me."

"I will."

She hugged me quick and tight and then she was gone.

I stood in the quiet of the healer's room and let out a long breath.

Okay. Good. Normal morning. Normal work. Everything was fine.

Then someone knocked on the door again.

I opened it.

Kael.

He was standing on my porch in the morning light looking annoyingly normal. Jacket. Dark jeans. Like he had not spent half the night chasing me through a forest. He was holding something in his hand.

My bag. The small brown one I always carried to ceremonies. I had not even noticed I left it.

"You dropped this," he said.

I looked at the bag. Then at him. "You could have sent someone."

"I was already in the area."

"We live in a town with eight hundred people Kael. You are never just in the area."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Close though.

I reached out and took the bag. Our fingers did not touch. I was very careful about that.

"Thank you," I said. "Goodbye."

I started to close the door.

"Zara."

I stopped.

He had not moved from the porch. He was just standing there looking at me with that same calm expression from last night. Like he had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do and waiting was the easiest thing in the world for him.

"How did you sleep," he said.

The question was so simple and so normal that it caught me completely off guard.

"Fine," I said.

"Liar."

My jaw tightened. "Excuse me."

"I didn't sleep either." He said it quietly. Matter of fact. No drama around it. Just the truth dropped simply like it weighed nothing. "Just so you know."

I did not know what to say to that.

He stepped just slightly closer. Not much. Just enough. And the bond hit me like it always did when he was near, warm and pulling and completely impossible to ignore. I felt it move through my chest and down my arms and I held onto the door frame with one hand without meaning to.

He looked at my hand on the door frame.

Then he looked at me.

And he smiled.

Not arrogant. Not triumphant. Just a real quiet smile that did something to my chest that I was absolutely not going to think about.

"Have a good day Zara," he said.

Then he turned and walked down the porch steps and back toward the main road without looking back.

I stood there for a moment longer than I should have.

Then I went back inside and closed the door and leaned against it and told my wolf very firmly to calm down.

She did not calm down.

I pushed off the door and went back to the healer's room.

That was when I saw it.

One of my grandmother's old herb jars. The tall green one that sat on the third shelf. The one that had been sitting in the same spot since before I was born.

It was on the floor.

Broken clean in two.

I stood there and looked at it. Leah had not gone near that shelf. Gerald had not gone near that shelf. And I had not touched it all morning.

I crouched down and picked up the two pieces.

The break was clean. Too clean. Like something had pressed on it from the inside and split it open without knocking it off the shelf first.

I stayed squatted on the floor for a long moment.

Then I set the pieces down carefully and stood up and looked around the room slowly.

Everything else was exactly where it should be.

But something felt different.

Something felt like I was not the only one who had been in this room this morning.

And whatever it was had wanted me to know it.