Chapter 19
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*Corey’s POV*
“Why are you all staring at me?” I frowned, not looking towards the trio I was asking.
I did not have to glance over to know their eyes were on me because I could feel it, their gazes practically burning into my back. Trent, Kaden and Sean were around me in the living room while I focused on the TV.
When I came back earlier, Sean had apologised for snapping at me in the kitchen that morning. Hayley and Izabella had spoken to me for the first time since we left the previous morning to ask what I had been asking Jayden in the kitchen when Sean walked in. Apparently, Jayden had told them we were just talking.
I didn’t tell them, not just because I did not want to get it into their heads that I cared what happened to him or because I didn’t want them to ask him about it too – he clearly didn’t want to talk about it – but because my not telling them resulted in them continuously pestering me. That meant they were talking to me again.
I apologised to them for what I said to Finn, they brushed it off saying they weren’t the ones I should apologise to. I had no intention of speaking to that human again. Hell, I hoped we never saw each other again. The thought of him riled me up.
Jayden had been out with him all day while I stayed home, the others coming and going. It seemed like Izabella and Hayley had returned to talking to me as normal. They could never really stay mad at me.
“We’re not…” Kaden mumbled in reply to my question.
“Yes, you are.” I shot a quick glare his way.
“Well, it’s just that this is… new,” Sean said.
“What is new?” I asked, a little more annoyed but still not glancing away from the screen as I played Grant Theft Auto.
“You. Here. At night. Not drunk… It’s a little weird,” Kaden said.
I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t drink that much.”
“You’ve become an alcoholic within the past week, Corey,” Hayley said, lying down on the carpet beside me.
“No, I haven’t. I was just letting loose… But I’m not going to anymore because I can’t take the hangovers.” I shuddered remembering the nausea I had been flooded with the past few days.
The worst part was not even having the complete memory of how I became so drunk while suffering through the next day. It just seemed like a waste of time.
“That’s it? Or… is it because it’s making you want to spend more time with a certain someone?” Izabella winked at me.
I gave her a side glance in confusion as everyone chuckled at her words before smirking.
“Are you marked yet? When am I becoming a Godfather?” I asked.
Her smile dropped, her cheeks turning crimson along with Sean’s as everyone laughed.
“Shut up,” she muttered, avoiding her mate’s eyes as he looked over at her. They were cute.
I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped when a voice caught my ear that caused my wolf to stir and my heart to begin racing. It was Jayden, outside with Finn.
My jaw clenched, grinding my teeth together. I didn’t like that guy. Human or not.
“It’s fine,” I heard Jayden’s insistent voice, hushed voice.
“Are you sure you’re alright? It looks pretty bad, Jay. I really think you should go to hospital –”
Hospital?
I got up, tossing the controller into Trent’s hand.
He was hurt? What happened?
“Corey –” Izabella followed me to the door as I swung it open.
“Hello,” I greeted without a smile towards Finn.
Jayden’s back was facing me, Finn in front of him with an old white Toyota behind the human.
“Hey…” Finn gave a crooked, uneasy half-smile.
I wanted to punch him just for that look and knew the reaction was unreasonable. He was being friendly, even though he clearly felt uncomfortable with me, and had not done anything to provoke me.
Except that.
His hand was on Jayden’s arm, barely a foot of distance between them.
I had the strong urge to rip his hand from my mate but didn’t move, forcing myself to stay put even though the intense possessiveness made my blood heat, and my hands shake as I balled them. I wasn’t going to play into the way the mate bond was messing with my head. I did not care who he was with.
The intensity was getting worse though. Every day of the trip. It had to be the proximity. I just had to handle it until we got to the peaks.
“Uhm… I’ll see you, Jay. Seriously, get checked out.” Finn smiled at Jayden who nodded.
Finn hesitantly looked over at me. He smiled at Izabella who stood behind me before he got into the car and drove off.
“‘You should go to hospital’. Why?” I asked, quoting Finn from earlier.
Jayden didn’t respond or turn around, instead fidgeting with what I assumed was his phone.
“Jay?” Izabella called out.
“No reason. He’s just overreacting,” Jayden shrugged.
He tried to run by me, almost a blur as he bolted towards the house. I caught him easily though, my hand grabbing his shoulder to stop him as the other reached for his chin, turning his face to mine.
I heard Izabella gasp beside me once we saw the damage. I didn’t even react.
His left eye was swollen, a purple bruise forming around it that extended onto his cheek. His lower lip was bloated too, with a fresh cut across it that seemed to have been cleaned up as some yellow ointment covered it.
“Guys? Everything alright or did you all get killed?!” Trent joked as he walked out. He took in a sharp gasp once he saw Jayden. “Oh my God, Jayden. What happened to your face?” he stepped over to have a look.
“Nothing,” Jayden tried to push my hand away from his face, but I grabbed his wrist.
“Who?” I asked.
I wanted to kill whoever had done that to him. He didn’t heal fast; he didn’t look like he could put up a fight. Whoever hit him must have known that. Why would anyone hurt him anyway? He was kind to everyone and too timid to start a fight.
The state of his face left me feeling pissed, so angry and I could feel my hands shake as my wolf began to urge me to shift. He was noisy in my mind, his anger making me light-headed while my blood boiled. I needed to find out who to kill.
“No one,” he mumbled.
I opened my mouth to continue to push, but shut it as the gears in my mind began turning through the anger.
He might have been an Omega, but he was still much stronger than a human. So, whoever had hurt him was supernatural. Likely a werewolf given how bad he looked. Since he was not just telling us what happened, it wasn’t a robbery or anything because he would not need to hide that. He did not seem too shaken by the injuries or what happened. Instead, he was just trying to hide it.
If he had been attacked by someone, it should have left him traumatised, rattled at least.
He was calm.
Could that mean that he knew the person that had beat him up?
“Jayden,” I spoke slowly, carefully.
“No one,” he repeated.
‘Is it one of them? The people you mentioned this morning?’ I linked him.
He didn’t look at me, but the way his body tensed beneath my hand was the answer. It was. They were following him?
‘You know they’ll only come back, Jayden,’ I pushed.
‘Why do you care?!’ he snapped, glaring up at me.
“Could you two stop linking?” Hayley asked.
I decided to ignore her.
‘Who was it?’ I asked calmly, trying to get him to understand that I wasn’t asking to hurt him.
I didn’t really have any idea why I wanted to know so badly. In the back of my mind, I knew I wasn’t supposed to be behaving the way I was; I knew I didn’t care what happened to him. But I could barely think about anything through the rage I was feeling at the moment.
I wasn’t asking to use it against him. I wanted to hurt them. I needed to.
‘Tell me, Jayden.’
His eyes glassed over and it seemed to become harder for him to breathe as we stared at each other. His shoulder raised and lifted under my grip until he finally broke eye contact.
‘My father.’
Before I could even process the word, he shoved my hands away and ran inside.
I turned to look at the house. What?
“Corey! What did you do?!” Hayley yelled at me.
“Nothing. I-I swear.”
I began walking towards the house to go after Jayden, but Kaden shoved me back.
“No! Stay away from him!” he glared at me before he followed his best friend.
“You’ve clearly done enough, Corey,” Sean said.
I opened but then closed my mouth, unable to defend myself as I was still focused on Jayden.
Had I heard wrong? His father? How…? Why?
I ran my hands through my hair and balled my fist in confusion as tried to understand what had happened.
“Corey, what did you say to him?” Hayley asked.
“Nothing, I promise. I just asked him who it was. Why…?”
Why did I even care?
It felt like something in my mind snapped.
Why did I care?
Why did my blood feel so rushed, why was I so angry, why couldn’t I calm down? Well, I didn’t want to.
What was happening to my head and body? I still could barely think beyond the concern. My body felt so heated, practically shaking with adrenaline that urged action, pushing me to find the ‘father’. Anger, confusion and the images of Jayden’s face were clouding my mind. I didn’t know where the mate-fuelled concern for him started and where it became my own worry, because there was no end to it.
I needed to clear my head somehow.
“Corey?”
I lifted my hands to stop Hayley as she advanced towards me and then just turned and began to walk away from the house.
Maybe a run through the woods after shifting would bring me back to normal. Or some beer…
—–
*Jayden’s POV*
“Jay, what did you say?” Kaden asked as he shut our room’s door after walking in.
“What did I say?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, Corey wouldn’t lie to Hayley. So, what did you say to him that made you have to escape him?” Kaden asked.
“Do I have to say anything?” I asked, hoping to brush what happened off as another of Corey’s incidents.
“Jayden,” Kaden said, not falling for it.
I shrugged with a sigh. I was tired, my face and eye pounding.
“I just told him who… yeah. And I didn’t want any more questions, so I left,” I mumbled.
“You told him who beat you up? You know the person who did this to you?” he asked, shocked.
I didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want him to worry or freak out about it. Once that can of worms was opened, I wouldn’t be able to close it. It happened a long time ago… and that day. I wasn’t sure how my father had found me. Or… had he ever really left?
That thought made a cold shiver run down my spine.
“Jayden.” Kaden’s voice drew me out of my head.
“Yeah…” I mumbled.
“Who?” he had the same expression of anger on his face as Corey had when he realised that I knew who beat me up.
“No one.”
I didn’t want trouble. No more. Corey hated that I was an Omega, I didn’t want to give him more motivation for that by looking like I was too weak to handle my father. I would just talk to Joe when we got home, and he would take care of it like he had last time.
Not to mention, if I told Kaden I would have to tell him everything I had been keeping from him for most of our lives.
“So, you’ll tell Corey. Corey, Jayden,” Kaden’s jaw clenched as he said the name. “But you won’t tell me? And we’ve been brothers since our parents were born.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
“No, I just don’t want trouble or worrying and that’s exactly what telling you will get,” I said.
He tilted his head and gave me a flat stare.
“And telling Corey won’t get you trouble? You know he left, right?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but paused and then shook my head.
“I-I didn’t think he would care,” I said.
Why did he leave? He didn’t know what my father looked like. Maybe he was just planning to take a walk and ran into Finn and me when he opened the door. He probably wanted to go out drinking again. He wouldn’t go out of his way to find who I had talked about; he wouldn’t care about it.
Kaden shook his head. “Who was it, Jayden?” he asked.
Was there a point in not telling him? I’d barely been able to hide it from him, to begin with.
“My… uh… My dad,” I muttered.
We were silent and I would bet he was wondering if he had heard wrong.
“Your… But he died,” Kaden said.
“No… Joe just told everyone he did.” I held my breath as I clasped my hands together. “The truth is, Alpha banned him from the pack. I mean, after he found out about it, and-and I convinced him not to kill my father.”
“Found out… about what?” he asked.
“Well…” I had never told anyone about what my father was actually like when I was growing up, even though Kaden and I had been friends our entire lives.
My father had made threats that made me keep quiet about it, and eventually, I became ashamed of how weak I was when I realised how important strength was to werewolves. I figured he had reason to be as angry as he was about his son being an Omega. I figured I deserved the disappointment and shame.
“You’re telling me this isn’t the first time?” he whispered.
“It-it was a long time ago, it doesn’t matter,” I said, quickly.
“It doesn’t matter?! So, all those times you never showed up to class… And-and Joe being so protective of you… You were being abused? And you never told us?! Not me? Not Bentley? Not Layla?” he asked. “Wait… When you broke your arm –”
“I-I wasn’t – um –” I didn’t like calling it that. “You didn’t have to know. We were young and I was fine. I am – I am fine,” I said.
He scoffed. “Right.”
I chewed my lip looking around, suddenly feeling quite suffocated as my eyes began to fill up.
I wished he had hit me where no one could see like he used to. The pain didn’t bother me as much as the anxiety that came with being singled out as the weak one. I didn’t want to burden anyone. I didn’t want them to feel obligated to look out for me and I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me.
“How long?” he asked. “How long has he done it, Jayden?” he repeated when I didn’t answer.
“Since I was little,” I muttered. “Why does it even matter? He’s gone. Joe took care of it.”
“It matters. We could have protected you!” he said.
“You were children too and I don’t need all of you constantly trying to protect me! I can take care of myself!” I snapped. “Back off, alright? I might be an Omega, but I’m not a helpless child anymore. I don’t need you to babysit me or be there every time someone beats me up, Kaden,” I said.
“‘Someone’?” he asked in disbelief. “He’s your father. And I’m not saying you’re a helpless child, Jayden. We would have helped you because that’s what friends do. Not to mention, since I’m going to be Alpha, it’s my duty to protect everyone in my pack,” he said.
“Well, don’t. Protect the rest of the pack, alright? I’m fine,” I said.
“Yeah. I can see that,” he said, walking towards the door.
“Where are you going?” I sat up my eyes.
“You think I’m just going to let you let him get away with this? I’m going to look for him,” he said.
“Kaden, no. I’ll talk to Joe when we –”
He was already gone.
I groaned in frustration while running my hands over my face. Why the hell couldn’t he just let it go? It was my problem. Not his or anyone else’s for that matter. I could handle it myself. I had always handled it myself until Joe got rid of him.
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