Chapter 6
*****
*Corey’s POV*
“Hayley!” I called out, jumping and waving to get her attention.
She threw the ball, and I caught it before throwing it through the hoop. Cheers erupted from around the pool.
“Wooo!” I tackled her under the water as Izabella and Trent swam over to us to celebrate.
We laughed as we surfaced with Hayley coughing.
“Winners!” Trent shouted as we high-fived.
“You beat us by one and that’s because Izzy was distracting one of our members,” Jason glowered at Sean from across the pool as he sat on the edge. I chuckled as Sean glared back at Jason through narrowed eyes.
“Nah, admit it: you just suck.” Trent shrugged.
We laughed.
Pretty much everyone that slept in the ballroom was in the backyard at the moment. Joe had granted us permission to have a party outside. The only downside was that if you were underage, all you were allowed to do was watch the older people drink.
I climbed out of the pool and began drying myself as everyone discussed what to do next. I was a little tired of the pool and there was someone I had not seen in a while who I wanted to find.
“Corey, you want a hotdog?” Sean asked as everyone settled on the next activity being lunch.
I shook my head.
“Nah, I’m going to head inside. I’ll see you guys later,” I said before I headed the house to get changed and find Samantha.
——
I tried to squeeze through a few people as I made my way to the fridge. Why the hell was the kitchen so damn crowded when the backyard was an entire forest?!
“Want anything?” I called out to Samantha.
“No, thank you. Just you.”
I chuckled as she kissed the back of my neck, making me stop heading towards the fridge and turn to her.
“Yeah? I think I would rather have some of you too.”
She giggled as I tugged her closer to kiss her.
“Let’s go to the ballroom. It’s empty right now…” she whispered once we parted.
“Sure,” I smiled removing my arm from Samantha’s waist and taking her hand before leading her out of the kitchen, forgetting about the drinks.
She was right, the ballroom was completely empty. It was probably because everyone was sick of being in there. We had barely stepped inside when she suddenly shoved me back against the wall as the door closed. I hadn’t been expecting it, so it wasn’t very hard for her to push me, and I ended up stumbling, my back hitting the wall as she stepped in front of me.
“Wha –?” I was confused, but leaned into it when she kissed me. “What are you up to?” I looked down at her, amused when she pulled away from me.
She smiled taking my hands and leading me to her mattress before she shoved me again causing me to fall back onto her mattress. I chuckled, grabbing her hand and pulling her down on top of me. As soon as her lips were within reach, I kissed her while trying to ignore the guilt and dread filling me as I ran my hands onto her waist.
What the hell was wrong with me?! I deepened the kiss hoping it would help, but it didn’t. Instead, a heavily dreadful and panicked feeling began to fill my chest making it hard to breathe. I heard the door open, but we both seemed to ignore it as we kept going.
Whoever was there would probably get the message. I assumed they had left when the door clicked again.
I tilted my face trying to get deeper into the kiss as I explored her mouth, but I couldn’t get into it. It was so hard. I couldn’t focus or enjoy it because of the overwhelming dread that filled every part of me. I didn’t know why I was feeling it, but I knew who it was linked to.
I broke away and opened my eyes, staring at the roof as Samantha kissed my jaw before lingering down to my neck, her hands running to the bottom of my shirt and lifting it over my head. She had already lost her shirt somewhere into it and I was trying to enjoy the feeling of her hands against my bare chest, but it just didn’t feel right and I really wanted her to stop touching me.
Why didn’t I want it? I did. I just felt so disgusted and guilty. So sick. Almost physically ill.
“Samantha, I can’t,” I forced the words out of my mouth as I pushed her away from me. I hated how relieved I felt when her hands had left my skin.
She looked at me questioningly as she sat back on my lap before frowning. I sat up beneath her.
“Is it Jayden?”
Of course, it was fucking Jayden! I wouldn’t be feeling anything if it wasn’t for that idiot! I sighed, running my hands through my hair in frustration as I fell back onto her bed.
I couldn’t have sex with her. Since I had found my mate, if I slept with her, I would mark her. Even without intending to. If I had done it before I met Jayden, the marking wouldn’t have been a problem because we could only mark another wolf once meeting our mates.
But now… we couldn’t because I didn’t want to mark her. Not at that moment, at least.
I liked her, but I wasn’t in love with her. Marking was forever, it needed something much deeper than ‘like’.
“Why don’t you just reject him?” She was a nice person, but I knew she was into me and that made her not like Jayden that much, which I was happy for. Not that I was creating a hate club… Though, right then, I was thinking wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“You know I can’t ‘just reject him’,” I said.
If I did and then marked her, his pull would come right back, and I would always feel it while he was free of the pull towards me. It was a punishment for rejecting one’s mate and marking someone else. Rejecting didn’t happen often at all. In fact, it was incredibly rare because mates were always perfect for each other.
In the very unlikely event that they weren’t, rejecting meant either living with that pull while being with someone else, or being single and never having sex for the rest of your life to avoid bringing the pull towards your original mate back.
I would have made him reject me, but he was an Amarelo. Amarelo-type wolves could not reject their mates.
Izabella was one too. If they could reject their mates, I knew Izabella would never even have given Sean a chance. She would have rejected him right after she found out, so maybe it was a good thing Amarelos could not reject their mates in her case. Not in mine.
“Then what are you going to do?” she asked. Well…
I reached for her waist to lift her off my lap and climbed to my feet while kissing her cheek.
“I’ll see you later.”
I grabbed my shirt, threw it on and left the ballroom following Jayden’s pull.
*Jayden’s POV*
I sighed listening to the silence around me. I was lying on the carpet in Alpha Joe’s office, my eyes closed. I wasn’t allowed upstairs and every other room on the first floor was occupied.
I had been having a good night until I saw them. I wanted to fetch my phone, but when I walked into the ballroom they were there. My mate and his girlfriend getting ‘busy’. Was she even his girlfriend? Did it matter?
All I knew was it hurt badly. It felt like a physical punch to my chest, and it seemed like it got worse each time I saw them together.
I was trying to fall asleep so I would stop thinking about him. It wasn’t working.
He was supposed to be my mate… Mates were supposed to be perfect… He was not supposed to hate me…
I sat up when the door swung open, quickly reaching for my sketchbook to pretend I had been drawing. I don’t know why, I guess I wanted to hide how down I was feeling from whoever would walk in.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Corey’s voice came before he even set foot into the office. He stopped at the door and frowned at me. His face never seemed anything but annoyed or angry when he looked at me.
I was confused. What?
“The witch Marcus was talking about; we’re going to meet her. We leave tomorrow, get packing.” Corey glared at me.
I got up.
“What witch?”
Where had Izabella come from?
“The one who’s going to fix this and give me my real mate,” Corey said.
I ignored the dread and hurt that filled me with his reply.
“Corey –” Izabella seemed rather angry.
“Fine,” I cut her off.
I was done.
If he hated me that badly, I wasn’t going to force him to love me or even attempt to. I didn’t need him.
What was a mate? Nothing. Not anymore.
I was being stupid when I thought my mate would be perfect. It had been a ridiculous fantasy of mine. I should have expected it to turn out the way it had.
Since I couldn’t change how things happened, maybe I could try to stop feeling so tortured. I could stop hoping that he would suddenly change his reaction to me, that he would suddenly want me. At least if he got what he wanted, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
“Jayden, you don’t have to –” Izabella began.
“Good. We leave at six tomorrow morning,” Corey said, not even glancing my way as he walked out.
I sucked in a breath and shut my eyes so Izabella wouldn’t notice how much I wanted to cry while also trying to calm down. Everything always ended badly. Even the one thing I was hoping, praying would not.
It was my fault. I didn’t know how, but I knew that much. I was what every bad thing that had happened had in common.
“Jayde –”
“I have to pack. Apocalypse Peaks are very far away,” I mumbled, steering her out of the room gently so I could lock it from outside. It had been locked when I arrived, but I knew the password to Joe’s office.
“Jay – Apocalypse Peaks?” she gasped. “Jayden –” she began.
“I’m fine. Great, Izabella. I’m great.” I forced a smile before I left for my room.
*****
Thank you for reading 🙂
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