Page 5 of Betrayed Mate (Rejected Fate Trilogy #1)

CHAPTER FIVE

I tried clenching my hands, but it took a moment for my body to respond to the command. My muscles burned and ached like I’d worked out harder than ever before. How the hell was I supposed to fight him when I couldn’t even make a solid fist?

“Is your pack searching for you?” Ryker’s nose wrinkled, and he spoke slowly, like I might not understand.

The question had my heart sinking. No one was searching for me…including Briar. If I didn’t locate her soon, I might not have any family or pack left. However, even crying seemed to require too much energy right now.

Ryker ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it. "Don’t tell me that your pack kicked you out after what the entitled douchebag did to you the other night. I find that hard to believe, given how the alpha and the other pack members shielded you.”

Reid.

He’d rejected me and embarrassed me, and he’d been there when my pack was killed, though I hadn’t seen him murder anyone personally. If Dad hadn’t alpha-willed Briar and me to get help… I stopped, unable to continue that train of thought, but betrayal and loss swelled inside me.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I tried to sit up. Mud squished between my butt cheeks and clung to my back.

Fuck.

I was naked. I’d shifted to save Briar, and I didn’t have any clothes with me.

I splatted back into the mud, unable to stand, and cried even harder. I’d fallen so far in so many different ways. Near packless, weak, rejected, and now completely naked in front of Ryker Grimstone. I was about as low as I could go.

Ryker, possibly the biggest traitor ever to the wolf-shifter population, stared at me.

“Fuck,” he gritted out, reaching for one of my hands.

He gripped it tightly, helping me upright. I moved slower than a sloth.

The world spun around me, and the mud filled even more crevices, uncomfortable and cold. He released me, and I wobbled to and fro like the damn kids’ nursery rhyme.

He sighed loudly. “You’re worse off than I thought.”

Even though my heart remained steady, I understood the threat underneath those words. If he found me annoying, he’d kill me, and no one would ever know who’d done it or why.

I didn’t want to die. My sister was out there, and I had to find her. I swung my arm, aiming for his face but hitting air. My body tilted toward the ground.

Ryker growled and wrapped an arm around my waist, his skin’s warmth searing me. He hoisted me up and dragged me several feet back, my heels leaving trails in the mud.

“If you’re gonna kill me—” I started.

“If you keep this up, I might , ” he spat. Sharp edges of thick bark pressed into my back and helped aid my balance as I sat against a tree. “I should’ve known helping another wolf shifter would be more of a pain in my ass than it was worth.” He turned away and stalked to the gushing river.

I breathed in, smelling air thick with moisture. Drops of rain hit the ground and my legs. Of course it was raining. That sounded about right with my luck.

A shiver racked my body, and a coldness I’d never experienced before crept into my bones. If not for the faint warmth of my sister’s pack link connection in my chest, I’d be physically and emotionally numb.

A part of me wanted to call out to Ryker. I didn’t want to be alone—especially naked and alone—but I kept my mouth shut. He had made it clear he’d have no problem killing me, and I could manage on my own. I needed to get my bearings, and then I’d figure out something .

He trudged away from the river. I expected some sort of emotion to hit me, even if it was sadness, but I remained propped against the tree, blinking, waiting for nothing to happen.

Swallowing, I prepared myself to stand once again. I leaned forward, readying to get my feet underneath me, but the world spun faster. Nausea roiled in my stomach, and I begrudgingly leaned back against the trunk. I needed to eat and sleep before I could do anything to defend or protect myself.

I scanned the area for berries, but my eyelids grew heavy. Each time I blinked, my eyes were harder to open…until I couldn’t. Against my brain’s protests, I passed out.

My body shook like I was experiencing an earthquake.

“Wake up,” Ryker said gruffly. “You need to eat and drink something so you can get your strength back.” He shook me again.

My eyes popped open, and bile inched up my throat. “Stop,” I muttered. “Going to throw up.” I swallowed, hoping to maintain some remnant of dignity.

He jerked his hand back like he’d been electrocuted. My body stilled, and my stomach eased a little.

After a long moment, he exhaled. “You good now?”

Good was a stretch, but I wasn’t up for talking. “A little.”

He held out a bottle of water and a couple of sticks of jerky. The scent of dried, salted meat made my stomach rumble, and that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t eaten since before the mating ceremony. The lack of calories had caught up to me.

I snatched the meat and water from him and took a large bite. The food tasted like heaven, but I struggled to swallow it past my dried, parched throat.

With shaky hands, I unscrewed the bottle of water and took a large sip, dislodging the stuck meat. I coughed and took a deep breath.

“Okay, you seem to be getting better.” He rubbed his hands together and stepped back. His gaze drifted below my face.

I felt too awful to care, though I suspected, when I looked back on this moment, I’d be mortified.

Instead of answering him, I focused on the things that would most definitely keep me alive—food and water. Ryker was more of a threat than an ally, though the thought of what I should do next petrified me.

Reid would figure out, if he hadn’t already, that Briar and I weren’t killed along with the rest of our pack. He knew where I worked, so I couldn’t go back there. Once I found Briar, we’d need to restart from scratch, with no money, while trying to replace everything, including essentials like clothes and food. We could live in the woods for a while in animal form, but that wasn’t helpful when it came to making money, and wolf shifters weren’t meant to stay in either form too long.

If I could get to my feet, I could shift into wolf form and hunt. I needed to be strong enough that Reid couldn’t easily find me and finish me off.

My eyes burned, and I blinked and swallowed. I didn’t want to cry in front of Ryker.

Multiple pairs of footsteps hurried in our direction.

“I’m heading out.” Ryker gave me a semi-salute then spun around and headed in the direction of the footsteps.

I shoved the rest of the stick of meat into my mouth and chewed, hoping the energy would hit my system fast.

The world did steady around me as I took a large gulp of water. I tried to stand, but my feet slipped, and I landed back on my ass yet again, introducing mud into even more precarious places.

“Ry, what the fuck are you doing?” a raspy voice asked. “You took my breakfast and ignored me this morning. We thought something was wrong.”

“I didn’t ignore you.” Ryker sounded annoyed. “I told you I was handling something.”

“Something…or some one ?” a third man asked. “Because you’re definitely hiding another wolf shifter.”

“Bruh, no,” a fourth voice interjected. “Tell me you aren’t torturing someone else? We talked about this. We’re going to get a worse rep.”

My heartbeat quickened. The food and water were helping me. But then a lump formed in my throat. What if he’d drugged me and it hadn’t taken effect? But why would he do that? He’d given me some of his food.

I didn’t have a clear head.

“I’m not torturing anyone.” Ryker’s tone held an edge of warning. “We should head back.”

“Man, what don’t you want us to see?” The footsteps came closer, and I got onto my hands and knees to crawl away. My front side didn’t have as much mud on it, so I moved to the other side of the tree and rubbed mud all over it as well. It would reduce my scent and at least put a barrier between me and them, albeit a small one.

The three new people got close, and I cringed. There was no way I wouldn’t get caught.

Their musky scents floated in my direction, and I grabbed a medium-sized rock and placed it behind my back. If they decided to harm me, at least I had something to catch them by surprise. A split second could make a difference—me being alive right now was proof of that.

A man walked past the tree and froze. His head turned back, and he scanned me.

My breath caught, and I didn’t move. I didn’t have even a quarter of my strength back and couldn’t shift.

“Uh… What do we have here?” It was the man with the raspy voice scratching his head. He had tan and dark brown hair, which stuck up messily. His brows furrowed. The skin around his dark eyes tightened.

I hated being talked about as if I wasn’t a person, but I bit my tongue. I was outnumbered.

“Wait.” Someone hurried over. “Don’t tell me that Ryker has been keeping a female from us.” A new man with fair skin appeared on the other side of the tree trunk, his navy-blue eyes widening as he took in my state. He jerked his head back, his sleek, dirty-blond hair hitting his face. “Uh…what the hell? It’s cold out here. What do you think you’re doing, Ryker?”

Yeah, I could only imagine how I appeared to them. In fact, not knowing had to be for the best.

The blond, fair-skinned guy removed his black shirt from his body and bent down in front of me.

I flinched, unsure of his intent, but then he held it out to me. “Here, take it. You’ve got to be freezing.”

Even though the shirt wasn’t thick, it would cover me. I didn’t hesitate to slip it over my body. Mud clung to the fabric, but the material alone left me not quite as vulnerable. “Thanks,” I croaked and cleared my throat.

“Gage, she’ll be fine.” Ryker sighed from the other side of the tree. “That’s why I brought food and water. She was already doing better. We need to head into town.”

A third person appeared behind the blond, fair-skinned guy, a scowl on his dark-skinned brow. He closed his milk-chocolate-brown eyes in what had to be disgust. He ran a hand through his dark locks, pulling them away from his face. “Are you okay? Did Ryker do this to you?”

“Really, guys?” Ryker scoffed, appearing on the other side of the man with tan skin. “You think I would do that?”

“I don’t know.” The fair-skinned guy shrugged. “You’ve done some shit I never thought possible.”

“Fuck you, Gage,” Ryker spat.

The dark-skinned man with locs squatted beside me. His eyes were kind, and some of the tension I’d been carrying floated away. He touched my shoulder, making sure to keep his hand only on the shirt. “What happened to you? You’re a wolf shifter—why are you out here without a pack?”

His gentle words cracked a dam I hadn’t even realized I had. The numbness disappeared, and tears streamed down my face once more. I tried blinking to hold them back, but it only made them come faster and harder.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe here.” He squeezed gently. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

The irony of the Grimstone pack proclaiming they would protect me wasn’t lost on me. The last people they’d vowed to protect had been slaughtered. Still, this was a kindness I’d never expected to receive after what Reid had done to me, and that counted for something.

“Kendric, come on. Don’t make her promises we can’t keep.” Ryker glanced from me to Gage’s shirtless body and wrinkled his nose. “Guys, we don’t have time to protect someone else. We need to stay focused on finding out who killed the royal family and our pack.”

The tan-skinned man shook his head. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re not even close to the Ryker you were two months ago. We can’t leave her like this. Clearly she’s gone through something traumatic.”

Learning the four of them were at odds was surprising, especially since alpha power emanated from Ryker.

“I’m with Xander and Kendric.” Gage waved a hand in front of me. “We can’t just leave her like this.”

Enough talking about me like I wasn’t here.

“ She will be fine.” I pointed to myself. I wiped the tears away, streaking the mud on my hands. Lovely. I must look like a complete train wreck, but that was the least of my problems. “I need to be on my way.” I’d have to use my pack link to track down Briar, which would probably take a while. I doubted she’d return home. “Besides, I have to locate my sister.”

Wanting to get away from the four of them and all the attention, I braced one arm against the tree trunk and hid my other hand, which clutched the rock I’d kept behind my back, as I stood. My knees threatened to give out, but I managed to stand.

“Your sister?” Gage smiled. “Tell me more.”

Xander reached over and punched him in the arm. “Don’t start your shit right now. It’s not the time.”

“What happened to her?” Kendric didn’t acknowledge the other two.

That was an excellent question. “I…I don’t know. She hit her head on a rock and fell into the river, so I shifted back to human form to help her. She was unconscious, and we were floating down the river together. I managed to push her onto a big branch, but then I came close to drowning. I woke up on the side of the embankment here with Ryker standing over me.”

Terror and pain gripped my heart until I thought it would splinter. The agony was so intense that I wasn’t sure I could go on, but I didn’t have a choice.

“We can help you find your sister.” Kendric pressed his lips together. “I take it she’s not close enough to pack-link?”

I shook my head. “She feels faint, but she’s alive.”

Ryker grumbled. “I pulled her from the river, and now she’s fine. We don’t need to do anything else. Besides, even if we help her find her sister, it won’t change their situation.” Ryker lifted a brow my way. “Tell them you were forced to leave your pack.”

Gage tilted her head. “Why would they kick her out?”

Ryker chuckled darkly. “Because she was the one that prick alpha rejected.”

Rage slammed through my body. “My pack didn’t kick me out. Briar and I were running for help when we were herded into the river.”

“What do you mean, help?” Ryker’s demeanor changed, and he focused on me like I was suddenly the center of his world.

“My pack…” I needed to say it out loud. “They were murdered. Briar and I are the only two who got away.”

Ryker’s eyes glowed, and he leaned into my space.

I winced and adjusted my grip on the rock.