Page 12 of Rejected Sold Mate (Crystal Creek Wolves #4)

I wanted to hate everything about Jayce, living in his house and his pack, but he made it really, really hard to.

Adjusting to life living with him was complicated, but I’d expected that. I’d also expected him to be so accommodating that it was easy to dislike him more than I already did, but as it turned out, Jayce was a freaking gentleman. Or at least as much of one as a pack Alpha could be.

After I’d gotten all too close to him that first day, he’d made sure to keep his distance.

He never cornered me or pushed me to be closer to him than I was comfortable with, even when I knew it would ease some of the discomfort of the mating bond if we let ourselves be close.

Jayce had pestered me about sharing a room at first, but after he’d come home from his pack business that night, he’d shown me the guest room I’d actually be staying in and hadn’t mentioned me moving into his room again.

He also made sure I was eating well, even when I lost track of time painting.

Without having to ask, he’d bring me plates of food, snacks, drinks, and whatever else I could want.

He went so far as to notice what I liked the most, and the fridge would be stocked with my favorite sparkling waters and yogurts the next day.

It was infuriating. I wanted to hate him so badly, but he gave me zero ammunition to work with. I was sure that had been his plan all along, but when I’d come in expecting a fight and there wasn’t one to be found, it left me reeling.

I wasn’t supposed to like anything about him, not after the way he’d treated me.

Buying me back from the rogues had made me feel like an object more than anything, but I wasn’t so dense that I couldn’t see that he’d saved my life by doing it.

It still didn’t erase the hurtful things he’d said, or that he hadn’t told me we’d formed a mating bond after that first night, and had instead left me dealing with the horrible, empty feeling all on my own.

Then there was the fact that my own Alpha had handed me over like I was nothing, making me feel once again like I was a thing, and not a person, and Jayce had been more than happy to accept.

They’d planned to swap ownership of me before I’d even arrived, and it hurt a lot worse than I thought it would.

While the sting of the cruel things Jayce had said was still there, it wasn’t as bad as the creeping realization that hardly anyone viewed me as anything but a burden. Even Jayce.

He had to, right? There was no way I’d be the sort of Omega he’d choose as a mate if given the choice. He accepted it with a lot more grace than other Alphas I was aware of, but that didn’t change the fact that I knew I’d never have been his choice if fate and biology hadn’t decided for him.

So no, I wasn’t going to fall for Jayce’s kindness, or how he welcomed me into his life and home without a single complaint.

I was safe, well taken care of, and never pestered for affection like some male wolves might have done, but in reality, I was still so, so alone.

Because things with Jayce weren’t real, at least not in the way I needed them to be.

I’d never imagined myself with a mate, but on the dark, lonely nights where I’d let myself dream, I’d dreamt of someone who wanted me of their own accord despite all the things wrong with me.

I’d never wanted to be shackled to a mate just because of a bond.

I wanted to be loved, maybe for the first time in my life, but now that I’d bonded with the Blacktide Alpha, that was never going to happen.

It would have been all too easy to drown in the grief of that thought, so I pushed it away and tried my best to ignore Jayce and all his little kindnesses. But the thing was, the more I tried to pretend that he didn’t exist, the more I noticed him despite myself.

I’d always been an early riser, but apparently so was Jayce.

I’d be sitting at the kitchen island, drinking coffee and scrolling aimlessly on my phone when he’d emerge from his bathroom, freshly showered, in nothing but a towel.

My reaction had been so strong, so instinctual that I’d spilled my entire coffee in my haste to get away from him.

Because if I hadn’t tried to get away, I’d have been all over him before I could have stopped myself.

It’d happened twice before I started taking my breakfast in my bedroom just to avoid how seeing him nearly naked made me feel.

As it turned out, Jayce had a vendetta against shirts, and his post-shower time wasn’t the only opportunity for me to see him shirtless.

It soon became clear that that was how he preferred to hang around the house, and since it was his home, I couldn’t even complain and tell him to cover up.

It made me jumpy, especially when he passed close to me.

Knowing I could reach a hand out and touch all that warm, bronze skin had heat building in my belly, and my cheeks flushing.

No amount of hate, real or manufactured, could make me not want him. It was a side effect of the mating bond, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier.

When he’d catch me staring and the corner of his mouth would pull up in a knowing smirk, I was always equal parts embarrassed and angry with myself.

I’d storm off and go for a walk, or go up to my loft studio, anything to distract me from how badly I desired the Alpha I was forced to share a space with.

After a few weird days, we developed a routine that helped to calm my nerves.

When it was convenient, we shared meals and talked about the most surface-level things—my work, his pack.

When we passed each other, there would be a brief greeting and not much else.

In the evening, if I was in front of the television in the living room, he’d often come join me regardless of what I was watching.

Otherwise, we stayed out of each other’s way mostly.

It was easier that way, because being close to him was driving me up the wall in the worst way.

But at least the mating bond had calmed down, and there was no more pain or homesickness.

Instead, it just felt like a tug towards Jayce at all times, and a wanting to touch him.

I could tell when that wanting got too intense for Jayce, because he would lay a hand on my shoulder as he spoke to me, the most casual connection possible by still feeding the desire brought on by the bond.

By the time the second week rolled around, things were changing once again.

Instead of being tense every time he passed by me, I found myself relaxing when he was near.

If he didn’t join me for TV in the evening, I’d seek him out on the porch where he tended to have a beer and listen to the nighttime creatures come out.

I’d sketch, he’d lie back in his seat with his eyes closed but not sleeping, and neither of us would speak.

The nearness was enough to satiate the restless feeling he caused in me.

Instead of knocking on the loft door and leaving food outside, Jayce would knock once and come in, never commenting on what I was working on, even if his eyes hungrily looked over my paintings like he was dying to see what I was up to.

Sometimes he’d even sit on the second empty stool, watching me work until I kicked him out.

It was too difficult to get work done when anyone was watching me, let alone Jayce, who I could feel at my back like a shadow.

In turn, I’d wander into the open kitchen or porch when he was on the phone about pack business, soaking in the warm, comforting sound of his voice without having to worry about him directing at me and making me lose my cool.

I’d study his face when he was absorbed in something else, fascinated with the sharp line of his jaw, the scruff that would be there if I caught him before his morning shower or late before bed, and the gray eyes that would shift from storm cloud to heather depending on his mood.

He’d caught me looking once or twice, but Jayce was trying so hard to make this thing between us easy that he didn’t even make me feel awkward for staring. Instead, he’d smile, nod, and continue what he was doing, even as butterflies took off in a flock in my belly.

It would be so, so easy to care for him and to let him do the same for me, but anytime that I thought on it for too long, the words he’d said to me at the bookstore came rushing back into my mind.

The vitriol and the disgust he had for me.

Jayce had apologized multiple times, but how could he have said those things if he didn’t feel that way at least a little bit?

If he wasn’t comfortable with being cruel to me to get what he wanted?

And just like that, my walls would go back up. I wasn’t ready to forget, and I might never be.

***

One thing I was sure of by the end of the second week was that I had to get out of the house, at least for a little while. I was an introvert by nature, but even I was feeling a bit cooped up after two entire weeks in Jayce’s house.

He’d tried to make it clear that I was a member of his pack and not Scott’s anymore, and while I’d been too nervous to look inside of myself at my pack bonds to see if they really had changed, I did believe him for the most part.

Jayce had no reason to lie about that. But I’d been such an outcast in the Shadowbay pack that there was a deep fear that it would be the same for the Blacktide pack.

Jayce assured me he’d never told anyone the unconventional way I’d become his mate, or about the rogues and the kidnapping, but that didn’t mean that my reputation from my old pack hadn’t filtered in anyway.