Page 22 of Rejected Sold Mate (Crystal Creek Wolves #4)

I could feel him swell as his orgasm approached.

He pushed inside of me one last time, his hips flush against mine, and that was what pushed me over the edge.

I cried out, my walls fluttered, squeezing around him, and a wave of pleasure unlike anything I'd ever felt before washed over me, and then kept going.

It could have been seconds, or hours, I wasn't sure, simply lost in everything that Jayce was wringing out of my body.

When my climax finally ebbed, Jayce was shaking, and his eyes were locked onto mine, his knot throbbing. My mouth was dry, but I forced, “Come for me, Alpha.”

His lips curled back, and his eyes flashed like molten silver.

Jayce roared as he came, his seed hot inside of me, painting my inner walls as the aftershocks of my orgasm made me shiver.

His knot swelled, locking us together as we caught our breath, Jayce slowly removing my legs from his shoulders so he could roll us onto our sides.

I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck, feeling boneless, the relief staggering. Jayce had driven my heat back, at least for the moment, and it was like I could finally think, finally breathe again.

“Are you okay?” he asked, hesitant. Jayce, full of Alpha bravado, was rarely hesitant, and it made me feel warm inside that he could be that way with me.

I was well aware that all the soft, affectionate emotions coursing through me were likely the after-sex feel-good hormones, but none of that mattered in the moment.

“So much better,” I admitted as Jayce ran his hands up and down my back. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t make it easy on me,” he laughed softly, brushing the hair away from my face. “Taking off into the woods and all. You know if you had asked me, I’d have helped you the moment you knew your heat was coming on.”

“I know,” I sighed. “It’s just…things were good between us, and I was so sure that this would mess things up again.”

“Never be afraid to come to me for help, Rhie. It was killing me to know you were in pain and going through it alone.” Then, quieter. “Are you happy here, Rhie? With my pack?”

It wasn’t a hard question to answer, but it was a hard truth for me to admit nonetheless. Maybe because I was so used to everything unraveling whenever I started to get comfortable. But in the afterglow of my heat, with Jayce knotted inside me, I found that I wanted to be truthful with him.

“Yes. I’m as surprised as anyone, but…yes.”

I could feel his smile against my hair, “Good. Rest, Omega. The night isn’t over.”

***

I slept for less than an hour before the hunger returned.

By then, Jayce’s knot had gone down, and he was ready for round two.

When I reached for him, he came happily, and my heat was once again burned out by the touch of Jayce’s hands, his body, his lips, and his deep voice that seemed to curl around my heart when he spoke.

Afterwards, we lay tangled in the sheets again, this time with my back to his front. Jayce peppered kisses on my shoulders, but he was quiet. With the brain fog gone, I could tell something was up.

“Is something on your mind?”

He shifted behind me, raising up on his elbow so he could look down at my face. “Can I ask you something?”

I felt a tinge of warning, but I wasn’t in any position to deny him anything. Not after how much he’d helped me. “Go ahead.”

“Why were you considered an outcast in Scott’s pack? If you aren’t ready to tell me, I understand, but I’m going to have to know eventually…as your Alpha and your mate.”

I stiffened, adrenaline dumping into my system, the urge to run away hitting me like it always did when that subject came up. But I was naked, in Jayce’s arms, and there was no point in running. This was always going to come up, so there was no reason for me to stay silent.

If he wanted nothing to do with me afterwards, I would just have to accept it.

“This is…really hard for me to talk about,” I hedged, but he held me closer, silently supporting me, and it was enough to make me continue.

“I guess for it to make sense, I have to go back in time a little. My father was the Alpha of my old pack, but he was old and sick even when I was a kid, and he hated it. The pack council wanted him to step down and have his Beta take over, but my father was greedy and stubborn.”

Jayce hummed in disapproval. “Two of the worst possible traits for an Alpha to have,”

“Yes,” I agreed, “A council meeting was called for a week in the future, and the writing was on the wall—if he didn’t step down willingly, his Beta was going to challenge him, and my father knew he’d be killed.

But he was still too prideful to step down, and in a panic, he made a terrible decision.

Our family has magic in our bloodlines, but it’s stronger in the women than it is in the men.

But my father managed to use his little bit of magic and warp it into something darker.

” I sucked in a breath, tears forming in my eyes.

The next part was almost impossible to say, but I was too close to the finish line to stop.

“In order to turn magic like that dark, a blood sacrifice is needed. He sacrificed a low—ranking wolf that he thought no one would miss, and before the murder was discovered, the council meeting commenced. My father tried to use his newfound dark magic to sway the council into letting him remain as Alpha, but he had no experience with those sorts of spells. His magic spiraled out of control and…and…killed half of the council. His Beta killed him before things could get worse, and my mother and I have been ostracized ever since.”

“Jesus. Rhie…”

I had to keep going. If I stopped, I’d never be able to finish.

“I was just a kid, but it didn’t matter.

I was guilty by association. My mother and I lived alone as rogues on the edge of the pack territory, and I went to human school to avoid any of the other shifters my age.

Once I was an adult, my mother told me she’d contacted a pack that owed our family an almost ancient debt—Scott’s pack—and they agreed to take me in.

Since my mother hadn’t shown any signs of magic, and she wasn’t related by blood to my father like I was, my old pack allowed her to come back once I left. So…she’s still there, and here I am.”

There were so many things I thought he might say, but when Jayce continued to stroke my skin comfortingly throughout my entire story, his body never tensing up with disgust, something told me he wasn’t going to push me away.

The relief of that knowledge hit so hard that if I hadn’t been lying down, my legs would have given out.

“Are you…” I licked my painfully dry lips. “Are you angry I kept it from you?”

After a long moment, Jayce answered, “No, Rhie. I’m angry that happened to you, but it doesn’t change anything. I know you aren’t dangerous, and it takes a weak-minded leader to be afraid of a child. They should have embraced you, not thrown you away.”

Hot tears leaked down my cheek, and I was glad we weren’t facing each other. “...thank you.”

“You know, power struggles were why I moved my pack here,” Jayce spoke carefully, offering me something personal after I’d bared so much of my soul to him.

“I’ve seen what too much power can do to people.

When my grandfather ruled the Blacktide pack, he was terrified of confrontation.

He’d only become Alpha because his father was, but it was quickly apparent he wasn’t fit to rule.

“Still, no one wanted to challenge him, and our pack got picked on mercilessly by the other, larger packs around us. Finally, my father got fed up and…killed my grandfather. It wasn’t even an official challenge.

He murdered him in cold blood, right on the council floor, but no one tried to stop him.

Everyone was tired of being considered a joke of a pack. ”

The blood had drained from my face, and I turned in Jayce’s arms, shocked. His jaw was tight, and I brushed my fingers over his face, “Jayce, you don’t have to tell me—”

“I want to.” He paused to take my hand in his, kissing the tips of my fingers. “It looked for a while like my father would be a good Alpha, but the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction, if you know what I mean. Dad was…ruthless, to say the least. Violent and impulsive.

“Anytime he even thought another pack might look down on us, he answered with war and bloodshed, fighting and forcing our wolves to fight until we weren’t considered the weak pack we once were.

But it was too much, and he gained enemy after enemy, to the point that he was fighting to defend our territory almost constantly.

It was too much, and his heart gave out when he was way too young for a heart attack… ”

“Which left you as the Alpha,” I breathed, and Jayce nodded.

“Obviously, you’ll never meet my father, but I’m the spitting image of him, and that didn’t help when my father’s enemies came to the pack borders, wanting to settle all the shit my dad had started. Don’t get me wrong, I can fight, but by that point, I didn’t want to.

“I’d seen the faces of my wolves, exhausted and scared, resigned to die on the battlefield if I asked it of them, with no light behind their eyes.

She-wolves were afraid to take mates, thinking they’d die right away, and pups weren’t being born.

I hated it, so I uprooted the pack and moved them here, to Crystal Creek. ”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed him gently instead, resting my forehead against his. “Why here?”

“I’d heard of the tri-pack alliance, and it was everything my pack had failed to be under my father and grandfather.

I figured even if they refused to let the Blacktide pack join, we’d be safer near their borders than anywhere else on the East coast. The fact that my future mate was here was just a bonus. ”

He’d added that last part to lighten the mood, and it worked enough to make me smile.

Still, I studied Jayce for a long moment, considering his quiet strength, how different he was from any other Alpha I’d ever known.

Samson, Scott, and Joe could have wiped his pack off the face of the planet if they’d wanted to, but Jayce had taken that risk with the hope of giving them peace after generations of turmoil.

He was so brave, even after suffering so much pain.

“I didn’t expect this,” I told him finally, fingers tracing the lines of muscle on his chest.

“Expect what?”

“You.” My heart was pounding, cheeks burning.

All of a sudden, there were a lot more emotions tangled up in this thing between us besides my heat and our mating bond.

Real, unadulterated affection was rising to the surface, alongside respect and a deep sadness for all the things Jayce had been through.

It didn’t make me forgive him for being an asshole at the beginning of our time together, but it went a long way towards helping me understand him better.

If I stayed any longer, those feelings were just going to get tangled up more. And if he was only helping me with my heat out of obligation, or if he just wanted something physical and nothing more, having a bunch of errant feelings could cause a big problem.

Before I could give in to the urge to just curl up in his arms again, I started to push myself up, “I should probably head back to—”

Jayce caught my wrist, his hold gentle as he pulled my body against his once more. “Stay,” he murmured. “Stay with me tonight.”

I hesitated, but when I looked into his eyes, I melted. How could I leave, when he was looking at me like that? Like I was something he treasured?

When Jayce sensed me surrender, he curled two fingers under my chin and pulled me in for a kiss. Lightness bloomed inside of my chest, a happiness I’d never known before, and when our lips touched and I interlaced my fingers with his, something…sparked.

It was just a tingle from my fingers, but it was enough to make us both break apart and look down. The spark hovered there, bright white and luminescent, right at my fingertips until it slowly faded.

It had only lasted a few seconds, and if Jayce hadn’t been there to witness it with me, I wasn’t sure if I would have even believed.

“Was that…?” Jayce asked.

“Yeah,” Joy and terror warred within me. I had magic, just like I’d always wanted…and just like I’d always feared. It had looked light enough, but I had no idea how easy it was for it to fall into darkness. “It was my magic.”