Page 16 of Rejecting his Mate (The Wolves of Black Mountain #2)

Chapter 16

Halle

I wake to the jerking movement of the truck. I sit up a little straighter and realize I’m in the back, sandwiched between Cade and Sawyer. The seat belt pulled around me is the only thing stopping me from sliding forward.

How the hell did I get in the back of the truck without knowing?

Cade probably carried me, and I’m not sure how that makes me feel, considering he’s barely looked in my direction since the incident in the shower. He is acting as if it was my fault, as if I forced him to do that, but it was all him. I never invited him to join in.

I understand why he feels the way he does. He doesn’t like the idea that I belong to someone else. Neither do I, but there is little I can do about it until they find a witch who can remove the mating bond.

I don’t let anyone know I am awake, instead taking a second to gain my bearings. Wyatt is driving, and Jackson is sitting in the passenger seat, now wearing clothes and looking healthy.

It’s still light, so I guess I can’t have been asleep long, but I don’t know where we are. The road we’re traveling along is big and filled with cars and trucks.

“What about that witch down in Phoenix? What’s her name?” Sawyer says.

“Mari?” Cade answers.

“She hates wolves,” Jackson says. “She’s not going to help.”

“This list isn’t long to start with.” Sawyer pulls out his phone. “I’ll message her anyway. At least then we can add her to the short list of witches who told us to go f—.” His gaze catches mine, and his sentence is discarded. “Halle! Wondered if you were going to sleep all day.”

“How long was I out?” I stretch as much as I can in the confined space. The pain in my head is a dull, barely noticeable ache now. I swipe under my nose, but my fingers come away clean. No blood.

Thankfully.

Whatever pressure was put on my body seems to have been temporary because I feel pretty good now, other than my ribs and throat, but they had nothing to do with my saving Jackson.

“About four hours.”

What the fuck? I jolt at his words. “Four hours?” I whisper.

“What you did wiped you out.”

“You can’t use the magic inside you until you understand it better,” Cade orders.

I peer at him, wondering where this asshole gets his audacity. “Quit trying to control me. Dalton always does that, and I hate it.”

He growls at the mention of my mate, and I feel bad for saying his name. For the first time in my life, I can see clearly the shackles I’ve worn my entire life. I was chained to my aunt, to the pack, to my responsibilities. Even to a past I don’t remember.Cade doesn’t make me feel that way—even when he is bossing me around.

I think Adeline must have known what I was.

She certainly knew I wasn’t a full wolf, but I don’t understand why she never told me. At least if I had that knowledge, I could have protected myself better. Forewarned is forearmed; isn’t that the saying?

I think that’s what frustrates me the most.

I could have explored this side of me, honed it, and become better at it. It could have helped me in my fight against Dalton.

Maybe I could have turned him into a toad.

Witches do that, right?

“Don’t mention that asshole’s name.”

“Then stop acting like him!” I snap back.

Cade stares at me as if trying to control the rage rolling through him.

“You didn’t see how bad it was.” The slight wobble in his voice has me clamping my mouth shut. “I thought you were fucking dying. You had blood streaming from your nose, and you slept like the dead. So yeah, I am trying to control you, because you don’t seem to know anything regarding your self-preservation.”

I open my mouth and then close it again, noting Wyatt sneaking a look at us through the rearview mirror. He looks away quickly when he realizes I’ve caught him, his expression telling me nothing.

“I don’t regret what I did,” I say, sounding like a moody pup. “Jackson needed help!”

Cade shuts his mouth because there’s nothing he can say to that. If I hadn’t acted, we’d have a dead wolf on our hands. “We could have got him help,” he says finally.

“From where?”

“Hospitals exist, Halle.”

“And they know how to treat vargr, do they?” I’m being obnoxious, but I can’t stop myself. Jackson’s life is important.

“We’d have figured it out!” He tears his hands through his hair, his body vibrating with rage. “You don’t sacrifice yourself for anyone, you understand? This isn’t what your gift is for.”

The fact he sees this part of me as a gift and not a curse eases some of the tension in my body. There’s no judgment there. He’s not going to spit in my face or remove my link to the others because he thinks I’m a danger to his pack.

Jackson turns to glance at me. “For what it’s worth, I’m grateful you saved my ass.”

I give him a warm smile before shooting Cade a smug one. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“But I do agree with Cade. Next time, you don’t risk yourself for me.”

My happy mood seeps out of me. “You too?” I glance between the four of them. “I did what I had to, and I don’t regret a single moment of it. You're still here, and that’s what we should be focusing on.”

Sawyer holds his hands up. “Hey, I didn’t say I wanted Jackson to be gone, but you do need to come up with a better strategy for showing off your powers. You can’t almost kill yourself every time you try to help someone.”

He’s right but also wrong. Why is my life worth more than someone else’s?

I rub my hands together, needing something to do with them as tension grows inside the truck. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starving.”

“Find somewhere for us to stop,” Cade tells Wyatt.

It’s about five minutes before we see a few buildings off the highway that look like restaurants. Wyatt turns off and guides the truck into a free spot in the parking lot.

I lean forward to peer through the windshield. There’s a diner and a few restaurants that I heard about on TV shows. As soon as the truck stops, we all get out. My legs are still a little shaky, and my ribs ache, but I try to hide the fact. I don’t want to worry Cade.

Cade leads us over to the diner, and we follow like his entourage. Once inside, I can’t stop smiling. This place is awesome. There are booths lining the wall along the window, big enough to sit three on each side, though we’re going to struggle to do that with the bulk of these wolves.

The decor is stainless steel with ice cream-colored walls, one in pale green, another in pastel pink, and the last a light brown. There’s a jukebox near the counter with stools lining it.

I can smell burgers and onions, as well as something sweet baking. I take in a noseful of scent, relishing in its deliciousness. It reminds me of Sunday afternoons when some of the pack would make cakes and treats for the rest of the week.

We follow Cade over to one of the empty booths. Before I can do anything about it, he guides me onto the bench so I’m sitting nearest the window and he slides in next to me. Wyatt and Jackson sit on the other side, while Sawyer pulls up a chair and perches on the end. I notice Cade has a direct line of sight to the door. Is he expecting trouble? Does he think my old pack will find us this fast?

Or the hunters…

A shiver rolls up my spine at that thought. They sound like bad news, and knowing Dalton put them on our trail makes me want to punch him in the nuts.

As I sit there, pressed between the wall and Cade’s huge frame, I find my gaze roaming around the diner.

I’ve seen them on TV shows; I didn’t think they really existed, though. Even the salt and pepper shakers are themed. Absently, I twist the nearest between my fingers as I take in a family near the door. They seem happy, laughing at whatever joke was spoken between them.

An ugly feeling slides through me. Jealousy. I’ve never had that with my mom and my dad, and I never will. I hate it.

Cade’s hand slips onto my thigh, making my body heat instantly. How does he do that? How does his touch soothe me?

“You okay?” He keeps his voice low, making sure only I hear him. If the others are listening, they don’t show it.

I nod, letting a smile play on my lips. “I just wonder what my life might have been like if I hadn't lost my parents.”

He rubs circles on my thigh. “If they’re anything like you, they would have been good people.”

I grunt. “They probably would have been a disappointment, lying to me about what I really am. Just like Adeline.”

The bitterness in my voice makes me wince. I don’t want to have this anger, this vitriol inside me, but it burns fiercely. I’m pissed she kept so much from me, even as I’m afraid for her. The two warring emotions are slowly gnawing away at me, piece by piece.

“You had no idea at all that you’re not full wolf?” Jackson asks, apparently listening in after all.

I shake my head. “My whole life—or at least what I remember of it—I was told I was a Beauford. That my blood was as pure as driven snow. I didn’t feel different. I can hear my wolf, sense her, and communicate with her. My pack didn’t say I was wired wrong or smelled different. I went into that ceremony expecting the shift to happen as it did for all wolves. My aunt, she knew. Or suspected. She was acting weird before, asking strange questions about the past, about me. I thought she was nervous about me going through it. Didn’t realize she was terrified I might not shift. ”

“And nothing happened?” Wyatt questions.

“Nope.” I pop the P, my eyes going to the window that looks out over the parking lot. “Just a whole lot of pain and nothing else. When I came around, they were calling me latent.”

The waitress appears at the side of the table, clutching her order pad in her hand, a bright smile on her face, completely clueless to the serious tone of the conversation we were having.

I stare at her name badge, wondering if ‘Emily’ knows she’s standing next to four apex predators looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world. All of them are lethal, and she’s giving Sawyer the eye, like he’s some kind of frat boy. He could eviscerate her before she even registered his presence. I had no idea humans were so oblivious to the danger that lives among them.

“You folks ready to order?” Her smile falters as she takes me in. I understand what she must be thinking when she gives Cade the side-eye. Did he do this to me? “You okay, hon?” she asks.

“She was in an accident,” Sawyer explains smoothly. “You don’t need to stare. She already feels sensitive about it.”

Heat rises in her cheeks, and she lowers her head to look at the pad. “Sorry.”

Taking pity on her, I fire Sawyer a glare before saying, “I’m okay. It looks worse than it is, believe it or not.”

“We need a little longer with the menu,” Cade says to Emily, and I get the feeling he wants to get her gone so she’ll stop looking at me like I’m an abandoned puppy.

“Coffee to start?”

“Sure.”

She walks away, and as soon as she does, all eyes come back to me. “Did your aunt tell you anything about your past?” Sawyer leans forward.

“I asked, but she always got upset when I did, so I guess I just…stopped pushing. Adeline lost everyone, including my father. I was all she had, and she was good to me. I… I didn’t really question it. I just wanted to make her life as stress-free as possible.”

“And all that time, she was harboring a ticking time bomb right under Klaus’ nose.” Sawyer snorts. “That’s got to have pissed that fucker off more than anything else.”

I shiver as I think about my old alpha and the way he’d severed my bond with the only family I’d ever known. “Klaus is a dick,” I mutter. “But he never hurt me, even after I failed to shift. He could have.”

“Yeah, maybe the old bastard had a change of heart over the years. Realized what he did to his sister was truly evil and couldn’t do it to you.”

I consider this, and while it sounds plausible, I’m not sure. “I don’t know what’s truth and what’s not. Adeline told me things over the years that I took at face value, but thinking about it now, knowing what I know… Yeah, I don’t trust a word of it. She told me I was in an accident, that my mom and I went into the water. I drowned, died, and had to be resuscitated, which caused my memories to disappear, but what I’m seeing isn’t an accident.”

“What are you seeing?” Cade’s hand on my leg gives me the strength to keep going.

“We were running… from wolves. Mom was terrified. I could see it in her face.”

“What kind of wolves?”

“I don’t know. Scary ones. They didn’t seem friendly.”

“And you’re sure these are memories?”

I shrug. “I can’t know that for sure, but when I try to think about the past, there’s always this block in the way. These images, or memories—whatever you want to call them—are the first time I’ve remembered anything before I came to the pack.” I frown. “Other than the house.”

“The house?” Cade leans forward on the table, not letting go of me.

“My earliest memory is of being in a car with my aunt outside this house. It was huge, like a mini-mansion.”

“You remember anything else?”

I shake my head. Cade is looking at his brother, his mouth tight. “What’s wrong?”

“Your dad was a Beauford wolf, most likely purebred, considering he wasn’t latent,” Sawyer says, his words tight. “It’s most likely your mom was the witch.”

“Or tau. She could have been a tau wolf,” Wyatt helpfully supplies.

“If you and your mom were being chased by wolves…” Sawyer sighs. “Fuck. They were probably the Or der. Those assholes have no morals. They’d kill a pup without flinching.”

I blink. “You think they came to kill me and my mom—” The words get trapped in my chest. I rub my sternum, feeling like I can’t breathe past the pain.

My vision narrows suddenly, and a snapshot fills my head. I’m in a car, Adeline is at my side. She’s younger and on edge.

“My brother died because of you both,” she snaps the words out, and my heart sinks.

Just like that, I’m back in the diner, Cade’s hands holding my face as my head wobbles. “Fuck, are you back?” he demands.

Tears prick my eyes. “I killed him.”

“Killed who?”

“My dad. That’s what Adeline said. He died protecting us. She blamed me. All these years, and she blamed me for getting him killed.”

Cade forces me to look at him. “Your dad died doing what any parent is supposed to do. Fathers protect their children and their mate. Your aunt had no right to blame you for that.”

I close my eyes, trying to hold on to what I’d seen. “They came for us. I remember some things. Motels mainly. We were running, and then they were there—in front of the car.”

I hate that that’s all I remember. What happened to my mom? Did she escape? How did I end up with Adeline?

So many questions assault my brain, and I can’t answer any of them. I fist my hands over my temples as if I can smack the memories loose.

“Why can’t I remember more?” I demand.

Cade grabs my hands before I slam them against my head again. “Stop it.” He places a hand on the side of my face, and his eyes bore into mine. “You’re not to blame for any of this.”

“They died because of me, because of what I am. I’m cursed,” I whisper the words, fearing if I speak them too loudly, it will curse them too.

“You’re not,” Cade tells me.

Bile rushes up my throat as my mouth fills with saliva.

“I’m going to be sick.” I push Cade, trying to get him to move out of my way as my stomach churns violently.

He slides out of the booth, and I push around the back of Sawyer’s chair, rushing into the bathroom. I barely have time to stumble into a stall and drop to my knees before my stomach cramps, and I throw up.

They’re dead because of me.

Those hunters wanted me .

No wonder Adeline was so angry in the car. Has she blamed me for killing her brother all this time, or did she make peace with it at some point?

I’ve never felt the kind of disdain from my aunt as when she’d spat that accusation at me, but maybe she just got good at hiding it.

Doubt assails me, and my emotions swirl through me violently. Why did she take me in if she blamed me for it ?

Was it a sense of duty to my dad? Was I a chore she endured for her dead brother?

My stomach aches fiercely.

Adeline is the only person I have. If she has hated me all this time, it will destroy me.

I got my dad killed.

And what the hell happened to my mom?

Did she die too?

Because of me?

The woman trying to protect me in those memories wouldn’t leave me alone in the world if she were still breathing. She fought with everything she had to get me out of danger, so I can only assume those hunters got her.

Acid coats my throat, the awful taste of it making me heave more.

A hand presses against my back. Cade. Gently, he brushes my hair off my shoulders and grasps it in his hand as I continue to dry heave. There’s nothing left, not even water. My stomach is empty.

“Easy, little wolf,” he murmurs as my stomach finally gives up and stops contracting.He doesn’t leave my side, his fingers stroking over me. Adeline is not the only person I have anymore. I have him.

I sink back onto my folded legs and reach for some tissue to wipe my mouth as he flushes the toilet. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, embarrassed he’s seeing me like this.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

I don’t speak for a moment, just letting my thoughts run wild. “She hated me. In my memory, she hated me. ”

“If she hated you, she would never have taken you in, Halle.”

He’s right. She wouldn’t have, but it doesn’t help the way I’m feeling. My whole life is starting to feel like it was built on a lie.

Who am I, really?

And why don’t I remember such a huge part of my life?

“I think Adeline… did something to me,” I say, unsure of where my thoughts are going but just allowing them to flow. “I don’t remember anything before I was eight years old, Cade. Not one thing until these memories started coming back to me now. It’s like my magic is trying to break free and letting other parts of my mind free too.”

He doesn’t laugh at me, which I take as a good sign that I’m not talking out of my ass. “You think she did something to your mind?”

I scrunch my nose up. It sounds silly when he says it like that. “Is that a leap?”

He blows out a breath before holding his hands out. I let him pull me off the cold tile floor.

“I think if I were your aunt, I wouldn’t want to risk an eight-year-old pup accidentally spilling about her witch powers in a pack led by an alpha who killed a child a little younger than her. I don’t think Adeline acted with malice, Halle, but she should never have put you in that position in the first place. You would have been safer without a pack.”

“She’s a Beauford. Everyone would have known something was wrong if she went lone,” I say. My head is throbbing, this time not because of a vision or memory but because of the stress of what I’m learning. “I had to be told who I was. I didn’t even remember my name,” I tell him, laying myself bare to him. I feel exposed, but I can’t stop the words from spilling out now they have started. “She had to teach me everything again.”

Going to the basin, I run the faucet and cup some water in my hand, which I use to rinse my mouth. I was starving before we pulled into the diner, but now my stomach feels crampy and hollow.

“We don’t know anything yet, but whatever is happening, we’ll figure it out,” Cade assures me, rubbing the nape of my neck in a way that makes me want to lean into his touch.

“It’s not too late to run.” I meet his gaze in the mirror in front of me. “You and the others can drive away and leave this shit behind.”

“Yeah, and what will you do?” He keeps kneading my neck.

“I’ll figure things out.”

The growl he makes in the back of his throat makes my eyes flare. That was not the right thing to say. “You think I can just walk away from you?”

I swallow hard and shake my head. I know he can't, even though he should. I’m putting everyone at risk. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me.”

He snorts. “If you think those assholes will be able to fight four vargr, you’re wrong.”

I tear out of his grasp, needing distance so I can think and collect my thoughts. “Jackson nearly died fighting normal wolves.”

“He was outnumbered. It wasn’t a fair fight.”

My brows climb up my forehead. “And you think this is going to be a fair fight? You think the hunters will just send one or two wolves after me? Dalton despises me. He’ll have made sure they send as many as possible.”

“If they come, I’ll stop them. Nothing is going to touch you.”

He rubs his fingers near my claiming mark and snarls.

“I wish I never laid eyes on him,” I say, meaning every single word.

He leans forward as if he wants to kiss me, and my pulse flutters wildly.

“Come and eat,” he says, pulling back from me. “You need to put something in your stomach.”

He walks out of the bathroom, disappointment swirling in my gut.