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

Chapter 2

Halle

PRESENT…

I ’m being watched.

My skin prickles, the fine hair on the back of my neck tingling as I try not to freeze in place. Instinct wants me to look around and see what is hunting me, but I resist the urge.

Discreetly, I pull in a noseful of air. Leaves, trees, and the earthy scent of dirt are the first things I smell, as well as the small animals hiding in the undergrowth.

I suck in another breath, and that's when I catch it.

The scent is familiar, even though I have never laid eyes on the wolf it belongs to. I don’t know who he is or why he watches me, but whenever I’m in the woods, he is too.

Is he from my past? Someone I left behind when my mind was damaged and my memories were broken?

It took me years to rebuild what I lost, years to remember that I am Halle Beauford, and even longer to wrap my head around the wolf that shares my mind.

I take another breath, letting his smell envelop my senses. As always, the waves that come off him soothe me. I should be on my knees in supplication because he feels like an alpha, but… different . The power that radiates from him is stronger than my wolf’s and my pack’s alpha, too.

I’m at least half a mile from pack lands, and as I haven’t had my first shift yet, I’m defenseless should he decide to attack. I should be terrified.

But what I’m feeling isn’t terror; it’s peace.

I flick my gaze to the left of where I’m sitting. Both undergrowth and trees are thickly packed together here, and fallen leaves are strewn over the forest floor like a rusty carpet.It’s the perfect place for an ambush; the thick foliage camouflaging him from sight. It puts me and my wolf on alert, even though he has never tried to attack me.

He just… watches.

I know I should tell my aunt or even my mate about my mysterious stalker, but I never do. Adeline would forbid me from leaving the compound, and Dalton… He’d use it as another way to control me.

Of their own volition, my fingers move to the claiming mark on my neck, the bite given between mates to stamp their ownership on them.

It’s supposed to be romantic, a statement of love, but it feels like a chain around my neck.

Dalton owns me like a man keeps a dog, and sometimes I curse my weakness for agreeing to be his chosen mate.

No, this will remain my secret.

The rustling of leaves makes me snap my gaze toward the sound, and I narrow my eyes to peer through the brush where I know he is hiding.

I’m tired of being spied on. I stand and raise my arms at my sides in a ‘come and get me’ motion, my eyes locked in his direction. “What are you waiting for?” I yell out. “I’m right here.”

Nothing moves other than the wind. I prick my ears and hear the whispering of motion. He’s running, and this time, I’m following.

I rush after him, my mind screaming at me to stop and realize the danger. I don’t listen and my wolf isn’t giving me any indication of danger, so I focus on trying to find him, to glimpse the wolf who has been stalking me for more than a year.

As I push through the trees, ignoring the scrapes to my arms and legs, his scent moves north.

It is insane to follow a wolf I don’t know, but my mind isn’t thinking rationally as I erupt out of the undergrowth and into a clearing.

A flash of black fur at the edge of the tree line has my attention snapping in that direction. I freeze in place, my feet rooted to the ground. Damn. He is the biggest wolf I have ever seen. Klaus is huge—Dalton too—but they pale in comparison to this wolf. His dark fur would make him blend into the shadows after nightfall and his red eyes pin me in place. As much as I try to control my racing heart, it pounds beneath my sternum.

I suck in a lungful of air and nearly drop to my knees. His scent this close is overpowering, but also alluring in a way I can’t explain. I want to go to him, but I’m too scared to move. My wolf whines, wanting to shift and greet him, but that is impossible until the first moon ceremony.

“Why are you watching me?” I demand an answer from him.

He doesn’t respond; he can’t. We’re not pack, so I can’t hear him inside my head, and he can’t speak in his wolf form.

His tongue lolls to the side of his open mouth before he takes off into the trees. This time I don’t follow, even though my wolf wants me to.

I stare at the spot where he was standing as if I expect him to return, but nothing moves in the trees and his scent fades as the minutes tick by. Eventually, I turn and make my way back through the trees, heading toward the pack compound, but my mind is filled with my strange stalker.

I know I should tell someone. What if he is an enemy scouting out the pack’s defenses? What if he’s waiting to attack?

My alpha would put a stop to him hanging around the woods outside the compound. Permanently. If he didn’t, Dalton would. He would want to tear him apart for even sniffing around what’s his, but having seen the size of my stalker, I doubt he could. His wolf is huge. He makes Dalton look like a dachshund.

That image brings a smirk to my lips. Maybe I should leash him and feed him treats, just to see how he likes it.

The smile fades.

This isn’t a joke. This is my life. I am tethered to a wolf who will one day be alpha, and I will sit at his side as his alpha female. It’s a good match, the best I could have asked my aunt Adeline to make.

So why does it feel so wrong?

As I emerge from the tree line, the main house comes into view, and the scent of my pack fills my nose. I can sense them through my pack link too, little snippets of thoughts and emotions that comfort me, despite my morose mood. I don’t remember my life before the pack, but I hope it wasn’t a lonely one. I can’t imagine not having the sense of kinship that I have with the Red Deer Pack.

As I trudge over the grass, I peer up at the old farmstead, which has been my home for as long as I can remember. The walls are covered in dark gray siding, and over the years, as the pack has grown, extensions have been added to the original building. It looks like a home, a warm and inviting one, with flowerpots on the wrap-around porch and a swing that overlooks the yard, but to me, it is a prison, one I cannot leave.

I never considered what pairing myself with a chosen mate would entail. I’d known Dalton for years. Like everyone else in the pack, he accepted me when I came to live with my aunt. I was content, happy even when he put the mating mark on me and imprinted himself on my wolf. The son of the alpha who would one day be alpha himself .

I couldn’t have asked for a better match.

But things changed.

He changed.

As I wait for my first moon ceremony, he has become distant and even cruel toward me. Maybe he resents this match as much as I do, but if that is the case, he should never have agreed to mate with me. The anger he has toward me is baffling, and no matter how much I try to understand its origin, I can’t.

Maybe he just wanted me for my name, for my bloodline. Now that he has me, he doesn’t need to impress me anymore.

As I climb the few steps that lead up to the porch, I scent him. There is a brush of awareness in my mind, something he can only do when we’re close. Our mating bond should develop and grow stronger alongside our feelings for each other, but since they have stagnated, so has the bond.

This is the curse of chosen mates, or so Aunt Adeline tells me—some can never truly cement a mating bond, even with time. I fear Dalton and I will be that way.

When I look up, I see him sitting on the bench pushed against the side of the house, his hands clasped between his parted thighs. Instinctively, my body knows trouble is coming and readies for the inevitable fight.

“Where’ve you been?” he demands.

The question makes me want to roll my eyes. I’m not four, and I don’t need him to treat me like I am. “Around,” I hedge, stepping toward the front door. I’m planning on hiding in my room until he gets bored and leaves me alone.

Dalton has other plans.

I’ve barely reached for the handle before he’s on me, his hand crushing the back of my neck against the wood in front of me. A primal response has me wanting to rear back and fight, but I know I can’t win against his strength and size. I gasp, and my wolf bares her teeth.

Let me shift.

I wish I could, but even if I were able to, I wouldn’t. My wolf would be no match for his, and we both know it. He has alpha power, and with that comes strength I couldn’t hope to rival.

His fingers tighten around my nape, pushing me harder against the door until my face is plastered against it. I can feel him against my back, his solid body giving not even an inch between us.

My anger swells, and my hatred for him grows. Every day he chips away at me a little more, and I wonder if we’ve doomed ourselves to a life of unhappiness.

He hates me as much as I hate him. I wonder what it would be like if we were fated mates instead. How different would our relationship be then?

“Take your hands off me,” I snarl the words, sounding like the beast that lives inside me.

He ignores the threat lacing my tone because, to him, I am not one. He is Klaus’ son. He has all the power in this dynamic. He could have me and Adeline thrown out of the pack with a word.

I can never allow that to happen. This pack is everything to my aunt. Adeline took me in after—

After the event .

Before I can walk that dark path down memory lane, I force my thoughts aside and come back to the present just in time for Dalton to press his hard cock against my ass. He rubs himself on me like a horny Labrador, grunting in my ear as he does.

Son of a bitch.

Bile collects in my throat as I grit my teeth.

We are alone out here, but even if there were a pack member to witness him manhandling me like this, nothing would be done. No one would step in or say anything. I am his. This is the deal I signed up for.

My claiming mark on my neck, the bite all wolves can give to their mates, chosen or fated, burns like fire. I know it is in my head, that it is not really hurting, but I feel every inch of it seared into my skin like a brand.

Because that’s what it is. It is a mark that tells the world he owns me.

I hate it and what it represents. I wish I could tear it off me.

“You are my mate,” he says, his words rough. “I can touch you however I want.”

“I’m your mate, not your doll to play with.”

He turns my neck to the side, giving him better access to my claiming mark, and lowers his head. His tongue swipes over the bite, and a shudder goes through my body as his saliva licks my skin.

The reaction is instantaneous and uncontrollable as my body comes alive at my mate’s touch. My breasts feel heavy, and heat washes over me. I clamp my legs together, trying to stop wetness from flooding my pussy.

No, I don’t want this.

I’ve never wanted him, but he uses the claiming mark to control my body.

Sensing my distress, my wolf pulls her teeth into a snarl, baring pointed incisors designed to kill. If I could change into my wolf form, she would tear Dalton’s throat out, alpha’s son or not.

“Don’t,” I hiss, trying to shove him back.

He ignores my protest and I feel his tongue against me again, swiping over the mark once more.

I slam against him with everything I have, and to my relief, it’s enough to make him go back a step. He’s not the only one with wolf strength.

Once I’m free of him, I put distance between us, stumbling away from his reach. It’s a false sense of security because there is nothing that can stop him from putting his hands on me again if he chooses.

I ready my body for a fight, my stance low and loose as my hand flies to the claiming mark, holding it as if my blood is spilling out of it. It feels that way.

Dalton glares at me, but he doesn’t move. The alpha waves coming off him are meant to subdue me, and it takes everything I have to fight against him.

“Stay back,” I warn as he steps toward me.

I don’t know what I saw in him. When I agreed to this match, he was… different .

Less of an asshole.

His perfect blond hair and piercing blue eyes alongside his muscular frame and the dusting of freckles over his nose is enough to make any wolf, or human, fall at his feet.I was taken with him. I thought our friendship would create a solid mating bond that would, in time, grow stronger.

I wanted to believe that he was everything I dreamed of in a mate, and at first, he was. But his need to control me is not something I can stand. I’m not an animal in a cage. I’ll never be that.

Dalton might look like an angel, but there is a darkness that beats inside him. While he was enthusiastic about mating me, a Beauford, that has soured in the six months since we underwent the mating ceremony.

I’m not sure what changed, but maybe it was all just an act to bind my family to his. My blood mixed with his... we would make powerful pups.

He wants to create a legacy.

I wanted to find happiness with my chosen mate. Most wolves never find their fated mate, so mates are chosen instead. Our kind don’t do well alone. It is both a blessing and a curse that turning lone wolf can drive us to the brink and create feral beasts that can’t control themselves.

The disdain he has for me, the disrespect, frightens me. He doesn’t want a partner; he wants a puppet he can control whichever way he wants.

“You dare to order me to stay away from what is mine?”

I’m not surprised when he shoots me a hostile glare, but my heart does squeeze tight enough to steal the air from my lungs. It shouldn’t be like this.

“You touch me again, and I’ll break your fingers.” It’s an empty threat. I would never be able to outmatch him in a game of strength.

Dalton doesn’t step toward me, but he does say, “I’m not going to ask you again. Where were you?”

“I was walking, Dalton. I wasn’t aware I need to check in with you every second of the day.”

He ignores my last words, focusing instead on the first part. “In the forest?”

He already knows where I go every day. I’ve never hidden what I’m doing or where I’m going. I’ve walked in those woods from the moment I came to pack lands. I’d been eight years old. The memory of driving up to the front of the house is my earliest one. Before that, it's all white noise and emptiness.

“Why ask if you know the answer?”

He snarls at me, and my stomach twists. He could hurt me if he chose to. “Once my father dies, you will be my alpha female, Halle. You need to stay with the pack. You can’t be wandering around alone.”

“Exactly. I will be alpha female. I’m not scared of being out there, and you shouldn’t be scared of me having freedom either.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. He grabs my throat, wrapping his fingers around it before shoving me back against the door so I’m facing him this time. He wants me to see his power and strength, so I understand my place. “Nothing scares me apart from losing you. You haven’t gone through the first moon ceremony yet. You can’t shift or protect yourself. Until we have pups, you need to be careful.”

There it is, the answer to my suspicions. He doesn’t care about me. He just doesn’t want to lose my family name and bloodline. I would rather die than give him young ones.

For centuries, our kind have tried to mix the highest-ranking wolves together to ensure that purity. A pure bloodline seems to be the only thing anyone cares about in our world. ‘Different’ creates impure and dangerous creatures that can’t be controlled, hybrids that can’t shift, or, worse, who can and have no control over their animals.

The Beaufords can trace their lineage back to some of the first wolf shifters. Not all wolves can, and that makes us special.

This is why I was so coveted by Dalton and his father. Klaus wants to protect the future of this pack and Adeline doesn’t have pups. Her mate, from what I have heard, was killed a year into their pairing before she had her first heat cycle. She could have re-mated with any wolf she wanted, but I think Adeline is still in love with the mate she lost.

“You can’t expect me to stay locked up in the house. I’ll lose my mind.”

“That is the best place for you, Halle. There are plenty of rival packs who would just love to get their hands on my mate.” Dalton’s eyes are wild as he tightens his grip on my neck. “To use you against me.”

He isn’t wrong, but the Red Deer Pack is strong, with good alliances and a respected alpha. It’s unlikely any wolf would choose to snatch me from our territory while that is the case.

“Don’t pretend to care about my safety,” I snap.

His fingers are no longer gripping me, instead caressing the column of my throat in a move designed to feel sensual. Every swipe close to the claiming mark makes my skin tingle.

“Of course, I care,” he says, his voice soft now. “If I can’t take care of my mate, the pack won’t trust me to lead them.”

Ah, there it is—the real reason he wants me under lock and key at the house. He’s worried about his own reputation. I understand. Klaus’s shoes will be hard to fill when our alpha eventually passes over the pack to his son. Dalton doesn’t have the temperament or skill to walk a mile in them.

“Trust me to take care of myself.”

“With your safety, I trust no one.” The words sound sweet, possessive even, but the curl of his lips into a sneer tells me it’s neither of those things. Dalton is worried about losing face in front of our pack. “Once you go through the first moon ceremony, you will stay by my side. I won’t have you wandering off any longer. Especially with so many things out there that can harm you.”

He can’t know about my stalker in the trees. If he did, this conversation would go differently. Dalton isn’t one to share his toys, even if the wolf in the woods hasn’t done anything yet.

“I’m careful,” I promise as his nose nuzzles against my neck. It makes my skin crawl even as it heats me. The conflict between my biological drive and my emotions is exhausting.

“I need my mate where I can sense her. I can’t do that when you’re traipsing through the trees.”

Thankfully.

The thought of Dalton being in my head like fated mates can makes me want to puke. He would know my most secret thoughts, and I wouldn’t be able to hide my disdain for him. Nor would he be able to hide his either.

“Ah, there you are.” Adeline’s voice has Dalton stilling against my neck, but he doesn’t pull away. I have to push him back and step out from under him.

My aunt’s blond hair is swept up into a messy knot on the top of her head, and the lines at the side of her face that only come out when she’s smiling don’t appear as she takes in Dalton. My wolf growls, something she has always done in Adeline’s presence, though I don’t know why.

“I need Halle for a moment.” Without waiting for his agreement, Aunt Adeline grabs my wrist and pulls me into the house.

The inside has a lived-in feel, which is hardly surprising given there are fifteen of us under this one roof. There’s a huge dining table that can seat us all in the large kitchen at the back of the house and two living rooms that anyone can use. Most of the pack enjoys spending time with each other, but I would rather find solace in alone time.

Adeline leads me into my bedroom on the second floor and closes the door behind us. Dalton’s room is down the hallway and is larger, with its own bathroom. He has asked me a hundred times to move in there with him, but I can’t bring myself to give up the one retreat I have in this place. It is only a matter of time before he forces the issue, but for now, it is not a fight he seems to care about having.

He doesn’t want me in his space, either.

My bedroom is the same one I have had since I first arrived here with Adeline, though the single bed has been swapped for a queen that is pushed against one wall. There are also a few pieces of furniture spread around the room, bumped and broken from years of use.

On my bed, sitting against the pillows is the teddy bear I arrived here with. It is threadbare in places, dirty and falling apart, but I have never been able to part with it. I don’t know why, but it seems important to keep him close.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. I have no idea why she’s acting so secretive, but it puts me on edge.

“Nothing.” The smile she gives me is forced. “I just wanted to talk to you before the first moon ceremony tomorrow night.”

“What about it?” Nervous flutters fill my belly at the mention of it. I’m excited to meet my wolf, but terrified too.

Tomorrow night, Klaus and our beta male, Alaric, will use pack magic to draw my wolf out. It is the same ritual all wolves must go through soon after their twenty-first birthday.

The first shift hurts, or so I’m told.

Every bone in the body is rearranged to allow the shift to happen, and they break and snap until the wolf can come out. I’m anxious about the pain, but Adeline assures me that with time, it becomes easier until it no longer hurts.

“I need… I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.” I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t speak. Instead, she goes to the window and peers down at the ground. “Adeline?” I say her name, which makes her shoulders tense.

“What do you remember before you came to the pack?”

I frown, my brows coming together. This isn’t something we normally talk about. Adeline never wants to discuss the past, so why this now? “What’s this about?”

She faces me, nibbling on her bottom lip as she pulls her cardigan around her body like armor, but I’m not sure what she’s trying to protect herself from. “Just humor me. What do you remember?”

I think back, trawling through memories I have kept buried in the vaults of my mind for over a decade. There are plenty of snapshots of days spent with my pack mates, my friends, and even Dalton, but there is nothing before the day I arrived. I try to push past that memory, but the only thing I remember is being eight years old and sitting in the passenger seat of Adeline’s car, clutching the teddy that still sits on my bed.

“I don’t remember anything.” I frown at her. “Why are you bringing this up?”

I lost my mom in an accident that caused my memory to fracture, or at least that’s what I was told. We were in the car. My mom lost control and we went into the river. I was trapped underwater for a while before the rescue teams got me out .

I don’t recall the accident or the drowning, but Adeline told me that was why I can’t remember. There was damage to my brain because of the lack of oxygen.

The story of how I came to be with my pack is ingrained in my memories because I have heard it so many times. I don’t remember anything about that day myself.

Adeline says she came to get me from the hospital and brought me to the pack out of love for my father, her brother, who died when I was just a baby. I don’t remember him.

Over the years, I have tried to remember my mama, but it’s like there is a void there, nothing but white noise where memories of her should be.

I hate the accident for stripping away those precious moments we must have had together during my first eight years. We were together at the end, but she died, and I survived. I always hated myself for not going with her.

Adeline tears her fingers through her hair, and I notice the tremble. “I just… wondered if maybe the mating bond had helped knock something loose.”

I reach out, grasping her hand in mine before she can run it through her hair again. “I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me,” I tell her, meaning every word.

Without Adeline to take me in, I would have been packless, alone. Lone wolves suffer, some even driven to taking their own lives. Pack is everything, and without it, we are nothing.

“I’ve never doubted that,” Adeline murmurs. “The ceremony tomorrow night… how… how are you feeling about it?”

“A little nervous,” I admit.

Adeline stares at me as if she wants to say more. After a moment, she breaks eye contact, her gaze going to the window. “I’ve always loved you like you were my own,” she says.

“I know.”

She blows out a breath. “I love you, Halle. I want you to know that. Everything I’ve done has been because of that.”

I frown at her. “You’re scaring me talking like this.”

She smiles through the anguish that she’s wearing on her face. Anguish I don’t understand. “I just… I hope tomorrow goes smoothly for you.”

I hope this too, but Aunt Adeline’s words stay with me for the rest of the day.