Page 63 of The Alpha's Bullied Rejected Mate

His jaw clenched. “So you heard that.”

“I wasn’t trying to. But I did. I heard everything. How you have to find the real target. How you might have to seduce her to do it. And maybe that’s easy for you. It was easy with me, wasn’t it?”

“It wasn’t like that with you.” He flinched.

She stepped closer, her eyes blazing with fury. “What else was it? It’s what you are good at. Now and even six years ago. You used me.”

“And I regret it!” he screamed, exhaling hard as he hard, running a hand through his

She laughed bitterly. “Is that supposed to make it better now?”

“No. Nothing will make it better. But I need you to understand something. When I found you again after six years of searching, when I saw Riley—I knew. I knew I’d missed six years; I’d never get back. And I hate myself for it.”

She blinked, stunned. Her voice came out softer. “You looked for me?”

He moved closer to her.

“Everywhere. Even after I joined the organization. Every city. Every town. Every whisper of a witch in hiding. I followed them all, hoping it was you. I couldn’t stop. Even when I knew I should.”

Athena’s breath caught in her throat. The cold armor she had wrapped herself in for years cracked, the emotions she had tried to smother now roaring to life. Her hands trembled.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

“Because I didn’t think I had the right to. I don’t even know if I do now. But I’m tired of pretending. I couldn’t seduce another woman, Athena, even if I tried. Not after finding you again. I—”

He cut himself off, but the silence that followed was louder than anything he could have said.

Athena stared at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her voice shook. “You what?”

He leaned in closer and slowly just as she moved backward until her back hit the wall.

“You broke me, Marcus. You left me alone. Pregnant. Scared,” she said, her voice suddenly fragile.

“And I hate you for that.”

“Yes, hate me!” he shot back.

“Hate me all you want, Athena. I deserve that and more. But I want you to know this.”

“Before you and after you, even six years later,”

He closed the space between them as he breathed against her face. “No one ever got this close.”

He narrowed his eyes at the little space between them, “This close.”

And he crashed his lips onto hers.