“That may be, but I am yours, and I do want you.”
He took his eyes off of hers and looked at the three males. “Keep her safe. If anything happens to her, I will kill each of you, slowly.”
Dillon turned on his heel and stalked to his truck before he did something like steal her away, which is what his wolf wanted to do. Dillon started the engine and peeled out of the gas station as if death itself were chasing him. Perhaps it was, considering his mate wanted him dead. “Dammit, Dillon.” He mentally snarled as his hand slammed against the steering wheel until his palm hurt. He’d done this. He’d broken his mate’s heart and was about to crush the heart of the female he’d come to love. “I warned you.” His wolf rumbled in his mind. Dillon ignored his beast and focused on not having a wreck. He drove back to Coldspring, trying to figure out how he was going to tell Lilly goodbye.
Chapter
Three
“Every beat of my heart was aimed at finding my true mate. I longed to know the sound of his laughter, to feel his skin, and touch his hair. I wanted to create a life with the one who was as eager for that as me. But in one terrible moment, those dreams evaporated like smoke. I glimpsed a woman in my mate's thoughts, and the emptiness that filled my soul was like a gaping chasm that threatened to devour me and everything I ever wanted. In a single moment, our futures had been forever changed. Instead of being one and completing our bond, we would live half lives.” ~Tanya
Tanya grabbed the empty bag from Daniel’s hand and covered her mouth with it as her stomach expelled its contents. This was not how she had envisioned meeting her true mate. She had never imagined that he would be involved with another woman. How could he do that? Not to her specifically, she supposed, because Dillon didn’t know her. But how could he do that, knowing he had a true mate out there in the world? Was the woman a Canis lupus? A human? Or another kind of supernatural? How old was Dillon? Had the darkness consumed him so much that he simply tried to replace the true mate he hadn’t found? She had heard of some older males doing that. But not her mate.
“Why don’t you want him?” Trevor asked, his voice still guttural with his wolf. “Other than the fact that he seems like an ass.”
Austin chuckled. “He really does.”
If only that was all. Tanya could deal with him being an ass. What she couldn’t deal with was a cheating ass. “He is ours,” her wolf said softly in her mind. Her wolf was a gentle soul. Though she could be fierce when necessary, mostly, she was a lover, not a fighter. Tanya tried to gauge her beast’s feelings about Dillon. She knew what Tanya knew—that their mate hadn’t been faithful. The feelings she had sensed through the bond when the woman’s face had appeared in his mind made it clear that she meant a lot to him. “We don’t know the whole story.”
“Aren’t you the least bit pissed off?” Tanya asked her wolf.
“I do not think as you do. He is our mate. We have found him. Our souls can be complete.”
“Mates don’t cheat,” Tanya snapped.
“Without us, the darkness inside him will continue to grow. He needs us.”
“He should have thought about that before,” Tanya said out loud. She wiped her mouth with the napkin Daniel handed her.
“He should have thought about what?”
Tanya sighed. “Nothing, Austin.” She sat in the passenger seat while Daniel drove, and Trevor and Austin sat in the back seat. The three males were some of her father’s fiercest warriors, yet her mate had put all three of them on the ground like pups, simply from the dominant power that lived inside him. His wolf was obviously extremely dominant, probably to the point of being an alpha. Maybe he had been one and his pack had cast him out for being an ass. She almost laughed because it didn’t seem that far-fetched. And that would just be her luck. Not only had her mate been in a relationship with another woman, but he was a disgraced alpha, as well. “Of course,” she muttered under her breath as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Tanya loathed crying. It didn’t help anything. It actually made things worse because not only did she feel upset, but now she had snot running out of her nose. Ugh, not cool.
“Talk to us, T,” Daniel urged.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to get into it, not right now.” She tied off the bag and set it on the floor, planning to toss it at their next stop. Tanya leaned her head against the warm window, watching the flat country of Texas pass by. The hum of the tires on the road lulled her to sleep, but even in her dreams, she couldn’t escape the pain that squeezed her heart. His face filled her mind. He was handsome in a rugged, devil-may-care sort of way. She hated that she already loved his auburn hair and wondered if they ever had a child, would they inherit his hair or her blonde hair? There was no point in going down that road. It wasn’t happening.
She and her pack mates had been on what should have been a simple mission to Louisiana. The Missouri pack alpha had asked for help finding and dealing with a pack of rogue wolves in Louisiana, which had been reported by other supernaturals. Their mission had not been a success as they didn’t find the rogue wolves that supposedly had been running amuck, so once they headed home she asked the guys if they could go on a sightseeing detour through Texas. Instead of finding the pack of rogues, they found one rogue—her mate. Her cheating jerk of a mate.
Tanya attempted to push the thoughts away and prayed to the Great Luna that she could sleep peacefully. She didn’t want to arrive home and unload everything to her mother and father. Mostly because her father would go berserk. He was incredibly protective of her. There was a reason her father was the alpha—not only because he was so dominant, but also because he had no problem putting a wolf in its place. He loved his pack fiercely, and that love was magnified a hundred times when it came to Tanya and her mother.
Something warm covered Tanya, and she was immediately enveloped by Trevor’s scent from his jacket. She knew he had brought it specifically for her, though he hadn’t told her that. But every time she slept in the vehicle, she woke up with the jacket laid over her. Tanya ignored the affection he had for her. She knew he wished they were true mates. But he had never treated her as anything more than a dear friend. Yet she knew, simply by the look in his eyes, that he had feelings for her. “Is that any different from what our mate has done?” her wolf asked. Tanya inwardly groaned. She didn’t want to think, and yet her mind wouldn’t turn off.
“Trevor hasn’t acted on his feelings,” she pointed out.
Her wolf growled. When her wolf got irritated, Tanya found the beast was quite articulate, and she wondered if it was borrowing the more humanlike speech from Tanya’s mind to convey her irritation. “Regardless, one day he will meet his true mate, and she will have access to his memories. She will see that he has had romantic feelings toward you. How will that make her feel? Do you want her to feel what you feel now?”
Tanya knew her wolf had a point, but policing Trevor’s feelings wasn’t her responsibility. He was a grown man, and he knew his true mate wasn’t Tanya. But meeting Dillon had triggered a powerful reaction in Trevor. Certainly that was because he knew Dillon was her true mate. Maybe now that he knew without a doubt that Tanya wasn’t his, it would put an end to Trevor’s emotions. She couldn’t understand how he hadn’t realized it before. Emotions seemed irrational, making a sane person act insane. This made Tanya question whether true mates were actually a blessing or a curse.
Enough. She mentally scolded herself. Tanya cleared her mind and took slow, deep breaths, focusing only on the sound of the wind and the road. She would deal with her emotional turmoil once she was back home. There was nothing to do about it now, anyway. He had said he needed to get his affairs in order. Who knew if he would even come for her? What did his word mean if he couldn’t even remain faithful to his future true mate? Nothing, she whispered in her mind. His word meant nothing.
Dillon sat at the table in his small camper, paper before him and pen in hand. He stared at the blank page, thinking about the woman who had held a piece of his heart for nearly three years. How was he supposed to say goodbye without crushing her? It would certainly crush a part of him. Why had he let this happen? Why had he been so foolish to think that things would work out between him and Lilly? He supposed the biggest blessing in all of this was that they hadn’t had a child together. Earning back his mate’s trust would be hard enough, considering what she already knew. If he had to tell her he’d had a child with another woman, she would likely follow through on her threat and kill him, regardless of the consequences to herself.
He sighed and took a deep breath. His wolf howled within him, urging him to get his act together. With every passing minute, their mate drew further away. He could feel her through their bond, although she wouldn’t let him inside her mind. Her emotions were so strong that she couldn’t completely block him out. Dillon wasn’t sure he wanted to be in her head at the moment. The dominant side of him would want to force her to submit to their bond, but Tanya seemed quite headstrong and would only resist that kind of order. He would have to coax her, woo her, convince her to see that they belonged together, regardless of their pasts.
Finally, he pressed his pen to the paper and wrote.
My Sweet Lilly,
