Why did she go behind my back? Why did she trust Ryker? Why didn’t she tell me? She lied to my face, hated the hospital, and used it as a fucking excuse to leave me and my wolf. To be with whom? A fucking asshole who she didn’t even know.
My hands curled into fists, and I resisted the urge to punch the wall until my knuckles were bleeding. What was wrong with me? Was I too overbearing for her? Did I not give her enough space? Would she really have joined the Lycans if I made her a warrior? Could I ever even had stopped this?
I leaned over my windowsill, my chest rising and falling. She left mere minutes ago, and I already felt like utter shit. She was really going to go be a Lycan, and I could do nothing about it.
Being a Lycan wasn’t just a job; it was a job done for the Moon Goddess herself. Breaking one’s commitment to their team was against divine law. Restricting me for even getting involved.
Someone knocked on my office door at three in the fucking morning, but I let them knock. I didn’t have the energy to tell them to leave. Hell, I barely had the energy to hold myself up and not be a fucking wimp about this whole thing.
“Are you okay?” Jane asked from my office door. I listened to her walk into the room and come toward me. “Roman… say something. Anything.” She placed a hand on my back, and I lost it.
My body caved in on itself, and Jane pulled me into a hug. “Roman, what’s wrong? I haven’t seen you like this since Mom died.”
I didn’t cry. I refused to cry.
Alphas didn’t cry.
But, boy, did I want to.
Jane rubbed my back softly like Mom used to do, and tears filled my eyes. Everything felt so much more intense than it did yesterday. Every single emotion.
I felt like I was suffocating, drowning, dying.
“It’s okay, Roman. Whatever it is… it’s okay.”
No. It wasn’t. My mate was leaving for a whole fucking year. She would be away from me. I would never see her, never get to hold her, never get to smell her sweet scent of vanilla.
I waited three fucking years to have her, only to watch her leave me. If I marked her now, it would only hurt us both in the months to come. I would have to wait another fucking year and hope—pray—that she would choose me next time and not him.
Chapter 34
Isabella
I walked to Derek’s house in tears. My own mate didn’t want to mark me because he was angry at my decision to follow my dreams. Mates were never supposed to hurt each other.
But all I felt was hurt. All I felt was rejection.
A part of me thought he was being childish. This whole thing was childish. Him not accepting me as a part of the warriors because he didn’t want me to join the Lycans. Him keeping that I was his mate a secret. Him not marking me before I left for an entire year.
Fog laid heavily inside the forest, but I continued to walk, knowing these woods like the back of my hand. I had run through them so many times, yet I couldn’t get myself to run. My whole body felt too weak.
The pain—his pain, my pain, our pain—was terrorizing me. I didn’t want Roman to go behind my back and sleep with anyone else. It wasn’t like I would do it.
Though he didn’t reject me; his refusal to mark me still felt like a rejection.
Only more pain would fester inside of me. I’d go through heat within the next month if he didn’t mark me. All she-wolves who didn’t complete the marking ritual within a month of meeting their mate went through heat. From the rumors, it was pure agonizing torture and all unmated male wolf’s instincts was to put that she-wolf out of her pain.
Didn’t Roman know that? Did my acceptance into the Lycans hurt him so badly that he refused to grant me something so sacred, so essential for my peace of mind?
I banged on the door, unable to stop myself from hyperventilating. Tears began streaming from my eyes again and stain my cheeks. I hated feeling hopeless.
A few moments later, Derek’s mother answered the door in a plush pink robe, her brown hair set in wild curls. When she saw me, she furrowed her brows, pulled me inside, and yelled upstairs for Derek.
Derek walked down the stairs, wiping his tired eyes. “Ma, it’s like 3am,” he said. When his gaze landed on me, he jogged over and wrapped his arms around me. “Isabella, what’s wrong?” he asked, hand gently caressing my hair. “Why’re you crying?”
I grasped onto him, nails digging into his back, like I would lose him too. “Derek, he-he doesn’t want me. This is all my fault.”
“Who doesn’t want you?”
