“No I didn’t! I’m … confused. I thought it wasyou.” My fingers went to my lips again as I tried to think of a logical reason for what just happened. “Maybe I was drugged.”
He frowned, suddenly looking concerned. “Do you feel drugged?”
I shook my head. “No, but—”
“Did anyone give you anything to eat or drink here?” he pressed.
“No.”
“Then why thefuckwas some random dude’s tongue just down your throat!” he yelled as people in the room started to gather behind him and stare. This wasn’t like him, he wasn’t mean, not to me, not ever.
Tears lined my eyelids. “I … I don’t know.”
Anger washed over his features, before morphing into pain. “I … trusted you … with everything. Is this why you were having second thoughts on the way over? Oh my God, I feel sick.”
He turned to leave and I clung to his jacket. “Sawyer, wait! I’ll figure out what this was, it must have been magic—”
“No.” He looked back at me with stone cold fury. “Thiswas a mistake! I love you but that doesn’tmeananything.”
He lowered his head to look down at me.‘I have to look out for my family now and what’s best for them. It doesn’t matter that I love you. The curse only breaks if you love me back. I’m sorry, Demi. I can’t risk their lives on a girl who just made out with some random dude at what was supposed to be our engagement party.’
He jerked out of my grasp and burst through the crowd, going inside. It was like he’d smacked me in the face. Each word slammed into me like hot coals being thrown at my skin.
‘Sawyer, don’t do this. I love you! This was magic or something. I didn’t know what I was doing!’Desperation took hold of me.‘What about the imprint? True mates?’
I could feel his anguish through our bond, like a hurricane of emotions slamming into me with gale force winds.‘I want to believe you but … I can’t. That was clearly Paladin magic and I don’t want anything to do with it.’
Pain ripped open inside of me, fresh and hot as my wolf, and I felt the full brunt of his rejection. When he turned the corner, I caught a glimpse of Meredith. She was waiting for him, all sad and dopey eyed. He pulled her into a hug and my wolf reared to the surface, trying to break out and howl in misery, but I pushed her down. When Meredith looked over his shoulder at me, she was grinning.
This can’t be happening.
“Miss Calloway, I’m here to escort you back to your dorm room,” Eugene said behind me in a cold and unforgiving voice. He’d walked up behind the patio and was waiting on the other side to kick me out of my own engagement party.
Fuck.
Sawyer’s voice filtered out onto the balcony from inside the speakers in the room: “Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming. I’ve called you all here because I’ve made my decision early. I know who I’m meant to be with, who loves me more than anything, who has been by my side for years…”
It was like someone reached down my throat and squeezed my heart.
‘Don’t. She doesn’t love you. Please. This was an accident,’I warned him. His entire family would die if he married Meredith. That, I was sure of.
His cold blue eyes met my gaze through the glass window, and instead of seeing the anger I expected, I just saw more broken pieces, piecesIbroke. Pieces I promised Sage I wouldn’t.
“Meredith Pepper is my future wife and mate.”
The crowd erupted into applause as my heart was ripped out of my throat and a sob escaped me. I’d lost him. Lost the one guy who ever fought for me. The only guy I’d ever really trusted when trust in men was in such short supply.
Without waiting for Eugene, I leapt over the balcony, landing on my feet, and took off running. I couldn’t help the soul crushing howl that tore from my throat as my wolf and I mourned the loss of the love of our life.
My feet pounded against the black asphalt as I ran down the road and back to campus, grateful I’d worn my trusty white Converse. I needed to get out of here, like out of campus, out of Wolf City, out of fuckinghere. When I made it back to my room ten minutes later, chest heaving, tears streaking down my face, I picked up the camera Sawyer had given me. He’d replaced my broken one from my waterfall accident. Grasping it tightly in my hands, I threw it against the wall, smashing it to pieces as I screamed in agony.
Some of the paintings on the walls rattled and I wondered if it was an earthquake until I looked outside and didn’t see any shaking trees.
It’s me.
I’m going to die. This heartbreak is so painful I might actually die from it.
Running into my bedroom, I shoved a few belongings into a backpack and changed quickly into jeans and my converse shoes before slipping out the open window. How could he not believe me? I know it was crazy, but I’d thought that guy was him. He looked and soundedjustlike him. It had to be some kind of magic or something, although in all my time with the witches of Delphi, I’d never heard of a spell that powerful. Changing eye color or hair color sure, but … he’d lookedjustlike him. Sounded just like him. Itwashim. But it wasn’t … and now everything was fucked up.
