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“I know,” Bram said. “But you got me, anyway.”

“Mags told you what happened?”

He nodded. “Just got back from a job or I would’ve been here earlier.”

There was only one reason Bram was here, he was worried what I might do. “I’m alright,” I said. Was I convincing him or me? “You don’t need to babysit me. Yeah, my mate just told me she didn’t fucking want me, but I don’t plan on swan diving off the edge of a cliff, not tonight anyway. I’m not giving up that easily.”

“Mate?” Bram straightened. “She’s your mate?”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “Yeah. I didn’t know, not until she started helping me. Deep down, somewhere, I know I did, and that’s why I stayed away from her, because I couldn’t fucking bear to be near her as tainted and fucked up as I am, and because I was afraid. I’m still fucked up, and I’m still afraid I’ll fuck things up and hurt her, but I want her more than anything. I need her. She’s everything. She’s—”

“I know. I know how you feel,” Bram said. “I know what she means to you. I had no idea she was your mate, though. Does she know?”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t feel it.”

Bram shoved his fingers through his hair. “There’s a reason for that.”

I gripped the back of the couch. “What did she do?”

His jaw worked as if he were wrestling with something.

I knew this male well. We’d grown up together. Something seriously fucked up was going on. “What the hell is it? Tell me.”

“If I’d known what this was, between you and Jaz, I would have spoken up sooner.”

I had no idea what he was going to say, but my friend was a male of few words, and he didn’t get involved in shit if it didn’t involve Magnolia. For him to speak up now meant it was something serious, something he couldn’t ignore. My fingers dug deeper into the couch, and my fox paced.

“I know what it’s like to be in love with someone and think there’s no hope. I didn’t think it was my place to tell you after Mags found out, if I’d known—”

“Fucking tell me, Bram.”

“She went to someone, I don’t know who, someone with powers and asked for help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Help with her heartbreak, over you, and they did something to her…to stop her loving you, Ren. That’s why she doesn’t feel it, she can’t.”

I struggled to fucking breathe. I’d hurt her that much, so much she’d done something to break free from me, to cut me out of her like a piece of rot. I didn’t blame her after the way I ignored her, flaunted other females in front of her—rejected her.

Fuck. She’d been living in pain as long as I had and I hadn’t seen it, so caught up in my own.

Maybe I should walk away, leave her alone, let her be happy without me. But she was ours, our mate, and I couldn’t let her go.

I grabbed my keys and strode out the door. Bram shut it after us and strode down the street with me. It was late, Jaz would be asleep, but I couldn’t wait.

“What are you gonna do?” Bram asked as he kept pace beside me.

“Fucked if I know, but she’s mine. I can’t just walk away. There has to be a way to fix this.” The alternative was too fucking awful to consider.

We walked around the back of the house.

Bram clapped me on the back before heading for his tree house, and Mags, in the backyard, and I used my key to get into the house. It was silent. Everyone was asleep. Walking into Jaz’s bedroom in the middle of the night was probably a terrible idea, but it was as if I were being pulled to her by an invisible force. My mate was here. Where she was, I needed to be, whether she felt it as well or not.

I took the stairs and stood outside her closed door, my breathing shaky as fuck, my gut a sack of jagged fucking rocks. But I needed to hear her say it. I needed the truth. I gripped the door handle and eased it open. The curtains were open, the moon casting shadows across the walls, the tree outside the window making them sway.

Jasmine was sitting up in bed, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them, her eyes wide and on me. I didn’t say anything, shutting the door behind me, and stared back at her across the room. She was utterly breathtaking. Her blond hair was a sexy mess around her face, her tattooed arms bare. She bit her lower lip, and her eyes drifted shut for a moment before opening again, except now they glistened with tears.

“You know, don’t you?” she whispered. “You know what I did?”