TWICE MATED

Unfinished business

ANAIAH’S POV

I felt like I was finally home. I still wasn’t sure about what that meant and I wasn’t sure if everything that this man had said to me was the truth, but I was relieved that he hadn't killed me right away. He had made a lot of promises to me, most of which didn’t seem to be true. It was even harder for me to believe anything that he was saying because of what I had just experienced with someone who called himself my mate. We had literally just met today and I just felt like things were going a little too fast for me. I didn’t want it to seem as if I didn’t believe that he was my mate because, as much as I was struggling to believe that, a part of me knew that it was the truth. I just needed some time to adjust to this truth.

However, the fact that he had accepted the fact that I was his mate gave me a new kind of hope. It showed me that I still had the chance to get him on my side and that was if I played the role of the mate that he wanted. I was desperate to get him on my side because I knew that the rest of his pack members were going to struggle with accepting me because of where I was from. I was still struggling with coming to terms with the fact that he was my mate after Michael because I just didn’t understand how I could already have a second chance mate when I just met Michael last night. Our mate bond wasn't even broken and yet here I was accepting another man as my mate. Did this mean that I was betraying Michael?

However, I couldn’t deny or suppress the feelings that I had for him. They were almost the same as what I felt when I first met Michael. The only difference was that this one actually chose to look beyond my looks. This man chose to accept me as I was even though I was sure that he knew that I was nothing but an omega in Michael's pack. So much about my new mate reminded me of Michael, which was the reason why I figured that my own feelings and heart were no longer reliable. It was very possible that I was only feeling this way because this man reminded me of Michael in more ways than one. I couldn’t really put my finger on what it was, but there was just something about him that just screamed Michael.

If I didn’t know better, I would have even thought that they were brothers, but I knew that it was impossible, and I was just overanalyzing things. If Michael had a bother I was sure that we would know about it and there was never anything that had ever been said about him. Of course, I had just been an omega in his pack but there was little that happened in the pack without my knowledge. One thing that happened a lot among us omegas was the fact that we gossiped a lot about the elite of the pack. However, this was something that was never spoken of, it had never been mentioned that Michael had a long-lost brother out there. Maybe I just saw similarities between them because I had just been with Michael as my mate and now I was with this new man...Maximillian.

I was still afraid that Michael would still try to hunt me down and kill me and that was the reason why I was so paranoid the reason why I felt like this was that I didn’t believe that Michael would happily let me live my best lie with his nemesis. He was probably going to be mad at himself for not being able to kill me when he had the chance to and I also expected him to be mad at me because I hadn't died after he gave me that poison.

Dwelling in the past was of no use to me now, it wasn’t as if I could go back in time and re-do things with Michael and even if I could, I knew for a fact now that things would turn out the same way. If I could go back in time for a redo, I was probably going to make sure that I never attended that ball. I still had the same feelings that I had for Michael, and I wished they had been the ones that had died that night. Maybe that was what he was trying to do. Maybe his intention hadn't been to kill me but to kill the natural feelings that we had for each other. But wouldn’t it have been better if he had told me that was what he was trying to do? Maybe I would have helped him. I knew a lot about breaking mate bond because I was an omega. I had a lot of friends that had been in this situation and they had gotten rejected just as I had. Of course, they were not really my friends, but they were people that I knew, and I knew what they had been through and they hadn't ended up close to death.

It was clear to me that Michael was no longer a problem for me and my new problem was now this new man who was convinced that I was his mate. I had to play along even though I already knew that there was no way that this man was my mate. Whatever I thought I was feeling for him was nothing but a delusion and maybe a traumatic response to what I had just gone through with Michael. I was just going to play along with this new alpha until I figured out what my next step was going to be. Someday or later he was going to realize how wrong he had been and that I wasn't his mate. I had to be out of here by the time that happened. I couldn't stick around and wait for that to happen, but for now, I had to find out what his intentions for me were...

One thing that I noticed was the fact that all the pain that I had been in since I got here and since I drank from the glass that Michael gave me suddenly stopped when Max picked me up. It was as if I had never been in pain and that was very surprising and unexpected for me. Maybe this was a confirmation that Max was my second chance mate otherwise my body wouldn’t react the way it did to his touch.

We finally arrived in the majestic room that I assumed was his room. He placed me on the bed and then he just stared at me. That was weird. I didn't like the way he was looking at me. I didn't like the way I felt when he was looking at me. I wasn't supposed to be feeling these things for another man now that I had my mate...but then that same mate rejected me. I had to stop referring to Michael as my mate because he had made it clear that he didn’t want me. I had a new mate now and I had to be grateful that I wasn’t going to be homeless like I thought I would be when I woke up. I had to be grateful that I got another chance at life and that I wasn’t going to be killed by anyone.

He walked away from me and went to the bathroom. After running the water there, he returned and picked me up without saying a word. Was he about to bathe me? I trembled at the thought of his seeing me naked. No one had ever seen me naked, not even my roommate back at the pack. What if he judged my naked body harshly? But did it really matter what he thought of me when I didn't even know this man?

he started taking off my clothes and I knew that I should have said something to him to get him to stop, but each time I opened my mouth to say something my throat would go dry and I would end up not saying anything. After I was completely naked he took off his shirt and then picked me up and placed me in the tub that was filled with hot water. Back at the pack, we didn't have the privilege of bathing in hot water. Hot water was like a reward after doing something that was worth rewarding. I could get used to this, I wanted to open my heart up and accept that this could be my new life, but I was too afraid to do so. What if I accepted it only to have the rug pulled from under my feet later on? I wasn’t sure if my heart could take any more pain. the most painful part and scariest part was that a part of me knew how this would end. A part of me knew that this man was possibly my second chance mate, but I couldn't open myself up to him. How could the moon goddess make the mistake of giving me another mate when I still had unfinished business with the previous one?

Despite the feelings that I had about having unfinished business with Michael back at the pack, I still couldn’t help feeling like this was the beginning of something new for me. I had been given a chance for a fresh start and I had to be grateful for that. Max, had proven to me that he was going to treat me better than Michael did because of the way he reacted when he found out that I was his mate. It was as if he erased everything that he had planned for me and decided to focus on the fact that I was his mate. This was something that Michael had failed to do for me, and that was why I decided to take this opportunity that the moon goddess had given me and run with it.