His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

Intrusion

Zahraa POV

I didn’t have time to process Rowan’s near-assault before I was trapped again in the arms of another male.

Honestly, what was with today? I’d gone eighteen years without an ounce of male attention, and suddenly I had to deal with not one, but two of the high alpha’s sons?

“I need to talk to you,” Jacob finally answered the big question: what are you doing here? “You’ve been avoiding me today. You’re pretty good at it. Not a single one of your friends knew where you were.” He leaned in closer – goddess, I hadn’t thought he could get any closer – and smelled me. A growl rumbled low in his chest. “You smell like my brother. Why is that, Zahraa?”

I spun around and shoved him with all my might – which was obviously not enough, but he respectfully took a step back. “What does that matter to you, Jacob? Why do you smell like w***e?”

Okay, so maybe calling Amber a w***e was uncalled for. I didn’t even know her, really. I just knew of her.

Okay, so maybe what I knew of her might justify calling her a w***e, but I still shouldn’t have done it out of anger – especially not out of anger at Jacob.

He clammed up, but only for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said – but it wasn’t soft or apologetic, it was angry, as if I were in the wrong for calling him out. “But that doesn’t mean you should go running off with my brother!”

“Running off?!” I spat, “I was running because of you!”

He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the door. His grip was painful, and after seeing him throw Amber against a wall, I was worried for my own safety. He pulled me through my living room, my struggles meaning nothing to him, then pushed me down on the couch. “I’m not going to have a conversation with you when you have one foot through a Door,” he growled. “So, sit down and let’s talk like adults.”

Like adults.

I rubbed my arm where he’d grabbed, just knowing that was going to bruise. “What is there left to say?” I asked. “I feel like you’ve made your choice, so I’m free to make mine.”

Another snarl ripped from him. “You are not free, Zahraa Snow. I’m not giving up on you anytime soon.”

“Then why were you sucking Amber’s face off?” I asked, voice raising, fists clenched and lay flat over my thighs. “You can’t have both!”

“I don’t have either!” he yelled. I flinched, sinking back into the couch, and his eyes widened with realization. “Zahraa, I’m…” He started pacing, stalking the floor between me and my coffee table. He finally stopped, facing my front door (I wonder, if I sprinted for the nearest interior door if he’d catch me before I could leave?) and releasing a heavy sigh.

He turned back to me. “I’m sorry,” he replied, a sudden calmness coming over him that was somehow more frightening than the violent outburst. “You’re right. I can’t have both – and I’ll choose you every time.”

“But you didn’t,” I said, turning my face away from him, looking towards the living room window instead. “You chose her in that office.”

A beat of silence. “I know,” he spoke softer now, but that didn’t mean this was going to be a rational explanation – didn’t erase what he’d done. “I know. I was weak. But you-” he started pacing again, less intensely this time, but still revealing his agitation. “You don’t understand how I feel. My mate is right in front of me – right here – but I can’t touch her. I can’t…” he tossed me a side glance, then turned his eyes away. “I can’t do what you do with your mate when you find her. I just feel… pent up.”

Pent up.

That was his excuse? Pent up?

My hands were shaking when I snapped, “Then reject me! Maybe the goddess made a mistake this time around, because if my mate can’t wait until we figure things out, he’s not much of a mate – or a man – at all!”

Silence.

Deafening, crushing silence.

I remembered the ache in my arm and hoped he wouldn’t retaliate with violence – but instead, to my surprise, he sat down on the coffee table. “You’re right,” he said, without specifying about what part.

I took the initiative. With a shaky voice, I said, “I, Zahraa Snow, reject you, Jacob-”

His hand crushed against my lips, pinning me back into the couch. The surge of pain hit us both, and I thrashed against his hold, but he kept it up until the pain – the feeling of being skinned, fat being rendered within my body, my organs searing with unbelievable heat – became unbearable. He collapsed next to me on the couch, and together, we flinched and twitched until the pain ran its course.

Tears pricked my eyes. With a soft, small voice, I asked, “What do you want from me, Jacob? We can’t do anything mates can do – you said it yourself. You’re unhappy – that much is clear. So what do you want from me? What’s left that’s keeping you here instead of with Amber?”

“Amber is nothing,” Jacob said, any remaining fire he might’ve had extinguished by the shared pain of my simple touch. “Amber was a mistake I made before finding you, that keeps popping up. She knew I had a weakness and she toyed with it. I’m confident she knew you’d walk in, too. She wants to break us up.”

“Maybe we should let her,” I replied, too tired to continue fighting. “What do we have together that’s worth salvaging? Have you considered that?”

“Of course I have,” Jacob sighed, pushing himself up to a seated position. He put his hand on my thigh, hesitant to touch me again even with the jean material between us. “Zahraa, even without your body, you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. You have a beautiful, soft soul, and you’re so intelligent. I would never want any woman again.” He paused, “But I’m just a man. I’ll admit, sometimes I think with the wrong head. But I promise you, I’ll never let that happen again.”

Something in me, a deep buried part that I’ll never truly understand, wanted to forgive him, even if I felt like a kicked dog right now. I stood, and extended a hand to him, palm up, without looking back. “Give me the key.”

“What?” he sounded truly baffled.

“The key,” I repeated. “Whatever you used to get in here in the first place. Hand it over.”

There was a pause, then a shuffle. His hand came to rest on mine for a moment, and when it disappeared, there was a bronze key sitting in the palm of my glove. “Thank you,” I said, though I wasn’t sure why I bothered saying anything kind to him. “Now get out. And don’t barge into my apartment again.”

I didn’t turn around to see Jacob’s expression. Part of me felt like it might be comical. The other thought that I might cry, cave to him, apologize for committing some wrong against him that I hadn’t. The couch creaked when he stood, and there was a beat of silence when I wondered if he would come up from behind me and grab me again, but instead, there was a soft plodding retreat, and the click of my door as it shut behind him.

I exhaled, collapsing onto the couch, hiding my eyes under my arm as the tears seared my eyes. Once they started, they didn’t stop.

I wasn’t sure they ever would after today.