Talons

Chapter 149: The Hidden

Colton’s POV

Mandy once told me that my mate is secretive about her wolf, and now I’m seeing it first-hand. I wanted to be offended that my mate refused to tell me her wolf's name, but Orlin tells me to let it go. He says that it will make it more satisfying when she volunteers the information to us, but I still wanted to try.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I say cheekily, but Rhea just laughs, clearly very tickled by my statement. She pulls out her phone and types something before showing me her device. “How?” I question after reading my wolf's name.

I have never told any woman his name because he asked me not to, so I know some girl didn’t randomly drop the information, and other than my brother, only my closest friends know, which means only Carter and Trey.

“You told me." I screw up my face and Rhea reminds me of a time when she and I ended up ‘at the same place at the same time.’

She claims that I referred to my wolf by name when I used him to threaten her wolf, who emerged around the same time as mine.

"I don't remember doing that." My mate sighs and I'm not sure I even want to know why.

"You were angry that I got my wolf at an earlier age than you." Suddenly, a very vivid memory of me continuously punching the then tiny Rhea in the shoulder surfaces and I get nauseous.

I didn't forget that encounter, it was one of the things she brought up at our rejection hearing, but I’m only just now remembering what I said to her.

"I… I don't know what was wrong with me back then, but I can promise you that I won't go back to that."

"I hope so," she says.

I go to hand back her phone, but it starts to vibrate in my hand and by instinct I look to see who is calling.

I'm extremely annoyed with what I see, but I give her the device anyway, surprised when she takes the call right in front of me.

"It's a test; don't fail."

"She isn't dad."

"No, she's far worse; we actually want her in our life." I internally chuckle before my attention is pulled back to my mate who's wearing a complex expression.

Rhea's POV

Mike has never had good timing when it came to me, but this may be the worst. Colton just so happened to be holding my phone, and the way his breathing pattern changed lets me know he is struggling to keep his anger in check.

"Or this might be the best," Sylvia adds. "Watch Colton's reaction. We can plan based on that." My wolf is right, so I answer the phone to an anxious sounding Mike.

“B, what the hell was that? Why did you call me and who was that man?”

“Hello Mike. I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have called you at all.”

“What? Why would you say that? I’m sorry if I sound upset, I was just worried.”

“I’m fine. I was just… It was selfish of me to call you and it won’t happen again.”

“Are you back with your fiancé?” Mike questions. “B, listen. I don’t care how much money your family has, come with me and I will take care of you. I have my own land now. We can make it something great.”

“Mike, I’m really sorry, but you know that I won’t cross that bridge again.”

“And so, you prefer to stay with someone who beats you? What I did was wrong, but I’ve never hurt you.”

“Not physically,” I reply.

“Hey, Mike, I can’t talk now, but it was good to hear your voice. I’ll be watching, so make sure you work hard.” I hope that line is enough to cheer the man up, but he barely has a reaction to it.

“If I could go back…” he says. “I would change everything, but you treat me as though I’ve done something so terribly unforgivable that you can’t even be my friend.”

“Really?” Sylvia asks in my mind. “He thinks drugging me isn’t serious?” My wolf's anger begins to bubble over and before I can stop myself, I remind him that his feelings for me were never as pure as he is making them out to be.

“Sorry Mike, but you’ll have to settle for a used condom this time around.”

“Rhea I-” I end the call, before looking up at Colton who has his hand extended. I know he wants my phone, so I hand it to him.

Colton’s POV

I could hear everything that Mike person said, and it was a huge internal struggle to keep myself from snatching the phone from her, but I was able to, even though Orlin, the one who told me it was a test, kept trying to push forward and react.

When my mate is done, she ended the call with a huff, and while the action was cute, right now, I need to clarify a few things.

“What fiancé?”

“I was never engaged, that’s just what General told people when he would come to my school.”

“I thought you said he slept with a lot of girls in your school.”

“He did, and he made sure they knew who I was when he would do it.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Maybe a power play because I was making him wait? Like I told you before, if I asked him about it, he would hit me.” I don’t want to get her involved, but I’m going to kill General.

If he hadn’t followed her back from Puerto Rico, she probably would have spent at least a little time on Claw pack territory, and I would have been able to start begging her for forgiveness from then.

She wouldn’t be thinking that I only want her because of the bond, and by now, she would have been wearing my mark.

“Her family really failed her,” Orlin says, a hint of pain in his tone because they failed her against us as well.

I take a deep breath before calming myself. I already know Mike tried something with her, and while she wasn’t specific, I have an idea as to what that something was.

The two of us sit in silence and just focus on eating, when I notice that my mate is clearing the last of the food off her plate without being prompted.

"Thank you for finishing," I say, feeling stupid as I realize Rhea isn't a six-year-old girl who needs positive reinforcement for eating.

She too finds the humor in my words and we both laugh at my expense before her face goes back to neutral.

Once again, her phone goes off, and I open it to see that she has received a text from Mike. I was distracted and forgot to block his number, but I’m glad I didn’t.

I shakily hand her back the phone, and she looks back up at me in shock.

“I don’t know why he sent that,” she says defensively. I believe her, and I’m tempted to see if she will take the man up on his offer and meet him.

“The choice is yours,” I reply.

Dolton’s POV

My brother takes forever to get back to his office, and while he doesn’t look bad, he doesn’t look good either.

“Why is she with you?” He snarls, but my mother-in-law is unfazed.

“We need to talk to you about your mate.”

“I won’t reject her and I’m not letting her go.”

“That isn’t what we want to talk about Azul.”

Colt calms enough to listen to us, and after Lissette shows him the photos of Grace, my mate’s older sister, he becomes visibly shaken. However, I know my brother, and he isn’t shocked about his mate’s potential ability; he’s scared that someone else knows.

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

Colton’s POV

When Rhea caught me with Britt, she reset my broken nose, and while it hurt, no one questioned me about black eyes, which made me think they were trying to spare my feelings, but when I got back to pack territory, I noticed that my nose was completely healed.

Orlin and I wanted to believe it was superior genes, but an incident like that never happened again. That was up until my ankle was injured and my mate was able to massage the pain away.

I felt my ankle crack, and I was almost positive there was a fracture, but whatever she did to me left me able to walk on the injury the very next day. Now, hearing my brother and my mate’s aunt tell me what they believe, has put an outsider's perspective to what I already assumed.

“I don’t think she knows, and I don’t think I want her to. She may think it’s the reason I want her as a mate; it’s not.”

I keep scrolling through the pictures of Rhea’s cousin, and other than the girl being in a wheelchair, I would never be able to tell they were the same person.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“It’s terrifying,” I admit. “I think she’s already suffering from the Luna’s Curse, and this… I can’t imagine how hard it's going to be to keep her protected.”

“I want to show you something else,” Lissette says, and taking her phone, she opens a video of my mate singing on stage.

“Are you trying to piss me off?” I question, as I watch my seductively dressed mate sway on the platform.

“Keep watching Azul.” I roll my eyes and gasp when I notice a man in the corner of the screen who looks like he’s praying. Suddenly, my eyes take in the surroundings, and my eyes snap to Lissette’s.

“Are they-” Dolton clears his throat, reminding me that he has conflicting loyalties, so I drop my question.

“Grace loved watching her cousin sing. We didn’t notice it back then, but there were many others who really liked it as well.”

“What do I even do with this information? Do you know she can awaken-” Dolton coughs again, but I can tell from Lissette’s face that she’s already aware of what I was going to ask.

“I thought as much, but I haven’t witnessed it. All I know is that my wolf was terrified of her.”

“Why though? Rhea isn’t intimidating at all.”

“My pack was beginning to show more loyalty toward her. I suspect it's why her siblings kept her at arm's length. They probably didn’t realize that they were afraid of her.” I can see that possibility, but Rhea’s entire pack treated her poorly.

“They were afraid of being labeled traitors.”