Talons

Chapter 95: The Baited

Colton’s POV

I went to check on my mate several times, but whenever she sees me, she goes rigid with fear. She won't even talk to me when all I want to do is hold her, kiss her, and…

I have to push my attraction to my mate aside. She clearly doesn't want me to touch her, and I'm suddenly angry. 

I remember seeing her with Jack; how she laughed and smiled with every word he said, and at our rejection hearing, he threw it in my face. 

As if things couldn't get any worse, my texts have been flooded with several photos of my mate on some sort of stage. I didn't need to be told, I knew it was Alpha Newt who sent them, especially since he added the sentence about my father's expectations.

I don't know why I allowed him to bait me, but I found myself clicking links to social media accounts where images of Rhea could be found. 

While it doesn't seem that she posted anything herself, there are several photos of her online and not just the ones taken by the twins. 

VeryRealQBMike, a f*cking professional football player, had recently posted old images of my tiny mate intimidatingly posing next to him. She was flexing her nonexistent muscles and the caption was a clear declaration of love.

I kept scrolling through the pictures until I landed on one of her dressed as…  sexy ketchup? No... She is spicy ketchup; funny.

There are two other people dressed as hotdogs in the photo, and since they are tagged, I stalk their pages as well. 

I scrolled through their feed and saw more photos of my mate and while her face isn’t always visible, I know it's her.

The last image B_B_BRiiiccceee posted of Rhea looks like it was taken in a nightclub. She was dressed so sexy that I wanted to force him to take the photo down and my anger was tripled when I saw that VeryRealQBMike commented with a message that implied that he and my mate were intimate.

I threw my phone against the wall, hating that I was jealous of a human. I’m no saint but the thought of my mate being with anyone is maddening to me. I keep imagining her eagerly opening her legs to the man, letting him touch her and do things to her that she’d probably rather die before letting me even come close to.

I'm sure that is why Alpha Newt sent me the page link in the first place.  He wants me to reject her so his sick f*ck of a son can get his hands on her, although I’m not sure why. 

Dolton said he knows General, and he told me that the man is a psychopath. I don't know how my mate got wrapped up with him, but she won't talk to me, so I have to wait to find out.

“Colt?” Carter says, and I look up from my palms, glaring at my beta before I remember that he is an asset to me.

“What do I do?” I ask. "Because right now; I’m clueless."

“When Mandy is mad at me, I feed her,” he replies.

Rhea’s POV

It’s been a few hours since Colton last left me alone, and my cousins have come to sit in the room with me. I finally got to meet Holly in person, and she is just as funny in the flesh as she is on the phone. 

If it had not been such a messed-up situation, I would have been laughing, but right now, I just feel heavy and lethargic. I haven’t eaten since before Luke’s party, and my wolf and I are starving.

Someone knocks and in comes Carter with the twin alphas, making me shoot to my feet. 

They have food, but I move away and sit in an area where I can't see them, although they might be able to see me.

"Aren't you hungry?" I know the person talking is Colton and I can't respond. "Is it because I'm here?" I can hear the agitation in his tone, and then I hear the door slam, indicating to me that the man has left.

There is silence in the room, and I'm guessing that everyone is mind-linking, but when I turn to look, only Holly has stayed behind.

"B," she says in a tone so soft it was loud. "I know this can't be easy, but you are here, and starving yourself won't help." Holly still has an accent and I find myself wondering why she left her home pack instead of considering what she was saying.

She picks up the tray and carries it over before sitting on the floor near me. 

"Please?" She continues, and I pick up a sandwich looking thing before bursting into tears. If it's poison I won't know until it's working its way through my system.

"Why me?" I ask, knowing that Holly doesn't have an answer.

“That is a question for the goddess,” she replies, and I begin sobbing uncontrollably. “Umm… sorry?” she says, and my tears turn into a bitter laugh. Her confused expression is funny to me, but more than that, I start thinking about her words.

If I had the chance, I would ask the goddess a lot. 

First: I want to know why the hell she is sitting on the moon, second: I want to know why mates exist, and finally: I want to know what possessed her to fate me to someone who tortured me for as long as I can remember. 

Holly leaves after I've taken a few bites, and I crawl into the bed, allowing myself to wallow in self-pity just for a moment longer.

I can’t help but to think of my mother's expression as Dolton spoke, almost as if she were hiding some huge secret, and I don’t even think I can talk to her right now.

She knows how I feel about the bond, so she had to understand how hard it would be for me to know that she picked some fictional moon lady over her own daughter. 

I don’t know how much time passed before someone entered the room, and I jumped up in fear. As I suspected, it was Colton, and he doesn’t look pleased with me. 

He asks me if I would like to meet his pack, but I don’t. 

I’m barely able to shake my head, and the man growls, taking an intimidating step that makes me fall to the floor. 

Curling myself into a ball, I wait for his blows to land, but nothing happens at all.

“You won’t stay in this room,” Colton says before leaving.

Colton’s POV

I left my mate curled up on the floor, still fuming that she wouldn’t even eat around me. I keep wondering if she would feel the same way toward Mike or Jack, and now, I really want to kill them. 

I try to swallow back my pride, but I can’t, and before I know it, I’m ordering everyone to stay out of the room. Mandy is the first to ask about meals, but if my mate wants to eat, she will have to come out to do it.

"Colt, you're making the wrong move," Holly says, but I ignore her. 

She knew that it was Rhea I had spent an hour in the hospital looking for. She knew that I had even gone back, hoping to find that intriguing scent, and she never said anything to me.

She claims that she has only just met Rhea in person, but I don't believe her. 

"If all of you had been honest with me from the day Carly was born, I would have had an entire year to make the 'right move.'" 

"You asked about a nurse," Carter says. "We didn't bring up B because it took a long time to calm Mandy down after she left."

"What?" I question. It's my first-time hearing about this, but now that I think about it, Mandy was not quite herself that day, but I thought it was a side effect of childbirth.

"I don't know. B came to say goodbye, but it sounded permanent."

I freeze as I consider something that the high Alpha said. He said that my mate had tried to kill herself, and while I thought he meant in the dungeons, he may have been talking about something else.

----

Rhea's POV

It has been two days since the last time anyone besides Colton has entered the room. I haven't eaten and there is no running water in the bathroom.

I can feel myself weakening, and I wonder if this is how it ends. I always knew I would die by Colton's hands, I just thought it'd be more physical than this.

"We need rest," Sylvia says. 

She is concerned that this is a tactic Colton is using in order to make us too weak to defend ourselves against his pack.

It's hard to keep my eyes open, but that is what I have been doing, keeping watch just in case the man returns in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, my mind and my body are at odds because sleep beckons to me, and I find myself drifting into it.

Colton's POV

For two days I sat in front of my mate’s door, waiting for her to ask to be fed, to be released, something, but she never did. 

I told myself that I wouldn't eat until she did, but I was starting to feel lightheaded, and I can only imagine Rhea would feel the same.

I stand, admitting defeat to myself as I unlock the door and spot my mate lifelessly lying on the ground.

A surge of strength hits me as I panic, and scoop her in my arms, running her to the pack infirmary where she is placed on an intravenous drip.

"What have you done?" Miracle says and I turn to see my brother and his mate standing in the doorway. He is staring at me accusingly and I know why.

Yesterday he compared me to our father, and I couldn't find the fault in his words. I was behaving like our old man by trying to force Rhea into tolerating me by being intolerable.

"I didn't think she would allow herself to get this bad," I reply, and Dolton just glares at me.

My relationship with Rhea is messing up his relationship with Miracle. They were supposed to go back to his pack so they could mark one another, but she doesn't want to leave her cousin.

"Colt, I know it’s a difficult situation," he says. "But maybe you should just rejec-"

"No!" I shout, making my brother flinch. "I'll do better by her."