Talons

Chapter 102: The Revelation

Colton's POV

My original plan was to spend time with Rhea as my wolf over several days, and when I felt she was ready, I would reveal myself to her. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't. Orlin was breaking her heart even though he was referring to her. She may not have said it, but we could hear and feel it in her words.

When Rhea offered to babysit for 'my mate and I', it sounded as though it pained her to even think about it. That also hurt me because it meant that my mate had strong feelings for another male. 

"But it's me," Orlin says. "She wants to be with me."

I don't even respond to my wolf who I know is about to get a rude awakening. If we stayed in his form forever, she may want to be with him, but we can't.

Everyone knows that living as a wolf slowly eats away at the human consciousness, and eventually you lose the ability to shift back.

Even if Rhea decided to join me in that fate, we would lose our mate bond with our human consciousnesses and if we had any pups, they would be born without a human mind.

Fully behind the tree, I shift, then slide into my shorts. My heart is pounding, and I can’t move. Orlin is the only connection I have to Rhea, and I'm about to throw it away.

I step from behind the tree, purposefully making noise so my mate isn’t startled. She must be nervous because she doesn’t turn around until I’m close enough to touch her. 

As soon as she saw me, the small smile she was wearing melted away.

“No, no, no, no.” My mate repeats this over and over, shaking her head in denial. 

She presses herself totally against the tree shutting her eyes tightly and I close the distance between us. 

Her face is turned away from mine, and I cup it in my hands. I want her to look at me, but if I try to force her to turn her head, I might hurt her.  

“Rhea, please look at me.” I leaned my forehead against the side of her face, but she is still chanting the word ‘no’ in a whisper that is breaking my heart. “That was the day I should have known you were mine.”

“You’re tricking me. You’re not him,” she says, and my wolf starts to whimper in my head. 

I repeat every question she asked back then, hoping to calm her, but she starts to hyperventilate. I hug her tightly, and she squirms in my grip, crying as the two of us sink down to the ground.

“Just kill me,” she whimpers, and Orlin howls with her words. My heart is literally burning with her request, and the only person I can blame is myself.

Rhea’s POV

When my rogue stepped behind the tree, I knew he was going to shift so I gave him privacy. I was terrified of turning around because I was afraid he would be handsome and it would be too hard to let go of where my mind had gone.

I felt so warm and safe with the male wolf that I had unintentionally imagined myself as his mate, but he already has someone, and it isn’t me. 

When I feel that he is close, I turn and feel my heart constrict with emotions that I cannot place. Sylvia hasn’t retreated, but she is quiet and in shock. She too felt a connection to the male wolf, and this is too much for her to process.

“No, no, no, no,” I say as I press myself against the tree. 

Colton closes the distance between us and grips my face tightly, trying to force me to look at him, but my neck has gone rigid. He finally gives up, and leans his forehead against my ear, telling me that he should have known I was ‘his,’ but I don’t want to hear that.

I accuse him of trying to trick me, but he shuts the idea down by repeating every word I said to my rogue no; to him. I slid to the ground, hating that the one male I was genuinely interested in building with, ended up being the one person who was best at destroying me.

“Just kill me,” I beg. The mental torture is really worse than physical abuse, and I just want to die.

“Never,” Colton whispers. “This is a curse for you, I know, but it's equally a punishment for me. I don’t know where to start, or what to do, but I know that I’m willing to wait as long as it takes. I just need you to give me a chance.”

Colton releases me and stands. He looks around the garden and takes a deep breath. He tells me that it once was tended to by his mother, and he tells me that we can buy the things I need to bring it back to order.

I don’t respond, I just sit on the ground, holding my knees and Colton leans on the tree next to me. He doesn’t speak, and he is far enough away that I don’t feel the need to move.

“There used to be a bench somewhere over there,” he says, pointing to an area that is so overgrown it's impossible to see where a bench may be hidden. “My mother would read to Dolton and I after my father would…” He stops speaking, shaking his head as if recalling the memory is too much for him. “I believe in the bond Rhea. I know you don’t trust it, or me, but can you please give me a chance?” Again, I’m silent. 

Colton stands and extends a hand to me, but I get up on my own. Now that I know he and my rogue are one in the same, I don’t know how to process the information, and while I am terrified, I find myself following him.

Colton walks by my side, but he isn’t too close and when we get to the Packhouse, we see Mandy and Carter waiting outside. They clearly weren’t expecting to see me and Colton together, and their expressions betray their thoughts.

Colton’s POV

I can only imagine what it looks like right now. My mate is covered in mud, her shirt wasn’t meant for gardening, so it's torn, I'm wearing just my underwear, she has tears running down her face, and smells like me.

Anyone with even a tiny hint of darkness in their mind would think I did something to her, and while I think I may have broken her heart, she needed to know. She cannot have feelings for my wolf and not me; it doesn’t work that way.

"You’re just jealous," Orlin grumbles, and he is absolutely right, so I don’t bother to respond. 

My beta links me, wanting to know if everything is ‘okay’ and I tell him that nothing happened. I open the link to Mandy and tell them both that Rhea was in my mother’s garden. They both seem to understand, but Mandy is still concerned.

I know she isn’t aware, so I tell her the story about the omega, her cousin and Orlin, and she looks at me in confusion. She retells the same story, only, it's completely warped. I find myself staring at my mate, wondering how many people, other than me, wronged her in life.

If she wants, I will kill anyone she asks me to, including General Newt, who I thought would be more formidable as a high alpha. I had the height advantage for sure, but he fought in a feral manner. It was all grappling, and while that may have worked in a setting where our claws were out, it was no match for my fists.

“Give her something to change into,” I say out loud. “We are going shopping.” Mandy tilts her head at me. 

She knows my financial situation well, but even if I have to spend two months of living expenses on my mate, I will. She is worth every penny to me, and not just because of the bond.

When she thought I was her mysterious friend, she was easy to chat with. She didn’t judge me, she didn’t expect the best from me, and… 

"You f*cking moron," Orlin growls… cutting off my line of thought. "You asked your fated mate to choose a bed warmer for you." My heart starts beating erratically, but during our rejection hearing, promiscuity never came up on my end. Either my mate didn’t care, or she has the same reputation I have.

Once again, I find myself growing jealous of the human Mike and I find myself making the dumbest decision of my life. I go to my office, pull out my mate's phone, and turn it on. 

I don’t know the pin, but I make a random guess and it opens up. I tell myself that I will never let Rhea choose any secure numbers for us, because if the word baby spelled out numerically is all she can come up with, that will be a problem.

Scrolling to Mike’s contact, I open their message thread. There are a lot of messages from him but only a few responses from her, and when I go back further, I feel my anger swell. Almost every weekend he was asking my mate to pick him up, or someone else was texting her from his phone to say the same thing.

He was using her, much in the way that I was using Jessica and Gale, only they wanted to be with me. He would apologize, and my mate would remind him that she started her day at 5:30AM; he would promise not to bother her again, but come Thursday night, he would break that promise.

I start wondering if he was rough with her when he was drinking, and before I can stop myself, I’m looking up the man’s professional profile. He is six foot three; respectable for a human, and compared to my mate’s petite frame, he was probably never gentle. 

I know how men get when they drink because I am one. In the past, women would literally avoid me when I had been drinking because they knew it would hurt. I didn’t do it on purpose, but alcohol tends to numb sensitivity, and I would find myself pushing harder and deeper to get the same level of satisfaction I would get without it.

In another moment of pettiness, I open Rhea’s photo gallery, but I find myself smiling again. It’s literally filled with photos of her nephews, and it’s clear that my mate likes children.

"We will give her plenty," Orlin promises.