Chapter 11

My Cheating Mate

Emma pov

The hot water stung my wounds, turning pink as it swirled down the drain. I pressed my forehead against the cold tile wall and tried to focus on the pain in my arm instead of the confusion in my head.

Jeremy was hurt.

I'd seen the blood, the deep gashes across his ribs, the way he'd limped slightly when he shifted back to human form. And despite everything—despite the affair, the betrayal, the plans to use and discard me—my wolf was whining with distress.

Our mate was injured. We should help him. Should tend to his wounds. Should comfort him.

"No," I said out loud, my voice echoing in the small bathroom. "He doesn't deserve our care. He doesn't deserve anything from us."

But my wolf wasn't listening. She was pacing frantically in my mind, pushing against my control, demanding I go to him.

It was the mate bond. That's all it was. Biology overriding common sense, instinct trumping self-preservation. The bond didn't care that Jeremy had cheated. Didn't care that he'd planned to impregnate me and throw me away. It only cared that our mate was hurt and needed us.

I turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping myself in the thin motel towel. My reflection in the foggy mirror looked like a stranger—hollow-eyed, haunted, nothing like the bright-faced girl who'd baked cookies a week ago.

Had it really only been a week? It felt like years.

I dried off carefully, avoiding my injuries. The scratches weren't deep, nothing that wouldn't heal with my wolf's accelerated metabolism. By morning they'd be mostly closed, by tomorrow they'd be gone entirely.

Unlike the wounds Jeremy had left on my heart. Those would take much longer to heal.

If they ever healed at all.

I pulled on clean clothes—sweatpants and an oversized hoodie—and tried not to think about Jeremy sitting outside, keeping watch, bleeding and in pain.

Tried and failed.

The bond tugged insistently, showing me flashes of what he was feeling. Pain, yes. But also guilt, fear, and something that felt almost like... regret?

No. I wasn't falling for that. Jeremy didn't regret the affair. He regretted getting caught. There was a difference.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the door. He was out there. Right outside. I could feel him through the bond, a constant presence I couldn't quite block out anymore now that he was so close.

And he'd fought for me. Protected me from those rogues even though I'd told him I never wanted to see him again.

My wolf whined again. *He protected us. He's our mate. We should—*

"Stop it," I told her firmly. "One good deed doesn't erase months of betrayal."

But she wouldn't stop. The instinct to care for our injured mate was overwhelming, primal, impossible to completely ignore.

I lasted fifteen minutes before I couldn't take it anymore.

Grabbing the small first aid kit I'd bought at a gas station, I opened the door. Jeremy was sitting on the ground just outside, leaning against the wall, his makeshift bandages—strips torn from his destroyed shirt—already soaked through with blood.

He looked up, surprise flickering across his face. "Emma? Is everything okay?"

"You're still bleeding," I said flatly, refusing to acknowledge the way my wolf sang at his proximity. "Those wounds need to be cleaned properly or they'll get infected."

"I'm fine. I'll heal."

"Not if they get infected first." I knelt beside him, keeping my expression neutral. "This doesn't mean anything. I'm not forgiving you. I'm just... I can't watch you bleed out on a motel walkway."

His eyes softened. "Thank you."

I didn't respond, just opened the first aid kit and pulled out antiseptic and proper bandages. "Shirt off."

He complied silently, revealing the full extent of his injuries. Deep gashes across his ribs where rogue claws had caught him. Bite marks on his shoulder. Bruises already forming across his chest.

My wolf whimpered at the sight of our mate so hurt. I shoved her feelings down and focused on being clinical, detached.

"This is going to sting," I warned, pouring antiseptic onto a clean cloth.

He hissed when I pressed it to the first wound but didn't pull away. I worked methodically, cleaning each injury with careful precision while trying to ignore how familiar this felt—touching him, caring for him, being close enough to smell his pine and earth scent.

The scent that used to make me feel safe. Now it just made me angry.

"Emma," he said quietly after several minutes of silence. "About those rogues—"

"You think Vanessa sent them."

"I do. She was furious when I told her I wasn't going to immediately reject you. And she has the money and connections to hire rogues."

I pressed the antiseptic-soaked cloth against a particularly deep gash, maybe harder than necessary. He grunted in pain but didn't complain.

"So your mistress tried to have me killed because you wouldn't reject me fast enough." I laughed bitterly. "That's quite the love story you two have."

"She's not my—" He stopped. "I ended things with her. After you left. I realized—"

"Realized what?" I interrupted, my hands stilling. "That cheating on your mate was wrong? That planning to use me as a broodmare was fucked up? Or did you just realize you got caught and needed to do damage control?"

"All of it," he said quietly. "I realized all of it. Emma, I was wrong. About everything. I treated you terribly, and I—"

"Stop." I pulled away, the first aid supplies forgotten. "Don't do this. Don't try to apologize or explain or make me feel sorry for you."

"I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me. I'm trying to tell you the truth."

"The truth?" I laughed again, the sound harsh even to my own ears. "The truth is that you never loved me. You said it yourself—the mate bond chose me, not you. The truth is that you spent six months fucking Vanessa while making me feel crazy for being uncomfortable with your 'friendship.' The truth is that you planned to get me pregnant and then throw me away like garbage."

"I know." His voice was barely a whisper. "I know all of that, and I know I don't deserve your forgiveness. But Emma, when I saw those rogues coming after you, when I thought I might lose you—"

"You already lost me." I stood up, needing distance. "The second you touched her, you lost me. The mate bond might keep us connected, but that doesn't mean we're together. It doesn't mean I'm yours."

"I know that too." He looked up at me, and there was something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Genuine remorse, maybe. Or a really good performance of it. "But I need you to understand something. When we were fighting those rogues together, when we moved as one—that's what we could have been. What we should have been. And I threw it away because I was selfish and stupid and too blind to see what I had."

My chest tightened. Because he was right. For those few minutes during the fight, we'd been perfect partners. Synchronized. United. Everything mates were supposed to be.

And it had felt good. Natural. Right.

Which made his betrayal hurt even more.

"You need to finish bandaging those wounds," I said, retreating toward the door. "And then you need to leave. Like you promised."

"Emma—"

"Dawn breaks in two hours, Jeremy. I'm holding you to our deal."

I closed the door before he could respond, before my treacherous wolf could push me to do something stupid like forgive him.

But even inside, with a locked door between us, I could still feel him. Could still sense his pain, his regret, his desperate need to fix what he'd broken.

Too bad some things, once broken, couldn't be fixed.

I curled up on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest, and waited for dawn.

Two more hours. Then he'd be gone.

And I could go back to figuring out how to survive without him.

Even though my wolf was howling that we'd already lost everything that mattered.