#Chapter 3: “The Mark of Youth”

I froze.

Dizziness began to overtake me.

I climbed down from the counter, as gracefully as I could, which wasn’t all that easy to do while naked.  

Especially after what I’d just heard.

Whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been that.

I knew I wasn’t his fated mate. I never would be.

But I also never expected him to find one.

“She doesn’t know,” he said, quietly.

“What?”

It suddenly seemed important to be wearing clothes. I looked around frantically. Where had I left my robe?

Hunter handed me the towel he’d just discarded. It was damp, but I felt more solid as I wrapped it around myself.

“She doesn’t know we’re mates. Rogues aren’t able to tell. It isn’t until they’re confirmed as members of a pack that they can sense the connection.”

“But as Alpha—” I started. I knew what he was saying. My voice was creaky, low and husky and pathetic. For once, I didn’t care. I needed him to explain.

“Yes, as Alpha I can sense the connection. I knew at once. She is my fated mate.”

As much as I needed to hear it, to understand, the words were barbed. I could feel them sinking into my skin, tearing away chunks of flesh. Burrowing their way toward my heart.

I wondered what Hunter was feeling. His eyes didn’t show me anything.

He was closed off, still and sculptural as stone.

As much as I’d just been longing to be close to him, I now needed to be further away from his body.

The body I wanted.

The one that didn’t want me. Not really.

I took a few steps back, pulling the towel more tightly around me.

“What will happen to our relationship?” I asked.

I thought I saw shadows dance across his eyes. Were there flickers of regret there? Or was it just a reflection of dimmed lighting against the black stone counters?

His voice was as cold as the marble itself when it came out.

“We have a prenup. As I’m sure you remember.”

I forced myself to nod. I felt like my skull was being weighted down by sandbags.

“It outlines terms for what would happen if I were to encounter a fated mate,” he continued.

“Which you have,” I said, stupidly. My brain still railed against the idea that he was destined for her.

“Which I have. You’ll receive a large sum of compensation. You’ll be happy with that. It’s a large part of why we got married, of course. Securing your financial rights.”

My mouth fell open. What was left of my heart shattered.

I could practically see the pieces of myself harden into ice crystals and scatter across the hard floor.

Yes, I’d been preoccupied about money. I had to be.

With grandmother’s illness, and the medical treatments—

I always had to think about it.

But I’d never spent his money. Not once.

I used my salary to pay for her care, but my pride wouldn’t let me use what was his.

And he would know that, if he’d ever cared.

I grappled for my composure. I couldn’t let him see me crumble.

If we were going to end, better it was now.

On my own terms.

“When do you plan to reject me formally, then?” I spoke quietly, but firmly. My voice was no longer shaking. “We can end things at any time.”

He looked at me, tilting his head slightly to the side.

“Maya is still too young,” he explained.

I should have known that—did know the rules of the pack, the procedures surrounding fated mates. As Chief Delta, no one knew better than I did.

“I’ll wait until she’s 20 before I’m with her formally. Until she’s more mature.”

I blinked. He spoke so decisively. He’d clearly been thinking about this all day. Planning it.

“But what does that mean for—?”

Surely not, I thought. He wasn’t about to ask what I thought he was going to.

“You and I will need to maintain our current situation, of course. I need you.”

My competent work as Chief Delta, or my body? The comfort I gave his wolf form, the patience with which I supported his every decision as Alpha—

All of it, I guessed.

But how could he ask me to pretend? To postpone the inevitable?

How had it come to this?

It hadn’t mattered that I’d been young.

The first time we were together, I wasn’t yet 20.

I could still remember every detail of the moment.

We’d been walking in the woods, when he’d pulled me close and kissed me.

I remembered way his skin smelled, sweat overlaying the clean scent of soap, a woody musk the base note under both. At the time I’d thought it was the trees that surrounded us, or aftershave. It was just him.

He’d lain me down on a mossy patch near the edge of a stream.

My skin tingled with every touch, every change in temperature. My nipples hardened with anticipation and cold air when he took off my shirt. My ribcage flamed with heat as he slid his palms from my breasts to my hips.

I’d gasped, seeing stars, when he thrust into me.

He hadn’t shown concern for the fact that I wasn’t yet 20.

Hadn’t shown concern for the fact that pain melded with pleasure as I took the full length of him for the first time.

I hadn’t wanted him to.

He’d stood moments after we finished. I wondered if he was going to get me a drink of water, or help me to my feet.

But he had instead marked me.

He’d placed the mate mark under my collarbone, where no one would see it. I’d thought it was romantic at the time. Still flushed after my climax, so young, I’d liked that it was just for us.

But now all I felt was ill at the thought of him wanting to hide me.

Shame clouded over my memory of our first time together.

He cleared his throat and stepped toward me again, dropping the clean towel he’d eventually pulled around himself while we’d been talking.

“Can we leave this for tonight?” he asked me huskily. “I want to continue where we left off.”

I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t want to. That I couldn’t bear to touch him after what we’d just been talking about.

That I wouldn’t be with him again now that he’d found his fated mate.

But none of that was true.

I hated myself for it, but I wanted him. As much as I had on our first night together.

More.

I dropped my towel as well, hungrily pulling him toward me with a hand behind his neck, greedy for his body on me.

He lifted me back onto the counter as he entered me.

I wrapped my legs around him, arching my back and pulling him closer.

Even with his full length inside me, I wanted him more. Deeper. All of him.

It would never be enough.

***

I was still thinking about it the next morning at my desk. Unable to focus as I toggled back and forth between disgust at myself and arousal at the memory.

I started to gag, overcome by a swell of nausea.