Chapter 3: Mates are for life.

The food tastes like wax on my tongue, and it's worse because I'm the only one that's eating.

Coren has gone silent, and he's staring blankly at the tablecloth in front of him, but his silence isn't going to change my mind.

My heart thrums with the emotion of remembered bitter memories and I struggle to stuff it down. I want out from this toxic situation.

I want out from being placed last all the time, and seeing the woman my mate betrayed me with slowly win him over… I need to be gone before it finally happens.

"I don't understand." The dead sound of Coren's voice and the way I can hear it breaking as he finally meets my eyes threatens to shatter my heart. "We're mates, Destiny. Mates are for life.

Don't tell me you're still angry over what happened a year ago?"

Coren's voice has taken on a tired tone, and I stare at the blueberries on the side of my golden pancakes, my hand gripping the fork tighter as I keep my silence.

"We've had this conversation too many times to count now, Destiny.

If you didn't like this situation with Tracy, why did you let her stay this past year only to bring up that mistake now?

I thought you forgave me."

I can’t help myself as a response stumbles out, "I never forgave you."

Coren’s eyes widen, and the room is tight with tension. My hand is gripping the fork so tightly the iron is hurting the flesh of my hand. My voice trembles but I force the words out, "I...

I thought I could forgive you, Coren, but my heart still feels like a knife was driven through it.

I just didn't know what to do a year ago so I suffered through all the pain for the past year.

The moment your son was born yesterday, I knew. I have to leave. Your actions since then have only confirmed it."

Coren speaks in a low, feral growl as he bites out, "Me wanting to fuck you confirmed that I want you to leave?"

I raise my eyes back to look at him but there's nothing shy in his gaze.

Alphas are known for being very direct when their emotions get the best of them and Coren is no different. He’s in a rage now. His eyes are focused on me intensely, and his scent has gone sharp, like burning forests instead of its normal minty pine.

His Alpha aura, something only he has in the pack, is sending an unsettling feeling through me. Like I need to get out of here. If any of the other pack werewolves were in the room, this would make them feel scared and intimidated. They would have their necks bent in surrender.

"You've stayed away from our bed for almost a year, but I have never stepped out on you, not once. Doesn't that prove that what happened with Tracy was a mistake, Destiny?

You don't let me touch you, and you know how deeply I want to have you writhing beneath me every night. Now you say you want to reject me and leave? How can you do that?

I thought you loved me." 

Coren’s eyes soften suddenly, filled with incomprehension and confusion.

I do.

I do love him and it hurts me badly to want to do something like this, but I can't stay here anymore. The love I have for him will make me endure anything he throws at me, but I owe it to myself to walk away.

"I'm sorry, Coren."

Coren's gaze hardens and I meet that gaze with a stare of my own, trying to be brave as I take a deep breath, "I, Destiny Willows, reject you, Coren Silver, as my fated mate.”

My heart feels like it’s cracking and i can feel every bit of it, every crack of pain along the lines of my shattering world.

“I declare our bond broken, and the love we once shared a memory.”

The love I have with Coren is one of the most precious things to me, so saying this…. Saying this hurts so much. I want to sob with every word I say, but i can’t.  I’m not done yet.

“I can't be with you anymore." 

Rejections in the world of werewolves work differently according to the traditions of various packs.

The Silvercrest Pack has always been a male-centred pack, so a male usually has all the power in a relationship. A male werewolf can reject his mate any time they want, without consulting the council or setting up a ceremony.

I used to think of how unfair it was to subject one's mate to that kind of pain, when most men who reject their mates so suddenly are usually the ones who have messed up, but now I'm doing it.

Except I'm not the one who has messed up here, and the power still lies with the male.

The bond of fate that ties us together as mates hums softly in the back of my mind and the air seems to wait with expectation. The words to accepting or rejecting mates have always been sacred to us werewolves, having the power to be a dream come true or a nightmare.

The words I've spoken have initiated the rejection, but because I'm mated to an Alpha, the rejection can only be complete when he rejects me too.

Coren is still the one with the final say here.

"I, Coren Silver, Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack, reject your rejection, Destiny Willows." 

Wait, what!

A sharp feeling of pain stabs through my spine and my head snaps up to find Coren glaring at me, his once brown eyes swirling gold as a fierce look of stubbornness rests on his face. My heart is quivering in disbelief. No… No he’s joking. He won’t do that to me again. He’ll reject me.

He has to reject me so we can both be free. He has to… so I can get on with my life.

"You are my mate, and mates are for life.

I forbid you from ever leaving me, Destiny."