Total pages in book: 203
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
“Yeah, Bay,” I rasp. “You do. Guess I have to earn it back.”
She scoffs with doubt, but her eyes change. She knows what I mean. She doubts it’ll happen. She’s wrong.
“Watch me,” I warn. “It’s inevitable, Bay. You’re getting claimed.”
She sighs. “Clearly it’s all about sex to you.”
I smash my fist into the nearest wall.
She jolts with shock.
Shit. Bad move. But I can’t help it; I’m seething. “This is about way more than sex, baby. Right now it’s also about urges that are innate for me, but if you think that’s all this is, you don’t know me all that well.”
She swallows and looks down.
“Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
“Bailey. Look at me, please.” My voice comes out choked and as she lifts her chin up, the pain in her eyes feels like a hot knife sinking into my gut.
“I can’t protect you if you take off on me. I can’t breathe properly if I don’t know you’re safe. I can’t hack you being around other males because you don’t wear my mark and you don’t smell like you’re mine. You did for a couple hours and now you don’t and I’m losing my shit over here. I hate that I hurt you. I was trying to turn your attention away so it wouldn’t hurt so much when I mated. Can’t you understand where I was comin’ from?”
“And you never, not in a million years thought Fate would be so cruel as to stick you with the little pest that’s followed you around for all these years. Sucks to be you, I guess.”
I growl.
She jolts. “Don’t damage our library anymore, Jase. That’s not cool. If you can’t keep your shit together, please go.”
I stare at the hole in the drywall beside her desk.
“I’ll fix it.”
She says nothing.
“I’ve always cared about you, maybe not the way you wanted, but you’ve always mattered to me, Bailey. In fact, you’ve always been one of my favorite people in the pack.”
Her chin quivers. Her eyes are full of wetness. But she stares at her screen instead of answering.
I’ll fix it. The wall. And the rift between us. Though I know which one will be a breeze and there’s no telling what it’ll take to fix the rift. I fish my phone out of my pocket and message Rye to ask if he’s home.
Since I can’t settle my shit down right now, I should run off some of this aggression. I send another text to say I’m swinging by Savage Construction to grab some drywall repair supplies in an hour or two. First, I’ll run.
Yeah. Run off some of this aggression, fix the wall, and hope that by the time I get back, I’ll have some ideas of how the fuck I can fix what I broke in my mate.
She’s typing away on her laptop again, pretending I’m not here, so I walk out, running into the beta she made a date with. He’s walking toward the building with Brody. He nearly trips when he sees me. Brody rears back at the sight of me.
“You good, Jase?”
“No.”
“Anything I can do?” Brody asks.
I eyeball him and find myself really fuckin’ unhappy that I can’t ask him to watch Bailey for me. I can’t do that because he still hasn’t mated. This means he’s probably as bad off as I am. Though he did get something from the coven to take the edge off.
Maybe I should do the same.
No, fuck that. The last thing I’m about to do is ask a Young witch for anything.
“Maybe keep everyone out of the library today.”
“I can do that. I’ll ask a couple betas to watch the door.”
“Not that one.” I point at his sidekick who straightens up and swallows before speaking.
“Actually, Jase,” the beta says, “I’d be happy to do that for you. I won’t go in. I won’t even look at her. I’d like to mend fences and…”
I step up so I’m two inches from him, towering over him. I bare my teeth.
“Honest…” he says, showing me his neck. “I’ll just sit right outside the door and if anyone comes or goes I’ll tell you.”
“If she leaves?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Don’t fuck up,” I mutter and stalk to my truck, dropping my clothes on the hood before shifting to four paws, crossing the road and sprinting westbound into the strip of forest that’ll take me to Chariot Lake.
28
BAILEY
While I got fast and helpful feedback yesterday after my request for help getting information about Jared Stone’s pack, things aren’t working out with my other request the way I expected.
In fact, I’m kind of devastated. The support I expected… that’s not what I’ve gotten. I wrote on the chat group:
Hey gal pals! Real quick (more info to come later when I’ve had a chance to process), long story but Jason identified me as his fated mate. I don’t want this. I know that might come as a shock but he’s recently shown he’s an egotistical, dismissive a-hole. In a nutshell, I got help from my brother’s coven and he’s under a 3-day magical sanction preventing him from laying a finger on me. That deadline ends tomorrow. Here’s where I need help. I plan to petition the SCC for rights for females who have a problem with an alpha trying to claim them. Basically a pause button so the alpha can’t claim her and then they can go to a mediator or something so she can state her case and request a severance. Can you help? Below is a link for my online petition. But also, if you have examples or testimonials of / from females claimed by alphas where the female would have benefited from laws that protected her rights and gave her a choice, please share with as much detail as possible. It’s way past time for our society to recognize that it’s illogical for an alpha to have all the rights and for his intended mate to have none of her own.