CHAPTER FOUR

Goddess, he’s even more gorgeous than I remembered. It’s almost difficult to look at him, but I also can’t look away. I lean toward the sill, my fingers meeting glass and reminding me I closed the window after I took a shower.

I unlatch it and sit on the sill, opening my mouth and hoping that an elegant greeting with emerge from my lips.

My mate wasn’t exactly smiling before — now that I look closer, I see that his is a face more suited to scowling than smiling — but after my “hi?” he’s now outright frowning, his dark eyes glaring so harshly at me I can feel it in my chest.

Even frowning he’s beautiful, his cheekbones so sharp they’d make a sculptor weep.

I open my mouth to try again, to ask him why he’s here, but just as I start to speak, he bolts, racing toward our fence and leaping over it in one smooth stride. He shifts as soon as he hits the ground on the other side, his grey and silver fur dappled with moonlight. I track him as he races off through the trees, leaning dangerously out of the window until he finally fades from view.

Well, it’s official. He came, he saw, he rejected.

I shut the window, angrily slamming the latch back into place.

I’ve spent years dreaming about my mate, wishing and hoping that they would finally make me feel whole, like I belonged to someone.

Instead, I feel more alone and adrift than ever.

Angry tears flood my eyes but I swallow them down. I’m too tired to cry, and I have to get up early tomorrow morning for the early shift at the diner. I can’t walk in with a puffy face and red eyes, so with a sigh I roll over and close my eyes, hoping for a dreamless sleep. Now that I’ve met my mate, there’s no use fantasizing about the possibilities. This is a straight-up nightmare.

*

The diner is packed with the usual mix of regulars at lunch time, and I’m balancing four plates of the meatloaf special when the bell sounds over the door, signaling new customers. I look around me to see where they can sit and find there’s only one table free, all the way at the back.

The pack’s table.

Part of the deal Clyde has with the pack is that, in addition to the monthly stipend he pays them, he always has to keep at least one table open for them.

I smell the Gamma’s signature musk and know the incomers must be him and his cronies. But then I catch a whiff of a scent I’ve only encountered twice before. Twice last night.

I whip my head around and see my mate walking behind the Gamma’s fighters.

It is only because of my excellent skills as a waitress that I don’t drop the plates in my hands, but instead set them on the table and slowly walk toward the hostess stand in the front of the restaurant.

I have to squat down to grab four menus, and I take the opportunity to inhale and exhale a few calm, cleansing breaths I’m hoping will somehow prevent the emotional tornado I can feel building inside me.

I don’t know what to say to him. I haven’t even worked through the pain of his rejection yet. I wasn’t supposed to have to see him only twelve hours after it happened!

Do I ask him why, or do I feign ignorance and pretend he’s a stranger?

No decisions are made in the time it takes me to walk from the hostess stand to the back of the restaurant, which, even going at a snail’s pace, is still only about thirty seconds.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Nobody,” the Gamma oaf says as I approach the table and hand out the menus.

“Uh, hi,” I say in response, trying to avoid glancing at my mate.

I fail. Miserably. It’s magnetic, the way my entire body is drawn to him. My skin screams out to touch him even as my eyes threaten to water at the memory of him literally turning tail and running from me.

My eyes search for his and when they meet his gaze, it’s a punch to the stomach. He’s staring through me like I’m a wall. Like I’m nothing.

A flicker of anger makes my jaw tighten. I push my humiliation aside. If he wants to ignore me and pretend I don’t exist, that doesn’t mean I have to make it easier for him.

I give him a bright smile, “And what can I get y’all?”

The Gamma and the rest have the same thing so I barely listen to them, jotting down their orders, half blindly, my eyes on my mate.

I can see the irritation in his eyes at the way I’m holding his gaze but he’s arrogant enough not to lower his first, maintaining the eye contact.

Fine.

Be that way.

“It seems your friend here isn’t ready to order yet,” I remark, coolly, all the while keeping my tone polite so as not to trigger the Gamma. “I’ll come back when you’ve decided.”

I see relief in his eyes and I despise him for it. From everybody else, I’ve become used to it. But it’s like a slash on my already bruised heart when the person supposed to protect me is giving me the same treatment.

“Friend?” The Gamma laughs. “You’d better learn some respect. James is the new pack Beta.”

I freeze as everything suddenly begins to make sense.

At this point, he doesn’t have to say anything anymore. Status is everything in a wolf pack. My mate no longer has to verbally reject me. I already know.

“I see,” I say, politely, looking away from the man who was meant to be mine. The pain of my fantasies and hopes crashing is something I can only hide.

This time my smile is completely false, “Congratulations.”

The Gamma sneers at me, “He doesn’t need your congrats.”

I don’t see anything and as I turn around, forcing myself to bury my heartache deep inside of me, I feel the Gamma’s fingers pinch my ass.

I flinch as he laughs, “This is all she’s good for, James. Females like her are only useful for a good time and a few laughs.”

My face turns red with humiliation and tears well up in my eyes as a few people laugh around us.

My hands tighten around the notebook and I’m about to walk away when I hear a low growl from behind me.

I don’t have to turn around to know from whom the angry sound is coming from.

My mate.