Chapter Forty

Jasmine’s POV

When I woke up from my exhausted sleep, it was already dark outside.

I felt sated and spent.

Completely and utterly satisfied and unable to move due to how comfortable and exhausted I was.

I turned to the other side of the bed to find it empty once again.

Once again, I had woken up alone in our bed.

However, I was too tired to think deeper on what that could mean.

Regan had explored every inch and dip of my body and had brought me to heights I had never known existed time and time again.

I had lost count of how many times I had cried out his name as I ascended new heights.

I had never imagined that anything would have felt like that.

And if that had felt incredible, I wondered what fully mating with him would be like.

I felt a blush heat my cheeks as the memory of earlier in the day flooded through my mind.

Before I could think on it further, I heard the door to our room crack open to reveal my mate.

He came in with a tray filled with food and I felt and heard my stomach give a sudden growl of hunger.

On catching sight of me still in bed, his eyes darkened, bringing memories back to me.

I suddenly remembered that I was naked under the warm blanket that hid me from his view and once again blushed to my roots.

For some reason, I felt shy.

It wasn’t that he had not already seen and explored every part of me already. He was my mate after all. But I still felt shy.

He brought the tray of food over to the bed and placed it beside me while I tried to sit up, all the while holding the blanket up to my neck to try to cover myself.

A smile stole onto his face at my action but he said nothing.

Instead, he sat on the other side of the bed, with the tray of food between us and spoke.

“I know you must be hungry”, he said. “Lena has not stopped asking for you”, he complained but a smile of amusement could clearly be seen on his face. “I do believe she thinks I have done something terrible to you”.

I leaned forward and plucked a blueberry from the tray.

“Well, I certainly cannot blame her”, I told him. “You did carry me out of there like a possessive male wolf”, I said with a small smile.

His smile broadened at that.

“I did”, he admitted. “Though in my defense I must say it was more Rage’s doing than mine”, he confessed as I put the berry into my mouth. “And seeing the outcome, I cannot thank him enough”.

At his last words, I spat out the berry from my mouth in surprise, not expecting to hear such words from him.

He threw his head back and laughed loudly as I sent him a glare. I ignored him and picked up another berry to eat, not even bothering to comment on his words.

When he finally recovered from his laughter, he watched me eat in silence for a while before he spoke again.

“Luke insists on resuming your training”, he said. “He does not want you missing even a day”, he all but grumbled.

A smile stole onto my lips at that.

“Well, I have missed him”, I said, purposely not looking at him and simply focusing on my tray of food as I spoke. “I have not really seen him since the mating ceremony either. I wonder how he is”, At my last words, I looked up at him and found him looking absolutely furious.

His eyes flashed red and back and the smile instantly disappeared from my lips.

“I did not mean…” I started to explain that I had only been teasing when he cut me off.

“One thing you should know about male wolves is that we are incredibly jealous creatures ,my love”, he said, so coldly that I felt a shiver race up my spine.

“And for Alpha wolves, it is a thousand times worse”, he said, face as hard as stone. “Do not carelessly endanger the life of a poor werewolf because though it is true that I can and will never hurt you”, he paused to make sure I understood his next words. “I will not hesitate to get rid of anyone who tries to take you from me or anyone I perceive as competition”.

As soon as he was done passing his message, he stood from the bed and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that I flinched.

I sighed in sadness.

To think that we had just been having a wonderful time and I had made one stupid joke that ruined everything.

I knew without a doubt that I was wrong, but I also knew that it would not be wise to go after him immediately to apologize.

Not when Rage was so clearly at the surface.

He had probably gone for a run, as he always did to calm Rage down.

So I chose to wait for him to return before trying to apologize.

I ate the food he had brought me, barely eating even half of it since I had lost my appetite, before going to clean up and change into a dress.

When I was dressed, I took the tray and made my way back to the pack house where I was sure it had come from.

Avoiding talking much with the few she-wolves there, I made my way out of there and headed towards the stream instead of going to look for Lena as I should have.

When I got to the stream, it was empty with no one in sight and since the water was cool, I decided to take a swim to relax my aching muscles from the activities earlier.

I went behind a part of the stream hidden from view and stripped off my clothes before entering the pool of water.

Sighing in content at the temperature of the water, I sunk low enough for the water to come up to my neck, leaning backwards and relaxing my muscles to allow the water carry my weight.

I didn’t remember how long I stayed there for but I suddenly heard the sound of crunching leaves.

My eyes flew open but there was nothing in sight.

I looked around to be sure but still found nothing.

Thinking it must have been some small animal like a rabbit or squirrel, I turned back to resume my previous position.

I must have drifted off due to exhaustion because my eyes flew open when I heard a sudden splash of water from behind me.

Before I could turn back to see what it was, a hand grabbed me by my hair and pushed my head under the water before I could draw in a breath.

Realizing that I was being attacked, I thrashed around as I struggled to free myself from my attacker’s hold.

Trying not to panic and instead to recall my trainings with Luke, I brought a hand to the hand holding my head down and felt for a vein. Once I located one, I dug my fingers deep enough to break skin and deep enough to reach the vein.

My attacker shrieked and let go and I quickly kicked away from them, breaking out of the water to draw in deep breath.

Before my attacker could reach me again, I put enough strength into my legs and kicked upwards towards where I presumed their face would be.

Luckily, my aim was true.

I heard the satisfying sound of a crack as one of my legs connected with a nose and an ear splitting scream as the other leg connected with what could have been an eye.

Knowing that whoever had attacked me was quite possibly a werewolf, it meant that they would be healing already and I did not have much time.

I swam away as fast as I could towards the grass where my clothes laid and picked up my dress before turning to see the face of my attacker who I could hear advancing towards me.

Somewhere in my mind, I registered a sharp pain at my side that I had probably gotten when I was struggling as well as aches in different parts of my body from bruises.

As I turned to face my attacker, I felt my body freeze in shock at the sight of the angry she-wolf that was moving towards me.

Sooni.

I hadn’t seen her since our last encounter where she had threatened me in the hallway of the pack house. I had simply figured that she had chosen to avoid me altogether and since I was not eager to see her again, I hadn’t bothered myself with thoughts of her.

“You witch!” She screeched as she made her way onto land.

I held my dress against my naked body as I moved backwards away from her, all the while trying to comprehend the fact that she had tried to drown me.

“Sooni”, I said in surprise. “Why?” I wondered aloud.

“Why?!” She yelled out in anger. “You dare to ask me why?!” She asked. “Everything was perfect before you came here”, she said. “Before you used your witchcraft and seduced our Alpha!” She accused. “You may have everyone fooled but not me”, she said, the hatred in her eyes clear to see. “You are not a werewolf”, she said. “You are a witch!”.

Taken aback by her accusations, I stared at her speechless.

“I-I am not”, I managed to stammer, the ridiculousness of her words shocking me to my core.

“Liar!!!” She screamed, making me take another step back.

“I know what you are”, she said, an insanity in her eyes. “You used your witchcraft to turn my pack against me”, she accused future. “Look what they did to me because of you!” She screamed in anger, bringing a hand up to her face to show me.

Except there was no hand there.

The place where her hand was supposed to be was missing and what would have been her hand started from her wrist.

I winced at the sight.

The flesh covering her wrist, though healed, was still pink.

No wonder she had only grabbed me with one hand.

I had not noticed since my eyes had been on her the entire time.

That and the fact that I had been shocked that my attacker had turned out to be her.

As I stared in horror at her arm, she raised her other hand and I watched it transform into claws.

A sinister smile slowly appeared on her face.

“I will do the pack a favor and rid them of your evil existence”, she said as she started to slowly make her way towards me.

I backed away.

“Sooni, I am sorry this has happened to you”, I tried to get through to her as I moved backwards. “But you must know that your Alpha would never forgive you if you hurt me”, I tried to convince her. “I am his mate. If you hurt me, you hurt him”.

She came to a stop at that and I let out a breath of relief.

One thing about the werewolves of the Midnight Wolves pack was their absolute love, devotion and loyalty to their Alpha.

They practically worshipped him.

She took a good look at me from my head to my toes and back up before her gaze settled on my neck.

Slowly, that sinister smile appeared on her face again.

The blood froze in my veins.

“Thank the Moon Goddess, it is not too late”, she said, and at my frown of confusion, her smile widened. “He has not marked you yet”, she said and resumed advancing towards me.

“Sooni…”, I tried to say but suddenly tripped on a stone and fell.

Since there were a lot of rocks around the stream, I fell onto one.

But knowing the kind of bad luck I possessed, I was not overly surprised when the back of my head connected strongly with one of them as I fell.

I felt the impact instantly as my vision blurred and pain exploded in my head.

“Sooni”, I barely managed to whisper as my vision started to darken.

“Goodbye, witch”, I heard her say and saw the movement of her lifting her clawed hand to strike me.

Then everything went dark.