Chapter 10

Cole

Pure and absolute fury wraps around me hearing my mate say the worst words possible. I never imagined anything could pierce me deeper than hearing my mate tell her mother not once but twice that she hated me, thought I was nothing but a monster, and said she’d rather be dead than be mine. It sent me deep inside myself for days, my wolf pounding up and down the mountains until I was under control, twice now. But this…hearing my mate, the one I’ve waited for my entire life didn’t wait for me…hurts more than anything else she could ever begin to say to me.

I pull her up against my body, done being nice and gentle, waiting for her to let the pull take her on its own. Hell no. I’ll push it for her until she realizes whatever she felt with the dead man she let touch her was nothing compared to what I can bring out of her.

My head begins to descend, ignoring the push on my chest at first. The twisting of her body against mine only makes me harder, her scent surrounding me entirely pushing sanity to the edge of my consciousness. Need alone filling the forefront of it.

I pick her up, ready to take her to our bed, when her knee catches a tender part of the anatomy. I let out a low grunt, as her hands scratch and slap at my chest, her body twisting still, quickly pushing away the need and bringing sanity back full force. My hand lifts to the back of her neck, trying to still her as her expression hits deep and hard inside me.

It’s not anger or disgust on her sweet face. No, it’s the pure, abject terror and vacancy there that stops me cold. The memory of when I first pulled her into my arms returns, this same look on her face then, and my wolf turns absolutely savage with fury flooding us.

That look wasn’t directed at me last time. It was directed at Thomas’ repugnant offspring.

Pain floods deep within me as Mora’s body goes limp, and I gather her close, moving us to the couch, holding her tight. Praying to the stars that my scent brings her the tiniest bit of comfort, brings her back to me, because I’ve no doubt that if my mate isn’t a virgin as she said, it wasn’t something she willingly gave away.

Pieces of conversations with Sammy roll back through my mind, and I’m more and more certain that my mate was attacked by those vile pieces of shit. There’s no way he knows, no way her father knows because if he did, the two would have already been dead, Thomas likely along with them. Anyone that would go against a wolf like mine to protect a stepdaughter, would never have allowed the bastards that hurt her to continue to breathe.

My wolf howls with fury that we can’t extract more pain from the two for what they did to our mate, and the only thing I can tell him is at least they died by our hands—or claws and teeth as it was. They deserve to be brought back solely for me to kill again, over and over until they finally feel the depth of pain they inflicted on my mate. Not only with the attack on her at her graduation but when they forced themselves on her—something I now know is what they intended to do again and why they wanted her alive but didn’t care how injured she was.

Sammy’s mention that their family began to stay away from the packhouse more and more over the last two years because Mora never wanted to go up for anything that wasn’t mandatory is forefront in my mind now. They might not have thought much about it beyond she didn’t like being surrounded by the shifters day in and day out, but I’m certain it’s because she didn’t want to risk those bastards getting close to her again. It explains why she never went anywhere alone as well, why she would wait for him or Ryan to go on walks. Why she wouldn’t go out to enjoy the sunrise on the hill as she once did.

It also explains her pushing me away, refusing to admit that she feels the connection between us, that she’s healed finally simply from being wrapped in my blanket every night, here with me. Why she baited me with that news of her not being a virgin. I’ve known more than one shifter that pushed away their true mate because they slept with someone else before meeting them or were sleeping with someone else when they met them. It’s an ingrained need, desire to be the only one that every touched what’s ours, and I’ll admit, I fell into the trap. Just not the way Mora expected it seems.

Hearing another man touched her all I wanted was to replace him in every way. To show her nothing they did could begin to compare to how it would be with us. If part of me wanted his name to track him down and kill him, you can’t really blame me. Mora’s mine and no one alive but me should be familiar with her.

A soft cry slips from her lips and I brush a kiss to her forehead, holding her tighter against my heart that aches for what she went through. Physically, emotionally…holding it in for who knows how long, afraid if she spoke of it, she’d lose her family. I know she wasn’t worried they’d turn her away. No, she had to be worried that if she told them, they would attack the bastards, and there was no guarantee her dad or brothers would survive.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. You’re safe, Mora, always with me,” I promise, kissing her forehead again.

A big part of me can’t blame her for trying to push me away, not knowing this. And definitely not combined with the things that Bryant told me about Thomas’ pack last night.

I returned from my second trip up the mountains to find him waiting for me. Seems he knew I’d overheard Mora’s latest insistence that she didn’t want to be mine, that she’d rather be dead than be with me, and wanted to explain why she was wary. It hurt to know that my sweet girl only had her parents’ as a good example of a mated couple. Hearing that there were more than a handful of couples that were absolutely toxic that she’d seen, including two that resulted in the woman being killed when she slept with someone else…I understand more than ever what she was trying to accomplish today.

She was just trying to protect herself still. All on her own to protect her family I’m sure in case I reacted like them learning my mate was touched by another, no matter when it happened. No wonder Bryant told me she’d seen enough blood in her lifetime. If she was present when that man killed his mate…atop of her attack at her graduation, atop of John attacking them, and then me attacking her brothers and him…the only blood I don’t regret shedding is Mark and Tyler’s.

From here forward though, the only thing Mora will find is gentleness with me. Until we reach the point where she wants and needs me to take her the way a woman desires her mate to take her at least.

Mora lets out a soft moan, her face turning towards me, and for a moment, she relaxes. It’s not nearly a long enough moment for me, and she pops up, pushing at my chest, trying to get away from me once more. I let her scramble onto the other end of the couch, then move to the floor in front of her, cupping her face gently bringing her gaze to mine as her heart races wildly.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you,” I promise, not letting her pull entirely away as she leans back from me. My thumb brushes against her cheek, making her breathing pick up but I don’t make a move to get closer yet. “I know why you’re fighting this, why you’re scared to give in and be mine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, the only thing I’m scared of is you killing me one day because you’re fed up with me,” she says, her voice trembling and I lean forward, resting my forehead against hers.

“No, you’re scared if you tell me what Mark and Tyler did to you that I’ll blame you. That I’ll be angry and hurt you because that’s what you’re used to seeing with mates other than your parents.”

“You already know they helped attack me at graduation,” she replies, leaning further back into the cushion but I don’t mind as it lets me see her sweet eyes. See the secrets she’s desperately trying to hide to protect herself.

“Yes, but they hurt you before that, didn’t they, baby?” I ask gently, keeping her head from turning away, from hiding from me and the question. “When was it? When you were fifteen, sixteen?” I state, stopping when her breath sticks in her throat. “Sixteen…and that’s why you didn’t want to go anywhere near the packhouse again, isn’t it?”

“I don’t…”

“Please don’t lie to me, baby. There’s no need, no reason to protect them any longer.”

“I’m not protecting them,” she cries, her voice breaking, and the tears slip from her eyes, breaking my heart.

“No, you were protecting your dad and your brothers, yourself from losing them if anything went wrong with an attack or challenge,” I state, drawing more tears from her. “They forced themselves on you and against the two you couldn’t fight, couldn’t protect yourself, so you did everything you could after that day, so it’d never happen again, didn’t you?”

“I…” Mora’s head shakes, her face crumpling as the tears break free, the sobs destroying me, and I can’t let her cry on her own. I gather her in my arms, holding her tight, and for once, she doesn’t fight it.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re safe now,” I promise, resting my face against hers. “Nothing they did to you changes who you are, what you are to me. It just makes me wish they were alive to kill them all over again, over and over, until they finally felt every bit of pain they caused you.”

“Cole,” she whispers as her tears quiet, her face falling into my neck, as her hand holds tight to my shoulder.

“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’ll always have you and protect you now. You’re mine, sweetheart. All mine. I’m sorry I didn’t come after them sooner, didn’t kill them before they could hurt you. No one will ever hurt you again though, I swear. No one, not me, not anyone else,” I tell her, stroking her back until she falls into an exhausted nap.

There’s no way I’m walking her through the packhouse with tear tracks on her face. No one else will see my mate this vulnerable, but I know she needs to talk about this and if she can’t with me, that leaves only one person that can possibly help her with this.

I tuck Mora into my bed, brushing a kiss to her lips, having to force myself back when she returns the soft caress. I drop another onto her forehead then go out to the living room for my phone. It’s not even ten minute before Bryant and Nicole are at my door, a dark warning look on Bryant’s face as they look around the front room not seeing Mora.

“Mora’s in the bedroom,” I tell her mother, holding up a hand to stop Bryant from flipping out on me. “I haven’t claimed her, haven’t seduced or touched her that way yet. I found Mora out at the gazebo this morning watching the sunrise and asked her to come up to talk, to try and figure out why she kept pushing me away when I know she has feelings for me, know she feels the connection, is comforted by my scent.”

“Then why is she in the bedroom and not out here? You said Mora was upset and needed her mother,” Bryant states and I nod, dragging in a deep breath to get the words out. Words that are pure disgust in my mouth.

“Mora attempted to push me to releasing her thinking I wouldn’t want her any longer by claiming she wasn’t a virgin,” I start, pulling a protest from Bryant along with a shocked gasp from her mother. “I didn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it and demanded to know who he was. I overstepped for a moment and pulled Mora to me, to kiss her, show her that our connection was deeper than any with someone else. Her reaction…wasn’t that of a woman who’d been with a man of her own accord.”

“What are you saying?” Bryant demands, his tone deep with warning to not say anything wrong about his little girl, and I wish on the stars that I could say it was all a lie, but I can’t.

“She reacted similarly to when I first met her. Started to push me away, then fought to get free and the look on her face…it was the same as what I saw the day we met, this vacant, terrified, glazed look that said she wasn’t here with me but somewhere deep and dark in her mind. Combine that with Mark and Tyler coming after her rather than trying to help the pack in the fight…”

“No,” Nicole says, shaking her head as tears fill her eyes.

“Sammy mentioned her sudden aversion to going to the packhouse, to going to watch the sunrise alone,” I expand, and Bryant pulls his mate into his arms, holding her close as her tears flow freely.

“She never said a word about it,” Bryant says, more to himself than me but I understand completely the pain flowing through him.

“She was scared to lose you and what might happen to her if she did. I believe she was trying to push me away so I wouldn’t find out, worried I’d take it out on her if that’s what she’s seen from couples other than the two of you,” I add bringing a nod of understanding from him. “I hate what she went through, wish I could go back and keep it from happening, but it doesn’t change anything except to help me understand why she’s been pushing me away. She’s my mate and I will not let this come between us. I will give her time no matter how hard it might be to get comfortable and accustomed to my presence in her life, but I won’t give her up. I hope now that I know, and she knows I know, she’ll stop trying to cause rifts between us, but no matter how long it takes, I’m going to do whatever it takes to show her that with me is the safest place she could ever be. To help her get there though, I think she’s going to have to talk about it and if she can’t with me, you’re the only one I think she might begin to be able to, Nicole.”

“Thank you,” Nicole says, stepping out of her mate’s hold to give me a hug, pulling a grumble from Byrant that sends the remaining tears in her eyes away. “Thank you for not giving up on her. I just couldn’t understand why she refused to believe something good could happen, even with the attack at the graduation, but this…I hate that she didn’t feel like she could tell us.”

“If she had, Cole wouldn’t have ever come to get his revenge against Thomas. He’d already be dead,” Bryant says, and I nod, knowing neither of us are comforted by that.

Yes, I found Mora because of it, and if Thomas was already dead, I’d have had no reason to go there, find her. The fact that it happened to my mate is torture, especially combined with what happened at her graduation.

“I’ll go sit with her until she wakes,” Nicole says, and I nod before heading over for a drink—a powerful one. Getting drunk isn’t easy for shifters but with some extremely potent alcohol, we can at least feel the effects as it goes down and right now, that’s precisely what I need.