Chapter 21

Nathan POV

I was stunned by Claire slapping me. My ears were ringing, and it took a moment for me to realize what had even happened.

The kiss had pulled me in so deeply, so fast. I thought we were both lost in it.

But apparently I was wrong.

“Claire, what…?” I touched a hand to my face, where the heat of her slap still lingered. “Why?”

Claire looked up at me with tears in her eyes. But her voice never wavered.

“I can’t be with you, Nathan,” she said. “You don’t respect me. You’re still ashamed of me and my Omega and wolfless status.”

I started to deny it, but she shook her head.

“No, I know it’s true. If I went back to you I’d still be your shameful little secret, and you’d expect me to act like I’m just the nanny again. And I don’t want that.”

She took a breath and squared her shoulders.

“I don’t want to be with you.”

Her words were like small daggers, ripping into my gut. I couldn’t believe that my sweet, gentle mate was standing there saying all those things.

“Don’t you love me, Claire?” It was all I could think of to say.

The tears in her eyes still shimmered, but none had yet to fall.

“No, Nathan. I don’t love you.”

I felt the heat of anger starting to spread over me as I stared down on her. It wasn’t true. I could tell it wasn’t true.

Her words said one thing, but what I felt pulsing through our fated mate bond said something else.

Claire still had feeling for me, and I wasn’t the only one who felt that pull between us a moment ago when I kissed her.

So why was she doing this?

“Claire, we need to talk about this. We’re fated mates. Neither one of us can just walk away from that.”

“Yes, we can,” she said quietly. She took a step away from me, and though those tears still shone in her eyes, everything else about her had become very calm.

And then I realized what she was about to do.

“I reject you, Nathan. I reject our bond as fated mates.”

I sucked in a breath, shocked at the pain that ripped through me. If it was daggers before, now it was jagged knives, tearing at me insides.

Inside me my wolf trembled and snarled, hating those words, struggling to deal with the pain they caused.

For a moment I was overwhelmed with confusion. I remembered the night Claire left. She rejected me then, and it had stung, but that was nothing compared to now.

Why did it hurt so much?

What had changed?

Feeling that pain and confusion, staring at Claire’s calm, impassive face, my anger burned brighter.

“I don’t accept,” I growled, my fists clenched. My wolf urged me to step forward, to grab Claire and hold onto her.

Mate, it snarled. Don’t let her go.

But she had rejected me. I couldn’t make her take back those words.

And I stared helplessly as Claire turned around and left the room, leaving me alone.

Claire POV

I walked into the breakroom of the clinic in a daze.

I did it. I rejected Nathan.

I was free of our bond.

After years of suffering under the secrecy and shame, pretending to be just a nanny, unable to take my rightful place by my mate’s - my Alpha’s - side, I should have felt happy. Joyful, even.

I should have felt something.

But at that moment I was just numb.

The physical pain of the rejection had surprised me, the force of it. The experience was so much different from my first attempt at rejecting the fated mate bond, and I realized having a wolf probably made the difference.

I loved my wolf, loved my new abilities, but the pain from rejecting the bond had been severe, and still lingered in my body.

But it was like it was at a distance. Every sound I heard as I walked through the halls of the clinic and into the breakroom seemed to come from a long way away. Every thought I had seemed to take an eternity to form.

It wasn’t until I was safely alone in the breakroom, sitting at the little table by the window, that everything hit me like a wave.

That’s when I finally began to weep.

Amelia found me a few moments later, my face in my hands, quiet sobs filling the room.

“Oh sweetheart, what happened?” she cried, rushing into the room and kneeling in front of me. “What did that brute do to you? Tell me, and I’ll make him pay!”

Her fierce love and loyalty touched me, making me smile despite the weight still sitting so heavily in my chest.

I lowered my hands and drew in a stuttering breath. “He didn’t do anything. Well, he kissed me. And…I liked it. At first.”

Amelia said nothing as I sat putting my thoughts together, just stood up and pulled the other chair closer so she could sit with me.

“We’re mates, so of course I felt that pull between us. When he kissed me, it felt…Oh Amelia, it felt like coming home.”

I couldn’t help but start to cry again, remembering how right it had felt being in his arms.

And how quickly that rightness had been replaced with sadness.

Amelia reached over and took my hand as I continued.

“It felt right, but only for a moment. Then I remembered what that home was like. All the years I spent being looked down on and mistreated, ignored or mocked or worse, while he did nothing to stop or change it.”

“I know how hard it’s been for you,” Amelia said. She had never judged or rejected me for being an Omega, or for not having a wolf, but she’d also grown up seeing how poorly “lowly” pack members were treated.

I nodded. “All at once that all came back to me. It was like I was nice and warm, and then got dumped into an icy lake.”

I put a hand to my cheek, remembering how my hand had moved without me even thinking about it.

“So I slapped him.”

Shocked, surprised, Amelia burst out into laughter. “You did what? Why?”

“It - I don’t know. It just happened. It was like my body was trying to get me to snap out of it, to stop falling more and more into that old feeling.”

Or, I realized, maybe it hadn’t been my body. Maybe it had been my wolf.

Maybe it had been her, trying to keep me safe.

“And then…It felt wrong, Amelia. It still feels wrong. But I rejected him. I rejected our bond. I had to.”

The words came out in a rush now, all the conflicted feelings just pouring out of me.

“In that moment I knew I had a choice, between Nathan and myself. I knew I couldn’t keep living the life I had before my powers, and my wolf, emerged. I just couldn’t. And I know it was the right thing. And I also feel terrible.”

Overcome with tears again, I couldn’t help but cover my face and cry out all the hurt and confusion inside of me.

Amelia rubbed my back and let me cry it out. Then she got up and brought me a cool wet rag for my face.

“Claire, I support you. I always have and always will,” she said as I gratefully pressed the cool rag to my swollen eyes. “And I want you to know that I think you did the right thing. You need to be able to have a life of your own.”

Feeling empty and a little better, I stood up and hugged Amelia, so thankful to have at least one person in my life who truly understood me.

Amelia squeezed me hard, then stood back. “Now, I want you to take the rest of the day off. Go home and rest.”

I had patients to see, but I knew she was right. I couldn’t take care of anyone until I had rested and taken care of myself.