Chapter 80: Chapter Twenty-Seven
**Benjamin’s POV**
‘*Which problem*?’ I thought as I watched William and Shira sink into the crowd. Mina and I didn’t have just one problem. We had a hundred; a hundred issues that were coming at us faster than we could comprehend, every single one more exhausting and demoralizing than the last.
Despite everything, I couldn't accept that my relationship with her was doomed.
How could it be?
Mina had been unequivocally created and chosen for me, and me for her, by the Moon Goddess herself. She was my promise of love, and without her, my life would lose all purpose and meaning, so no, we could not be doomed. Whatever it was, whatever held us back; I would have to fight until my dying breath. Giving up was no longer an option.
“Mina!” I called out for my mate as she made her way into the house. “Mina, stop. We need to talk.”
"Not here, Benjamin. Not in front of everyone." She replied, drawing back to avoid the curious crowd. “Take me home.”
She didn’t have to ask twice, and within moments, we were both inside my car, driving through the short distance from my parent's house to ours with an uncomfortable silence hastily settling between us. I kept my eyes on the road, too afraid to look Mina's way despite my burning need. My anxiety, worry, and apprehension grew by the second, and as we finally pulled into the driveway, I had become nothing more than a strung-out ball of nerves, vulnerable, all at once, to total fraying.
“What do you think Shira meant?” Mina voiced her thoughts, breaking the shield of our silence, and for the first time tonight, I dared to take a good look at her.
To say that she was beautiful was not to do her justice. She was always breathtaking, and tonight was no exception. From her giant black eyes, her soft pink full lips, and her beautiful brown skin that glowed against her pretty yellow dress, everything about Mina enticed me and invited me to the most delicious of sins; lust. How could I blame Travis, Micheal, or any other man who once fell under her spell when I gladly got carried away by her bewitching ways?
“I- uhm… I….” I tried to answer, clearing my throat.
I couldn't think, I couldn't concentrate. My eyes were glued to Mina's neck, left bare by her curls pulled up by a hairclip, and before I could stop myself, my fingers were lightly grazing the mark I had left on her skin. With one barely-there touch, hot flashes, goosebumps, and an unquenchable thirst for more ruptured through me and filled all of my senses.
I needed to look no further. These were all the reasons I ever needed to hate all of the other men. They had no right to fall in love with her, no right to claim her as theirs. She was mine and mine alone, and I could never let it be otherwise.
“Mina, about toni- about the pictures….” I fumbled with my words, not knowing where to start.
“Your speech was beautiful.” She whispered, leaving me stunned while she slid my fingers from her neck to her lips. “I know you love me, Benji. I just don't know why you would kiss her.”
“I never wanted to kiss her. She lured me into having a conversation with her, and then she kissed me. I pushed her off immediately, Mina. You have to believe me.” I begged her, teary-eyed, inching toward her. “I would never hurt you again, baby. I love you.”
“I know.” She said after what felt like an eternity. “Someone sent me those pictures to break us apart, Benji. Who?” She asked again, uncertain, but a sense of urgency swirled in her eyes as they wandered back and forth between my lips and my eyes.
“I’m sure it’s Karlie, baby. I’ll find proof and have her banished, I promise. She won’t come between us again.” I told her before succumbing to my very own desires, crashing my lips onto hers and letting my tongue drown in the sweetest taste it ever knew.
I couldn't explain when or how Mina ended up straddling me inside the cabin of my car, but by Goddess, there was no place else I would have chosen to be in this cruel and unforgiving world.
My lips and tongue quickly slipped through the barrier of her teeth, and I shamelessly licked, sucked, and rediscovered, for the millionth time, every inch of her mouth. Mina pushed herself deeper on me, and, with her fingers buried in my dense hair, she feverishly rubbed her arousal against mine.
My harsh grunting stifled her moans of pleasure and, just as my desire to feel my manhood thrust deep inside her tight walls sought out to gain complete surrender of me, Mina broke our kiss to catch her breath.
“We need to talk to Shira, Benji.” Mina murmured, panting against my lips. “I can’t lose you. I love you too much.”
“Say that again. ” I demanded in a hitched breath as my cock throbbed and pulsated under her.
“I love you, Benji. I can’t lose you.”
“Again, Mina, please.” I begged her, my heart swelling, unable to get enough of her sweet words.
“I love you.” She let out, smirking.
“Again.” I asked, softly attacking her lips with my teeth.
“I love you, Alpha Benjamin.”
A loud, long, wild growl erupted from my chest as I tried to contain my overwhelming and intense urge to fuck Mina the way I wanted right then and there, in my truck. Instead, keeping her legs wrapped around my waist, I carried her from the car to our bed, where I planned to prove my love until dawn.
**Travis’s POV**
“I should have never agreed to this.”
Karlie's high-pitched voice burst through my ear as we watched Mina and Benjamin kiss in his car. I couldn't believe my eyes. After everything he had done to her, the fact that she was always ready to forgive him was beyond me. Yes, the mate bond was hard to break, but Mina was human; theirs wasn't supposed to be so strong.
So why did she still chose to stay? Why did she love him so much?
“Shut up, Karlie!” I growled at the whining she-wolf, my eyes still glued on Mina.
“Don’t tell me to shut up! I was fine two nights ago, until you came to me, Travis. Argh, why did you bring me into this? You said kissing him would work, and you said she would leave him. Does that look like a couple breaking up to you?” She asked bitterly, pointing at the pair locking lips.
“Fuck!” I hissed in anger.
What was happening? Why was she kissing him?
My stomach turned further at the sight of Benjamin carrying Mina inside the house as a loving man would for his woman. He didn’t deserve her; I did. I was supposed to be the one carrying her, touching her, kissing her, and making love to her. I loved her like I did no other, not even my mate. Bile rose from my stomach to my throat as the thought of Victoria flashed across my mind.
Her heart broke when I refused to touch her and spend time with her, but I knew our pull to one another would have only become more challenging to resist if I had. I didn’t want to be close to her. I didn’t want to risk falling in love with her. Despite her supplications to reconsider, I rejected my green-eyed mate, and the night before I was to leave Crescent Moon, she accepted my rejection.
It was better this way, for I knew she would have never been happy with me as her mate. I couldn’t be the man she deserved and love her the way she had always dreamt of being loved. Indeed, my mind was consumed day in and day out solely with thoughts of Mina, and my heart’s devotion to her grew stronger with every passing day. I had to spare Victoria the misery of being mated to a man in love with another woman. I wanted Mina and only Mina.
“If Benji finds out we sent the pictures, he’ll make me a rogue! I can’t let this happen. I’m twenty-one, I’m mateless, and I barely know how to protect myself. I’ll die as a rogue.” Karlie cried out as Benjamin closed the door behind him and Mina.
Once they had disappeared out of sight, my attention shifted entirely to the blonde nuisance standing next to me. Karlie was distressed and agonizing over the decision she had made; I could see that much, but even as she shed tears, and her lips quivered, and a few tiny beads of sweat ran down her forehead, I couldn’t get myself to care. She was Benjamin's ex-lover, and although her fear of the Alpha's wrath was evident, she had hurt Mina, and because of that, I was honestly and ruthlessly numb to her.
“You should’ve thought about that before, Karlie.” I told her, indifferent, as I ran into the forest.
“Seriously? Travis!” I heard her ignored pleas fade out behind me as I darted between the trees, on the brink of shifting. “Travis! You can’t do this to me!”
In an instant, my clothes fell off my back, and brown fur sprang up from my body as Orin lunged forward and took over. ‘*Glad to see you're still with me, old boy*.’ I linked my wolf with relief. Our interactions had subsided considerably since the night I rejected our mate, and although he could never truly leave me, his light and his presence had significantly dimmed, leaving me, in turn, vulnerable and weakened.
Still, nothing outweighed the hope of being with the one I loved, and even Orin’s anger and remoteness couldn't dissuade me from my dream. ‘*Alright, whatever, my obsession*.’ I sighed, conceding the truth to my wolf as his low, disapproving growl echoed through the woods.
From the safe nest in his head, Orin allowed me to lead our run, and half an hour later, I had forced him through a heavily guarded makeshift camp, alive and bustling with rogues. I could feel Orin on alert, uneasy, trying to turn around, but I couldn't let him. I had to speak to her again. My plan to end Mina's relationship with Benjamin without her help had failed, and I had gone too far to give up now. I was slowly descending into madness, but my love for Mina left me no other choice.
“I knew you’d be back, Delta.” Her shrill, sinister voice rose in the air as Orin and I cautiously moved past forty rogue wolves on the way to her. “We were meant to work together. Now, welcome back.”
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***Author's note***:
Hey, you guys!
First and foremost, thank you for all your support, I truly appreciate it.
I know a lot of you like Delta Travis, and may become upset at the new update and where his character is heading (or who he's going to work with), and I'm sorry for it. He's kinda losing it, and it was pretty much coming. Don't give up on him or me, though! Things are about to pick up really quickly and become more intense in the coming chapters. Ouff!
Let me know what you think in the comments, encouraging or critical, sweet or bad, I welcome it all. It truly helps.
❤️🐺❤️