CHAPTER 18 – REJECTION

CHAPTER 18 – REJECTION
Nathan P.O.V

“You will never accept me, which means there’s only one option left for us.”
Her tone is decisive, but filled with sadness, and a foreboding feeling starts wrapping around my heart making it thump wildly in fear.
“I Sloane Kathreen Moore, Alpha of the Moon Shine Pack,” her voice cracks down and a heart wrenching sob escapes her, while my heart feels like is burning in my chest and sheer gelid terror pumps wildly through my veins.
“Stop!” I whispered, unable to shout from the pain.
But she doesn’t stop, she takes a deep breath and keeps going.
“reject you, Nathan Anderson as…”
My hand clamps down on her mouth from behind, preventing her to finishing her sentence and breaking our bond completely.
My chest is still aching, making me feel weak, but so is hers, making her struggle to free herself from my hold and finish what she’s started impossible for her. 
After a while she gives up her fight and sags in my arms completely spent and dejected. I turn her around in my hold, and press her head to my chest, silently listening to her soft crying. I caress her soft hair, the motion bringing us both a sense of calmness.  
“Why?” she sniffs out at one point.
“Why didn’t I let you reject me?”
She nods her head yes on my chest.
“Because I’m not ready to let you go,” I reply truthfully.
“But you don’t want me,” she says angrily, softly punching a fist on my chest. “Do you know how much it hurts not being wanted by your own mate? The one person who should love you unconditionally. You are just cruel and selfish!” she says angrily, trying to push me away and free herself of my embrace.
I let go but cradle her face in my hands before she can get far.
“I’m all that, I’m selfish and I keep hurting you, and I’m sorry. I just can’t give up on you, I can’t live without hearing your voice, seeing your smiles, feeling your sweet lips on mine. I would go insane without you.” 
I bare my heart out to her looking her in the eyes, letting her find the truth in them, and I can see in hers that she wants to believe me.
“Does it mean that you accept me as your mate?” she asks in a small voice, needing some kind of confirmation from me, which I honestly can’t give her. Our situation hasn’t changed and neither has my view on it.
“It means that I have feelings for you, that I want to be with you and protect you.”
I want her to understand that we don’t need to make our bond official to be happy together. Can’t we just cherish each other’s company?
Her eyes suddenly become hard, and slowly she grabs my hands in hers, and gently takes them off her face. She stares at our connected hands for a second, before her gaze shots up like a sudden gust of cold wind and she lets my hands go, while a bitter smile appears on her lips.
“You want me to be your dirty little secret. Hidden away from the public eye, but still there to play with when you feel like it.” She laughs a humorless laugh, before she takes a few steps back.
“I should have just finish what I’ve started!” she yells in rage.
“You got it all wrong,” I start to explain, understanding that it might look like that in her eyes, but that’s not what I meant at all. “Do you really think so little of me? Haven’t I proven to you that I want to be with you?”
“Yes, only in secret!” she spats angrily.
“You know what, it’s not fair that you put all the blame on me. What have you done to change our situation? Nothing! Would you renounce to your Alpha title for me?” I ask accusingly, knowing very well what her answer will be.
My words hit her like a slap on the face, and for a second, she falters, but then her anger comes forth again, making the tip of her ears turn red.
“How could I give up my title? My pack counts on me, I have responsibilities, I can’t just throw everything away for…” she stops mid-sentence, unable to press the blade deeper into my heart.
“For love? For me? Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, stop acting like the victim, like I’m the only one who’s not ready to give up my entire life for this bond. We are the same, Sloane, only I at least am being honest.”
She doesn’t say anything more; what else can she say? I am dead right, and she knows it.
“By the way, the farmhouse is a drug factory. Here,” I throw her the vial containing the sample I’ve stolen, and she catches it in one hand, looking curiously at it.
I start walking away in the direction of the packhouse, while she stands there watching me go. I hoped she would stop me or follow me, but she doesn’t, apparently, I’m not as important to her as she depicted me to be. Works for me, it was only a matter of time before we had to go our separate ways, it’s just sooner than I expected.

Sloane P.O.V

I watch him walk away from me with my heart broken in a million tiny shards I will never be able to glue back together.
I know he’s angry, and he has every right to be.
All this time I’ve being putting the blame on him, when I’m equally guilty. I’ve called him selfish, while I’m the same, only hiding behind duty and responsibilities to justify my self-interest and my hunger for power. I don’t want to renounce my Alpha title, not only for my people, but for myself, for my pride, as Nathan doesn’t want to renounce his position to become less. 
He's been straightforward since the start, while I stubbornly tried to win him over, and now that I’ve carved a small place into his heart, because I could see it in his eyes that he really cares for me, now the pain of not being able to actually be together will torture us both.
I should have left him alone from the start, like he wanted; I’m the cruel one, I’m the one to blame.
I pocket the vial he’s generously retrieved for us, although he didn’t have to, he helped us and didn’t ask for anything in return. It was dangerous for him to go there, if anyone suspected him, they could have charged him for treason and killed him on the spot. More so as Axel was there. 
I feel like a jerk and a fraud. I’ve been cheating him and myself all along.
I don’t even know how we should go on from here. Maybe we should just keep our distance and wait for the bond to fade slowly. I felt it break a little when I tried to reject him, although the connection is still there, even if it weakened. 
I won’t try to reject him again, unless he asks me to. That kind of pain is soul crushing, like burning away a piece of myself, and maybe that’s why fated bonds are so precious, because they are planted deep into our souls, they shouldn’t be broken on a whim of the moment.
We’ll keep our distance from each other, and we’ll see what happens.
…  
The rest of the training camp goes by quite smoothly, I got a few glimpses of Nathan in the canteen and during the matches between students, but that’s it. He never tried to approach me and I the same. We just pretended the other didn’t exist. Although, under the cold mask I showed on the outside, I was drinking in every second of our fleeting encounters. I tried to memorize the way his lips stretch when he laughs and the way his eyes sparkle with pride when one of his students fights well in combat. How will I cope with not seeing him at all after we leave here is an issue I don’t even want to start addressing.
Axel has been quiet too, he’s come to chat with me at training a couple of times, obviously pretending that he’s not the one who drugged me at the club, not that I’ve even confronted him about it, it would be useless, he’s never going to admit it.
Apart from that, he’s given me a few gifts, such as jewelry and expensive bags and shoes I can use at the ball, which I’ve accepted reluctantly, only because my father and Daniel made me. Daniel because he thought I needed some kind of compensation for Axel’s psychotic behavior, in his own words, “He has to pay somehow.”, and if the law can’t help me, at least I can try to drain his wallet.
He's asked me to go to the ball with him, and although I don’t like him, since he’s a pig, he tried to rape me, and he’s up to some very illegal business, I still accepted for the sake of this event. We put it up together and we should finish it together. 
It’s also not to make him suspicious. After the trip at the farmhouse, I’ve been snooping around with Daniel at night, to find other clues about the children and his drug business; we have managed to find a few leads, but I need more time and resources, so I need to keep Axel on my good side until I can find enough proof, and then I will sweep the rug right from under his pig trotters.