Chapter 58 A GREEN MONSTER CALLED JEALOUSY
SEBASTIAN'S POV
I stare up at the ceiling with a calm demeanor.
I'm seeing and at the same time, I can't see anything.
My chest is tightening with the news that's just been dropped in me without any warning causing my breathing to go stiff at every hitch.
And even when there's something so serious and life threatening like the challenge coming for me, I just can't get over what I saw not too long ago.
My mind won’t stop replaying the short moment immediately after I opened my eyes, the way Alpha Ragnar had pinned me to the bed and the way his eyes were wide with something I couldn’t place.
Was it anger? Shock or horror?
And then there is Alisander not helping me at all. Just acting dumb and dead when I question him.
He's hiding something.
They're both hiding something from me.
I can’t, no I won’t ignore it.
A wave of jealousy rises in my chest, bitter and unwelcome.
Is this what I've been reduced to?
My fingers twitch as if I could reach out and push all these feelings and emotions away, but it lingers gnawing at me.
Why does Alisander have this pull over Ragnar?
What do they have between each other that even I, his mate, couldn't be told?
Why am I the one being left out in this mate relationship?
I sit up fully, wrapping the blanket around myself tighter though it offers little comfort and no help at all.
“Alisander,” I probe out gently in my mind, hoping the wolf hears me in that silent corner of my mind. “What happened? Why won’t you speak or tell me?”
Silence.
Of course he won’t answer.
What was I expecting? He never does when I need him most.
Instead, I feel the faint stirrings of his presence as if he’s there but just out of reach, my reach.
It's almost like I'm the one sharing his body and not the other way around with the way he's always observing, calculating and one step ahead of me in everything.
It’s maddening.
I want to scream, to demand and to tear out the truth from him.
Unfortunately, I know that if I push, I’ll only drive him further away.
A shiver runs down my spine with equal parts frustration and fear.
My pulse races as I think about Ragnar again, the way he had loomed over me, all full of alpha authority and raw power.
I know this was not the right moment for something like this, but that was hot.
The way his eyes had flickered with something unspoken and the possession? It was really good.
Except, it wasn't to me.
It was to… Alisander.
There was chemistry between them and I wasn’t a part of it, at least not fully.
Jealousy claws at me like a living thing poking into my bones.
I can’t help the sharp edge growing in my thoughts:
Does Ragnar care more about Alisander than me?
The idea makes my stomach knot with anxiety.
Growing up, I've never been chosen for anything or for anyone and now I finally have the chance to be in close proximity to my mate.
It would scar me like a hot branding knife to my chest if Ragnar preferred Alisander to me.
It's ridiculous, I mean I and Alisander are supposed to be one in the same person yet here I am with chest palpitations and anxiety over being the second or the discarded option.
My chest burns not with fear, but with this desperate need to be seen and to matter. If not at all to anyone, then at least to my mate, Ragnar.
And yet, the truth hits me like a blow.
I don’t even know what happened. I can’t even recall any argument happening, the fight or what could have transpired between them and the moments that led Ragnar to pin me down.
It was all blank in my head.
Alisander… tampered with my memories.
“Why… Why are you keeping it from me?” I whisper into the quiet room, my voice trembling despite my efforts to steady it and sound calm.
I’m angry, hurt and confused all at once.
My own mate is keeping something crucial and related to me a secret and my other half of my soul, my wolf is ignoring and leaving me on silent.
And yet, I know something happened between them and that's the maddening thing to me.
The threads of my mind pull in different directions and with every crazy scenario I can cook up in my head but the one constant is the shadow between Alisander and Ragnar.
It's the invisible wedge I can’t reach past or breach between them.
I have become the third party in my own mate bond.
I pace the small space, blanket still clutched to my chest with my bare feet scraping against the floor.
“I need to understand,” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else. My thoughts flicker between them, Alisander’s cold silence and Ragnar’s conflicted eyes looking at me.
I remember Ragnar's eyes and the tension that lingered after all the chaos and I feel that tightening coil of anxiety that has been growing for hours in my belly.
I feel like throwing up.
Finally I halt, my heart still hammering, as I press my palms against my eyes.
I try to calm the storm raging inside my mind, to breathe and to try and see reason.
I think about how Alisander must just be having one of his mood swings so he's locked up in my mind till he calms down, or how Ragnar might have a good reason he's trying to shield information from me.
It works… well almost.
But every time I inhale, the jealousy returns like a vile cockroach clawing at my mind.
He looks at him like… like I’m invisible. Like I don’t matter.
And yet deep down, I know that’s not true. I know that Ragnar’s eyes, even in the moments of shock had held concern for me, had held… something.
I shake my head trying to banish the swirl of insecurity creeping at me but the unease persists.
Even when I know it's bad, I know I've lost to jealousy.