Chapter 58 58

Chapter 58 58
Hannah

“I still think we should just burn the entire cottage to the ground,” I suggest to Kayla for the umpteenth time since she offered to come help me cleanse the cottage of bad vibes.

She’d walked around the cottage, holding onto a thick, cigar-looking thing that billows out stinky smoke that she claims is lifting all the toxic energy from the cottage. Really, it’s just making my house smell like I dragged the forest in here. I’m never going to get this smell out.

“Hannah, burning the cottage to the ground will result in you getting arrested for arson and earning you some major bad karma, both of which you don’t want or need right now.” She reminds me as she wafts the stink stick all through the master bedroom. “The sage will remove the bad energy, trust me.”

Trust wasn’t something I had a lot of anymore but Kayla had shown me kindness during my darkest days. She travelled back here, from Chisholm, just to do this for me. I shouldn’t be complaining, even if I thought all of this sage-smoking, removing bad vibes was complete bullshit, it was all I really had right now.

Since finding out about Jake sleeping with the vampatramp, my nights had been relatively sleepless. My mind plays a continuous loop of imagining them, fucking, all over the cottage. I know I asked him where they did it but I now live in regret of my curiosity.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to Jake since that day but I was haunted by the never-ending speeches, broken into two categories, for things I should have said when I found out and things I wanted to scream at him if I saw him again. Then there were the moments where the two categories would merge and I’d unleash lashings of rage, all of which got me nowhere because he wasn’t here to absorb it.

The cottage was my house for now but it didn’t feel like home to me. The broken furniture was gone but still Jake’s essence remained here. Every room reminded me of him, not that he put any effort into decorating but the bland interior tortured me, reminding me of what he’d done.

“You could redecorate too?” Serena suggests, looking around the bedroom with such disdain, but unlike mine, hers was directed at Jake’s design choices. “We could get some paint from the storage shed, add a pop of colour and maybe even some nice pieces of art.”

“Tom is an amazing artist, I’m sure he’d be happy to donate some of his pieces,” Kayla adds, reminding me that Tom and Emma hadn’t really been seen out much, not since Kayla had tricked them into going out to dinner together.

I was happy for Emma, she’d had her reservations about the mate bond with Tom but from what Kayla had been telling me, they were now inseparable. At the same time, I was jealous of her, as much as I hated feeling that way, it hurt that she had found love so easily.

As a wolf, all we ever think about is finding our mate, that one true love who was designed by the Moon Goddess especially for you. I felt cheated, by the Moon Goddess and by Jake. This was meant to be my happy ending and now I was living in hell.

Tom wouldn’t want to hurt Emma like this because there would be no holding me back from ripping him apart.

“Some art would be great.” I agree when I realise I had fallen into another one of my rage blanks, the thoughts that consume me to the point I forget that I’m around people. “And I’d love to visit the storage shed and look at the paint.”

“You know what else would be great?” Serena says tentatively and I brace myself for whatever plan she’s going to throw at me now. “We should go out tonight, just us girls.”

I knew this would eventually happen, that someone would try to sway me into leaving the comfort of my pack, I just didn’t think it would happen this soon. I assumed I had a few more months of wallowing before I had to get out and join the living.

“By out you mean go see a horror movie in our pyjamas?” I float the idea on the table but I can sense that she has something else in mind.

“By out I mean you putting on a sexy dress, no bra and we hit up Icebergs.” She says as she looks through the walk-in wardrobe for a dress she’d approve of but I’m not a dress girl, it’s strictly jeans and a t-shirt for me.

“Icebergs? That bar in Tingira?” Kayla asks Serena.

“Yeah, the only bar in Tingira,” Serena answers her, coming out of the wardrobe empty-handed. “We may need to borrow a dress from Louisa, she has a few pretty ones from back before she had the twins.”

“We can’t borrow anything from Louisa,” I exclaim, angry at just the thought of approaching her and asking to borrow something.

“Why not, she’d be happy to lend it to you,” Serena says, not picking up on my resistance to approach Louisa right now.

“She’s Jake’s sister.” I point out, trying to make Serena understand but she still looks dumbfounded.

“So? She didn’t sleep with Angelica, Jake did.” Serena argues, saying the sluts name. I’ve tried so hard to block her identity out, instead just referring to her as a series of insulting names in my mind but now Serena has said it, piercing a new hole in my heart.

I hate the bitch, not only because she was a vampire, which is disgusting but even if she were human I’d picture ways to kill her.

“Yeah, but she also knew that Jake was sleeping with the bitch.” Kayla jumps in, seeing my side.

“To be fair, so did I,” Serena adds, throwing me a pained look. “But I’m only the Gamma’s mate and I was very vocal about how much I disliked her.”

It was easier for me to forgive Serena than it was to forgive Louisa. As the Gamma’s mate, her role in the pack is less significant than Louisa’s role as the Beta’s mate, Louisa is Jake’s sister, they’re closer and I strongly feel that she could have stopped him from going through with the relationship. Louisa enabled it by having the slut around for dinner.