Chapter 59 59

Chapter 59 59
Hannah

“You and Emma are around the same size right?” Kayla asks me and I nod. “She’s got a million dresses hanging in her wardrobe and chances are she’s not coming back tonight so I’ll go grab you one.”
Kayla returned about 10 minutes later with a very stylish silver dress. It was long with spaghetti straps and when I slipped it on it fit like a glove. There was only one problem.
“I can see my nipples,” I remark. They were hard to miss against the slinky fabric, like two little witch hats that stared back at me in the mirror.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Serena giggles, getting a good look at them until I block them with my hands. “Hannah, come on, you’ve got great boobs, don’t be so shy about it plus no other wolf will even take any notice because you’re not their mate.”
I hadn’t actually considered that, wolves are only ever attracted to their own mates. We see each other naked so often, from shifting in and out of wolf form, that the naked body on any wolf other than your mate, is just not appealing.
“I’m assuming that there are also humans that frequent this bar though too.” Kayla pipes up and I look to Serena for the answer.
“Well yeah, there is because the bar is outside of the pack land, which means anyone can go there,” Serena answers truthfully. “Maybe Hannah can hook up with a human and even the score.”
“Even if I were to kiss one man, Jake’s tally would always be more.” I gripe, clenching my fists in anger as I imagine how he stacked up his score.
I don’t want to say it to my friends but the thought of kissing another man makes me hurt so much. I still love Jake, even though I can’t escape the pain he’s caused me, I’m not ready to give up on him yet.
“I kissed another man, before Daniel,” Serena admits shamefully, shocking both Kayla and me.
“Why?” I ask her, unable to fathom her doing something like that, especially when she and Daniel are in the same pack.
“Growing up, Daniel wasn’t very nice to me, he’d bully me constantly. He’d always be finding ways to get a rise out of me and he’d often win.” She says sadly, her beautiful face twisted in pain as she recalls her youth. “He turned 18 before me and that’s when I noticed his approach towards me had started to change, he would buy me flowers and gifts, always wanting to talk to me at parties and just kept paying me compliments so it wasn’t hard to figure out that he must have discovered that I was his mate.
Well, one night, we were at a party and he was being super sweet to me but I couldn’t forget all the times he had hurt me. I wanted him to hurt too, to make him feel a tiny bit of what I had suffered from him for years so I kissed another wolf right in front of him.”
“How did Daniel react?” Kayla asks, looking scared because we all know that Daniel isn’t someone you want to mess with. He’s a big, stocky guy who could snap an enemy in two.
“He left the party and went home,” Serena tells us. “He was gutted by what I had done but he knew why. He wasn’t angry at me, he was angry at himself, for how he’d treated me.”
“How did you feel, after you’d got your revenge?” I ask, needing to know if it helped her heal from her pain or added to it.
“After the kiss, I felt like I’d stolen back my power from him, that I’d taught him that I could hurt him too but when I finally turned 18 and the mate bond kicked in for me, I was disgusted with myself.” She admits, hugging herself tightly. “Daniel doesn’t ever bring it up, he’s never used it against me but it’s a shame that I carry everyday.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if I would feel that way if I did kiss someone else. Jake had done far worse so he couldn’t say anything if I did. Maybe revenge would allow me some healing, to hurt Jake the same way he had me.
“I rejected my mate,” Kayla speaks up and once again I find myself surprised. “She’s a little older than me but we didn’t know each other until we met so there was no way we knew it was coming but when it hit, it was hard and fast. I loved her, still do but when Tom banned our pack, I knew it would put her life at risk if we stayed together, even though no one knew we were mates so I rejected her and fled.”
Hearing Kayla speak of rejecting her mate saddens me greatly. Rejection is the final straw so I can only imagine that Kayla didn’t make that decision lightly.
“Is she a witch too?” Serena asks, assuming that’s why Kayla had to protect her.
“She is but she wasn’t from the Chisholm pack,” Kayla tells us, adding to the mystery of who this woman could be. “She’s actually a pack member at Tingira.”
“Who is she?” Serena asks, getting excited like this is some fun game but I know that Kayla is protecting her identity for a reason, one that is none of our business.
“You don’t have to answer that,” I tell Kayla, shooting Serena a look to shut up. I love her but sometimes she doesn’t understand boundaries.
Kayla is quiet for a while and I can tell she’s trying to figure out how to give us answers without exposing her rejected mate.
“She’s someone I met when I first started studying witchcraft.” Kayla gives us a small crumb of information and I won’t push her for more but I can’t make any promises for Serena.
“I thought people were just born witches?” Serena asks, looking very confused. “Why would you need to study witchcraft?”
“No one is born a witch or a warlock, it’s a choice we make, much like learning to drive a car,” Kayla explains, clearing it up for Serena. “I became interested in witchcraft when I was 19, I joined a few forums online and it led me to finding my coven.”
“Is it a coven where you all sit around a big cauldron and make up spells?” Serena asks and Kayla giggles.
“We don’t sit around a cauldron but we do share spells,” Kayla informs us. “We’re called a coven because that’s what we do, we hold conventions.”
“Is there any chance, now that you’re out of hiding, that you and she can rekindle your relationship?” I ask. I’ve never known rejected wolves who got back together but I do know that feelings don’t just disappear just because you reject your mate.
“We’ve been working on it.” She admits, coyly with a shy smile. “She knows why I rejected her and doesn’t hold a grudge against me for it but still, I can tell it hurt her.”
“I’d want to die if Daniel rejected me,” Serena says sadly and I don’t admit it but I feel the same way right now about Jake. “I would never get over that loss.”
“Have you considered if you’re going to reject Jake?” Kayla asks me, which I know is a fair assumption that I would, given that I can’t even stand to look at him right now, let alone think about sharing the rest of my life with him.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, conflicted within myself. I go back and forth every day, thinking this over. Rejection has harsh consequences and even though Jake promised me that he’d take the fall and get banished I still wouldn’t feel right about him going rogue. “I wish there were a way in which no one loses out.”
“Trust me, someone always loses out when it comes to rejection,” Kayla warns me and I believe her.
“You’re not marked though.” Serena points out, rubbing salt into that wound. I had hoped that Jake was going to mark me the night we first had sex but now I was left to wonder if he didn’t because he was trying to hide me from the slut. Why else would he not have wanted to claim me as his own?
“Yeah, because that wasn’t playing heavily on my mind, thanks, Serena.” I groan at my friend, sarcastically.
“I just mean that if you do reject Jake then it will be easier to move on with another wolf because he won’t suspect you had a mate.” She points out, thinking she’s helping.
“Fuck men,” I yell, bitterly. “If they get rejected, mark or not, they still bounce back with a she-wolf but we women get shamed.”
It’s double standards, we all know it to be true.
“The full moon is this Friday, being unmarked, you’ll most likely go through heat,” Kayla warns me. It’s something I have been thinking about too though, my first heat.
“You’re forgetting that I’m stronger than other she-wolves, heat won’t affect me,” I tell her, trying to play down my nerves because I’m scared that, if word gets around to Jake, that I’m terrified of going into heat, he will insist on marking me.