Page 6 of Come for Me
Idiot.
He searches my face. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I nod.
Yes.
* * *
Right before midnight of Alaina’s 21st
Scratching shakes me out of slumber—not that I was sleeping well. It’s hard to sleep when there’s so much pressure on my shoulders.
Rolling over to find Caleb perched on the ledge of my window, I furrow my brow. Tossing the covers, I pull myself out of bed. I quickly shuffle toward the window, unlatch it, and push it outward.
“What’re you doing here?” I whisper.
Caleb climbs in, not even bothering to ask, knocking over my paint brushes as he swings his feet inside.
“Shh, you’ll wake Jemma.”
A cupcake with pink frosting appears from behind his back. The whites of his teeth in his boyish smile shine brighter than the flame flickering on a single candle.
“I didn’t want to miss the moment my wolf might recognize yours.”
My heart melts. There isn’t any point in denying it. We’re drawn to each other. Whether it’s teenage lust or early signs of a mate bond calling, we aren’t sure, but there’ssomethingbetween us.
It’s seconds from the clock striking midnight when Caleb tells me to close my eyes and make a wish.
I wish for Caleb to be my fated mate.
* * *
The day of Alaina’s 21st
I’m curled up in bed when there’s a knock at my door.
Midnight had come, and Caleb and I felt nothing more than we already had. After I found out Caleb wasn’t my mate, I scoured the pack grounds until sunrise, sniffing, hoping someone—anyone—from our pack would be my mate. I came up with nothing. Which meant my mate didn’t belong to this pack.
I’m physically and emotionally spent from the search. I’ve been sulking since, but I find the strength to sit up, my back propped against the pillow. The door creaks as it’s pushed open.
“Happy Birthday, ’Laina.” Jemma enters, smiling.
Despite what most people might think, ’Laina isn’t a nickname. Jemma’s thick Southern accent makes it sound likeshe skips over the “A” in my name. She doesn’t enunciate theuhin “Alaina.”
“Goddess, I remember when you were six years old and you got so mad at me for how I say your name.” I smile. She loves to tell this story. “You put your hand on your hip and pointed your little finger at me with the most serious face and said, ‘Jemma, it’s uh-lane-uh, not lane-uh.” Jemma clasps her hands together, laughing as she reminisces.
I shake my head and laugh.
I’m glad she finds this story humorous now because I remember it not being funny to her when it happened.
The part she leaves out is how I didn’t stop there at critiquing her accent. I made fun of the way she says “wash,” which sounds like “wersh.” Then I imitated what it’s like when she’s mad, when her voice pitches up and makes her accent more prominent. If we weren’t in front of people, she might not have been as embarrassed. But we were, and she turned red as I laughed at her.
That’s enough, she would warn. When I didn’t listen, she would grab my hand, rush me home, and spank me. Hard.
She never spanked me again.
I think she omits that, not because of how I acted but how she responded. It wasn’t easy raising a kid, let alone one as stubborn as I was...am.
