Page 35 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

It’s no wonder my body is all over the place, and I tap my bare foot on the wooden floor with impatience, waiting with bated breath until he’s down the road, turning the corner, and disappearing toward his house.

I turn to the shelves lining the far wall and start pulling down jars and vials, lining them up with deliberate care. If meditation won’t work, then chemistry will. Potions don’t care about heartbreak. Ratios don’t care about history.

Logic has always been safer than emotion.

Grinding roots, measuring powders, and whispering the incantations I learned over the past week under my breath, I prepare something that might take the edge off. Numb my emotions enough so that I don’t shed another tear. The air fills with the sharp, bitter scent of crushed herbs. When I finish, I lift the vial and drink, then wait at the kitchen table for it to work.

Five minutes later, and nothing has changed from the potion that should have suppressed my emotions after two minutes.

Ten minutes later, and there’s still no quiet, no release.

I laugh once, the sound short and hollow, and set the empty vial down harder than necessary.

Of course it doesn’t work.

Why would it? Everything I try circles back to the same truth: my magic doesn’t respond to what I want. It responds to him. To Sean. To the bond I refuse to acknowledge.

I press my hands to the counter and close my eyes, and memories crash into me without warning, turning my heart into heavy lead.

I remember it as if it were yesterday, a time in our lives that feels like a fever-dream now, in hindsight. But the image of Sean in his childhood home, kneeling beside his mother’s bed, and the weight of his grief pressing into me like gravity is still fresh, raw. The way he held me that night when everything was falling apart, like I was the only solid thing left in his world.

My chest pulls tighter when I remember his arms around me.

Then, my heart shatters all over again when another image pops into my mind. The way he looked at me when he rejected me in the woods.

Cold. Distant. Final.

I squeeze my eyes shut, my chest burning. He didn’t want me. He never did. I was just a crutch he needed when his mother was dying, and when she passed away, he didn’t need that crutch anymore. He didn’t need a shoulder to cry on. He didn’t need me, and he made it abundantly clear when he rejected me.

That’s the truth I’ve clung to for years, because it’s the only one that makes sense. Because the alternative—that I mattered, that I was something he couldn’t carry—hurts much, much worse.

The fated mate bond doesn’t care what I tell myself.

It hums louder when I think of his name. When I picture his hands on me, or when I remember the way my magic surged the moment he touched me.

Humiliated.

That’s what I was in that meeting. Standing there while everyone watched my power explode because I couldn’t control myself. Because I needed him. Because the truth came to light, and I was exposed for everything I’ve been trying to hide.

That’s why I came back to my cottage. I didn’t come here to be rescued. I came here to remember who I am without him. But I also came here to hide from the embarrassment of yesterday’s meeting.

A knock sounds at the door, and I flinch, my heart leaping into my throat before I force myself to breathe. My eyes shoot open, head snapping in the direction of the front door.

“Emily?” Delilah’s voice floats through the wooden door, sounding hesitant. “It’s me.”

I hesitate, too, my heart beating unsteadily before I find the courage to stand up and cross the room to open the door.

She looks tired. Guilty. Like she’s been rehearsing what she wants to say all night and all morning.

“I heard you were back here,” she says softly. “I wanted to check up on you.”

I step aside, letting her in without a word. Delilah doesn’t comment on the mess of half-finished potions or the tension humming through the air. She just watches me with careful eyes as I sit back down at the table.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, standing nervously beside the empty chair and wringing her hands in front of her. “About yesterday. I should have handled it differently.”

I stare at the grain in the wood, nodding thoughtfully as I gesture to the empty chair. When Delilah takes a seat, I say, “You told the truth.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “But it wasn’t my truth to tell.”