Page 51 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

Only when he joins Hunter on the porch do I snap out of my daze and hear Delilah whistling as she comes strolling toward me, wiggling her brows suggestively.

“Don't, D!” I warn her, feeling a blush crawl across my face.

She throws her arm across my shoulders, her voice sultry when she says, “The sexual tension is so thick, not even a knife can cut it.”

I roll my eyes at her and grumble, “Nothing is going on between us. It's just the magic and the bond we have. Which neither of us chose.”

Delilah snorts. “You were looking at that man as if you'd choose him in every incarnation, babe. When will you accept it?”

I sigh as I slowly walk toward the swing with Delilah in tow. Taking a seat there feels like catching my breath for the first time in a week since we began actively training with Sean, and it almost feels wrong.

But I allow myself the liberty of a small moment. I've been learning how to allow myself to be more open to things, like allowing Sean to help me through my training. It’s the only thing that seems to work, and it was my resistance that was keeping me back. I guess being stubborn isn’t always going to protect me.

I needed the ground beneath me to shake when my cottage was targeted, or when I was shown the illusion of my deepest insecurity. That’s what made me more open, but I still have reservations, inhibitions preventing me from accepting all of Delilah’s teasing.

“I don't know,” I shrug. “There's just this unsettling fear that if I go all in with the mate bond, I risk losing something else.”

“Control?” Delilah laments with an arched brow. “Is that what you’re afraid of losing?”

Shivering into myself, I shake my head, my gut churning with something I can’t name. “No. It’s not control I’m scared of losing. It’s something else. But I don’t know what it is. I can just…feel it.”

Delilah takes my hand and folds it between hers. “Healing your heart takes time, Em. I know, ‘cause I’ve been there. But if there’s one thing I am sure about, it’s that Sean really cares for you. Remember that time we were camping in Denali?”

“Yeah…” I say, recalling the memory. “We were picking berries in the forest, and they turned out to be poisonous.”

“Remember how Sean rushed to you and flicked them out of your hand? He was worried sick about you. I’d never seen him like that.”

I frown as I dig deep for that specific detail, mentally scratching my head, because I’d been so closed off and numb at the time that I couldn’t see the things others saw.

“He always cared for you, Em. Whether you ate or not, whether you slept. I guess we all thought that you were number one on his priority list because you were from the same pack. Little did we know…”

I sigh as I look ahead at the garden, watching the sun set on the horizon and recalling all the times I’d blocked Sean out of memory while we were in black ops.

“If only he didn’t reject me…”

“Now you have a second chance,” Delilah offers as she gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Second chances are always worth it. Trust me. I know.”

***

“Second chances are always worth it. Trust me. I know.”

Delilah’s words stick with me long after I’ve retreated to my bedroom for the night.

In the olive-green room with trimmings of gold, standing before a mirror that’s framed by more gold, I watch my reflection with a newfound sense of appreciation.

Apart from feeling stronger ever since my training has been proving more fruitful, I see myself from a different perspective, as if the lenses of my eyes have changed and they’re not blurred anymore. For the first time in a long time, I can look at myself and truly appreciate my beauty.

That eye that beholds it was lost somewhere in my unhealed wounds, drowned by my tears, hidden in the fractures of my broken heart. Now, I’m able to see myself, my growth, my purpose in life, and most of all, I can see my own beauty.

A tiny smirk curls my lips as I comb my fingers through the long tresses of my blonde hair, tilting my head to one side as I contemplate Delilah’s words still echoing in my mind.

Second chances must be worth it if my second chance allowed me to awaken my magic gifts and train them in a way that allows me to control them. Although still heavily bound to Sean, as if my powers are dependent on him, I feel myself getting stronger.

Delilah and the others are still trying to figure out why my magic is so closely linked to Sean and our mate bond, but it’s not that I feel powerless because of it. In fact, I feel more powerful whenever he’s near me, even if it threatened my autonomy at the beginning.

I don’t lose my independence because of the mate bond. I have just become more liberated. But there is one thing I’m still struggling with.

Do I feel the way I’m feeling for Sean because I want to? Or am I being coerced by external forces to feel this way for him?