Page 8 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

Sean lets out another cloud of smoke between us when he turns his face toward me, barely acknowledging my presence, but at least it’s something.

“What is it to you, anyway?” he asks when the cloud of smoke dissipates and clears my view of him.

He looks even worse than his father did, his eyes hollow and sunken as if he’d cried beyond his tears, the soft blue hues lost to the gloomy claws of grief. His pupils are dilated because he’s been smoking, hair is disheveled with unruly curls all over the place.

There’s a part of me that wants to reach out and tuck a particular dark tendril back into place, but I fight my urges because I know this isn’t the time. Not when he’s like this, not while he’s grieving the loss of his mother. A week ago, maybe. But not right now.

“I care about you, Sean,” I admit, watching as he casually slinks his arm across the backrest of the metal bench, his thick, powerful thighs splaying over the seat. “I care about you and your father. I know this isn’t an easy time, and I promise to be there—”

“You don’t mean that,” Sean abruptly cuts in with a bitter scoff. “The only thing you care about is that position at the clinic my father promised you. You can quit the act now.”

My blood runs cold. “Act? You think I’m acting?” My jaw drops in disbelief as Sean turns his face back to me, one brow arched.

“Aren’t you? You can drop it now. My mother’s dead.”

My blood turns to ice, freezing me in place. “Excuse me…?”

“You heard me.” Sean’s lips take on a sinister smirk that has my nape pebbling with goosebumps. “You can quit the act, Emily. My family doesn’t need you anymore.” He takes a final pull of his cigarette before tossing the butt into the forest.

It takes me a moment to gather myself, and I take a deep breath to regain my composure. I can hardly believe that those words came out of Sean’s mouth, or that the dead look in his eyes exists at all.

A week ago, those eyes had been full of adoration for me, those lips full of praise as he worshipped between my thighs. The man sitting in front of me now is nothing more than a shell of his former self, and I have to be mindful of the fact that he just lost his mother two nights ago.

He’s still grieving. He’s still going through it. I need to detach emotionally and give him the space he needs to process his grief.

“You might not need me now, and I understand that, Sean. Your father does, so I’m gonna go back inside. I’ll be here for you when you need me.”

I turn to leave, but pause when I hear shuffling behind me, like Sean just stood up. I glance over my shoulder and find him standing behind me, but the wave of relief burns away when he takes a step forward, eyes narrowed like a predator closing in on its prey.

My heart stops as he moves in, and I’m not sure what to expect. But I never expected the finger of warning pointed between my brows.

“I don’t think you understood me, Emily,” he begins, lowering his finger only to reveal his face, eyes dark with animosity as he towers above me. “I don’t ever need you. Ever. Do you understand that?”

I keep myself calm because it’s the night of his mother’s funeral and I won’t be selfish. This isn’t about me, but his grief. Lifting my hands in surrender, I shake my head slowly. “I know you don’t mean that—”

“Like hell I don’t!” Sean roars, grabbing my wrist and betraying his words when all I can feel is the mate bond pulsing through my veins and circling my wrist with unexplainable force.

“Sean…?” I squeak timidly, but he throws my wrist from his hand, fingers twitching as if he’s disgusted by the sensation.

“Just leave me alone,” he growls, and my heart stops, threatening to crack from the pressure.

My eyes fill with tears as I search his face for any indication that he doesn’t mean this, but I find nothing but his menacing glare. My throat constricts around a sob, and the words that come out next are of their own accord, and I can’t control them as if my inner wolf herself speaks.

“You don’t mean that, Sean; we’re mates,” I mumble quickly, before he can stop me, before he can cut me off.

That’s when his glare turns ferocious, eyes narrowing to deadly traps as his sharp brows furrow.

“Mates?!” he scoffs at the word as if it’s filled with poison. “We’re not mates, Emily. We’ll never be.”

I open my mouth to protest, to tell him there’s no other way to explain what I feel. I know what I felt the other night when our bare bodies were tangled in his sheets. I know what I feel every time he touches me, every time he looks at me.

But he doesn’t let me speak when he moves in closer, breath filled with burning liquor and burnt plants. “You are mistaken. And since you can’t leave me alone, I’m leaving Stowe.”

Sean straightens up and turns toward the forest, and with a wild, disbelieving frown, I don’t move away.

“You—you’re leaving…?” I ask in a trembling murmur, and Sean doesn’t turn back.

“I’m joining black ops training in two days,” he informs me with a casual shrug, without turning to look at me. “I don’t wanna see you until then. You’re nothing to me, Emily Hudson. We were nothing.”