Chapter 21

Chapter 21

It seemed like an hour passed before I managed to breach the tree line, since my body was too fatigued to transform back into my wolf. I finally breathed a sigh of relief when my feet touched the cool concrete because they had begun to hurt from the uneven woodland floor. When I looked out onto the empty roadways, I felt a little strange.

As I made my way back towards the city, the sky began to brighten, and I was suddenly faced with it, which seemed to shorten my relief.

I disliked having to watch the sun make its appearance in the dazzling pockets of light and I hated hearing the birds waking up from their rest. I also despised being outside thus early in the morning with the chilly breeze and the whirling hues behind clouds. I personally found it difficult to overcome a certain kind of agitation in the early morning, which is why I choose to sleep through it. I felt like I was living my worst nightmare right now, though.

My brain had gone into automatic pilot and my body was beginning to feel numb.

After the trauma of my upbringing, I never deliberately set out to find myself alone in a forest, but after that, something always seemed to happen, and I somehow ended up a victim of it nonetheless.

Although it didn't occur to me as I was fleeing from my partner, I detested being alone myself under the shade of trees. However, being in this situation made me fear my ten-year-old self. It brought back memories of being unwelcome and alone. Even though I was doing my best to suppress my poisonous thoughts, it was useless.

Derrick had abandoned me in the same manner that my family had abandoned me.

No, I made the decision to leave him even though I shouldn't have. I wasn't going to spiral because I made this decision.

This was my life, and I had the power to make it what I wanted.

I could feel myself turning left, right, then left again as I felt myself moving through the streets, and the adrenaline in my system was rapidly decreasing. Without a directional bone in my body, I was taken aback to find myself in front of our apartment building.

Even though I had betrayed her, my wolf was the only thing keeping me alive at this point—keeping me moving and keeping me sane. Her anguish was palpable in my bones, and it grew stronger the more we appeared to go from the man we were meant to be with.

Upon arriving at our apartment complex, I was struggling to keep myself together.

When I fled from my friend, I also didn't appear to have remembered that he still owned all I owned. My phone and my keys were in my bag, which is where his warrior must have taken me when he grabbed me off the street. Having those two items in my bag would have prevented the altercation with the women who had been worried about me all day.

Just a few moments after I frantically knocked on the door, Vera wrenched it open. Her eyes widened in horror as she took in the entire length of my body and the mess I was in. Her stare was crucial. Considering what I had done to come back here, I could only picture what I looked like.

"Where the hell have you been, you look like you've been dragged through a bloody ditch." Her features were marked with worry, but her voice was aggressive.

She dragged me into the apartment by my arm and halted in the middle of the living room before I could respond. Her hands were reaching for the strange outfit I was wearing, and she glanced at me again, almost afraid. She was curious to know what had happened, but she also understood that I had limits when it came to discussing things that upset me.

Her protective and caring instincts were competing with one another to see to it that I was alright.

I staggered over to embrace her, doing the only thing I knew how to do. She was my home, my lone safety net, and everything I needed at the moment.

I struggled to hold back my tears from her touch, saying, "I'm sorry, I should have called you sooner." I swallowed them down, even though I could feel them trying to break through my body like an earthquake.

It was amusing how you could keep yourself together and how everything you had spent so much time attempting to maintain only seemed to fall apart in the blink of an eye."Kylie: My grip on her tightened, and she could feel the stress in my body.

"Kylie, you're scaring me now—please say something."

I was having trouble forming the words, but there was only one thing I could say that would make sense of where I was right now. It was the only thing I could do, but confessing the truth to her would make it seem all too real, even though it was there. Something like this could not be kept hidden from her.

"I found my mate." She pushed herself free of my grip and gave me a dead-eye look after making a whispered confession that caused her entire body to tense up. She seemed to be experiencing all three emotions at once—joy, grief, and loneliness. I never thought it would be me, but we always knew one of us would find our spouse before the other.

"You found your mate?" She pulled me into another hug, her lips lifting into a smile that made me almost exactly know when it dawned on her that something was wrong.

She drew quickly away from me once more, her hands running over my filthy arms as they took in my jumbled clothes.

As she attempted to make the connection, a large furrow appeared in the center of her forehead.

"But why are you here, did you?—" Clearly having more faith in me than in myself, she shook her head. "Did he reject you?" The question made her cringe, and I felt my body tensing up at the scared expression on her face. She didn't seem to realize that maybe everything would have been so much simpler if he had rejected me.

"No, he didn't reject me—fuck!" I retreated from her area with a sigh, storming back into my bedroom. "I messed it all up, and now I need to leave." The clothes I had taken out of my suitcase yesterday morning were the only items not completely packed. After dragging it onto the bed, I began to zip it shut.

"Kylie, what the devil happened to you? You disappeared for a very long time. You didn't text or call, so I assumed something negative had occurred." Her voice had lost its compassion and was now filled with anger.

Knowing Vera for a while, I knew that she had been distraught about my whereabouts for the most of the day. She was aware that when people vanish, good things never seem to happen to them. She was furious that I hadn't even tried to call her because that's what had happened to her parents.

"I need to leave Atlanta, Vera—I can't be his mate." She stopped in her tracks, her hand wrapping around my forearm in an angry grip. She yanked me towards her, her gaze burning through my body with an intensity I couldn't match. My gaze fell from hers and she let out a heavy sigh.

"Okay, we'll leave." She murmured, "We're the only family that we have, and you know that whatever you decide I will always be behind you every step of the way, but first you need to tell me what you did." Her voice was gentle, and I felt myself folding into it, the rush of my emotions dispersing as I sat down at the edge of my bed.

"He didn't reject me, but he probably thinks I've rejected him." My voice was soft and filled with so much hurt. "I jumped out a window to get away from him, Vera—how in the hell am I supposed to fix that?" The realization of everything that I had done was hitting me like a sledgehammer.

Everything was a mess and my feelings didn't match what I had to do. I was a witch blood wolf and I couldn't have the Alpha King as my mate, but every fiber in my body wanted to go back to him.

"You did what?!" Vera exclaimed, and then she shook her head quickly. "You panicked; people do stupid things when they panic. You're his mate, I'm sure an apology will suffice." She tried to comfort me as she sat next to me and wrapped her hands around my shaking ones.

"This is what we've been dreaming of since we were kids, Kylie—you're not thinking straight. You just need to take a deep breath and let me make you a nice cup of tea." She got up to make her way towards the kitchen, but she stopped at the door with curious eyes.

"Alpha Knight didn't say anything about there being other wolves in this town." She remarked and I sucked in a breath as I caught her gaze.

"He was right in a sense; he didn't know that the royal pack were taking residence in this territory." I watched as the shock filtered on her face and then the excitement.

She walked back towards me and couldn't help the giddiness in her voice—she thought maybe she would find her mate here too if there was a whole other pack here that we hadn't known about.

"You're mated to someone in the royal pack." Her eyes widened and I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. I wasn't just mated to someone in the royal pack, I was mated to the person that was at the head of it.

"I'm mated to the Alpha King." My voice shook as I said the words and Vera blinked back the horror of what I had done.

She picked up a pillow and hit me with it.

"And you jumped out of a window, you ran from him and he let you? You have some fucking guts, Kylie—you're bloody insane!"

"I'm not worthy enough to be his mate—Vera, I can't, I can't do this." Her eyes widened at my somber words but then her mouth twisted into something mean.

"Get a fucking grip and snap out of this act of pathetic self-loathing. If anyone deserves a win in life it's the two of us. You should be celebrating; you won't ever have to worry about anything ever again. You're set for the rest of your life and once you've sorted out this little lover's tiff maybe you can invite me over and I can have a go at finding my mate too." I fell back against my mattress and looked at the ceiling.

She was right, Vera did deserve to win after everything that had happened to her. Maybe I could entertain the idea of having a king for a mate for just enough time for her to find out if her mate was in the royal pack too—then I would leave and hope he never finds me again.

"Nope, there's no time for a nap." Vera pulled me up by my arms and I glared at her. "Now you're going to take a shower and then we're both going to the bakery because in case you've forgotten we have a business to run, then you're going to go to your mate and apologize for being so stupid and for breaking his damn window."