Rejected by My Mate? I Rejected Him First

The pack healer said my cycle was out of whack.

"Your wolf is restless, Alpha," she told me, not unkindly. "It happens. Regular time with your mate would settle her."

So that night, I slipped into a black lace nightgown and knocked on Cassian's door.

What followed was heat and hunger and hands everywhere. When it was over, I trailed my fingers up the side of his throat, ready for round two.

He turned away from me.

"Tills," he mumbled into the pillow. "I'm kind of tired."

Honestly? Round one hadn't been great. Not even half an hour, every minute of it rushed and perfunctory, his mind clearly somewhere else.

Now he'd turned his back on me. There was no other way to read it.

Our bond was a chosen one. No moon goddess, no fate, just two people who'd picked each other and said the words at the ceremony. It left only a thin thread between us, enough to catch a flicker of mood, a whisper from across a room.

Right then, I felt something slide into place on his end of that thread. A wall, rising stone by stone.

The mind-wall. And behind it, nothing. Just a blank, silent stretch where his feelings should have been.

Pushing would only make me look desperate, and I'm not a woman who begs for what isn't offered. I rolled over to my side of the bed and let it go.

A few minutes later, he got up. "I'm gonna grab a shower."

That was when his phone rang.

Cassian was already at the bathroom door. The second it buzzed, he spun around, fast and sharp, and snatched the phone off the nightstand before I could so much as glance at the screen. One swipe, and the ringing cut off. He did it so smoothly it looked rehearsed.

"Spam call," he said. "Who calls at this hour? Unbelievable."

His tone was easy. His movements were easy. I couldn't find a single crack.

Then he carried the phone into the bathroom with him.

The water ran for fifteen minutes. When he came out, he smelled like nothing at all. Not soap, not skin, not even him. It was that unscented wash he'd started using a few weeks ago, the kind they sell in the hunting aisle to hide a wolf's scent from prey. I'd thought it was a strange choice. I hadn't asked.

And then, for the first time ever, he tossed me his phone.

"Tills, I've got a work trip tomorrow. Can you book my flight?"

He disappeared back into the bathroom to blow-dry his hair.

The phone lay in my palm, dark and quiet.

I already knew there was nothing left on it. In the fifteen minutes behind that door, he'd scrubbed away everything worth finding.

When he came out again, he added, as if it had just occurred to him, "Oh, and get one for Gideon too. The Denver project's hit some snags. He's going with me."

How convenient.

Ironwood Group really did have a project in Denver. Gideon really was Cassian's best friend, and the co-lead on it. A reason, a witness, a paper trail. It was airtight, and it left me nothing to pull on.

But I knew.

Cassian was cheating on me.

He left the next morning in a hurry. He didn't even let me drive him. He had Gideon pull up outside our building and honk.

Once he was gone, I opened his laptop.

It was as clean as his phone.

Then I remembered something he'd mentioned a long time ago: the Cascade University career forum, where he posted recruiting notices for Ironwood. I typed in the address.

The account was still logged in.

There weren't many posts. A few were job-hunting tips for the younger students. Others were Ironwood's campus hiring announcements. I combed through the comments, one by one.

Finally, one stood out.

The account belonged to a girl. Soft pink anime avatar, username ValPeach. Under one of his posts, she'd left a single line:[The pup has arrived. Provider, report for duty.]

I followed her profile to her page on Howl.

She was young, and she loved sharing her life. In her newest howl, she'd written:[Provider has reported for duty!! He finally said yes to taking me to Moonwood Wilds!!]

Moonwood Wilds. The old-growth sanctuary every wolf dreams of seeing at least once, where you can run under a full moon with no one watching.

Departure date: this morning.

Departure airport: Denver.

Denver, where Cassian's "project" just happened to be.