Mate!

GIA

Gael and I walk into the house. Immediately, memories rush back to me, and nostalgia grips my chest. I was only gone for a year, but I feel like it was for an eternity.

“Treasure!” Mommy utters with marked emotion. She opens her arms and hunches over, waiting for my embrace, which soon arrives.

“Mommy!” I cling to her body as if my life depended on that gesture.

She, for her part, cries at the top of her lungs as she strokes my hair.

How dramatic!

“You’re finally home! Look how thin you look. You sure aren’t eating well.”

I roll my eyes at Mom’s overprotectiveness. It’s always the same with her.

“Mommy, it’s impossible for me to be thin since my neighbor is a compulsive cook who used to fill my stomach with her delicious food.

“On the contrary, I will have to go on a diet to lose all the weight I gained thanks to her.”

“That’s good.”

I turn to face Gael, who is examining me with his eyes. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but his scrutiny of me looks hungry and full of desire as if he enjoys admiring every inch of my anatomy.

An awkward silence suddenly engulfs us, which is broken by Mom and her melodramatic cough.

“Gael, help Gia with her bags, honey,” she says with a look full of complicity, and before going to the kitchen, she winks at me.

Huh?

I ignore whatever is going through her head and hurry up the stairs. Gael follows me, carrying my bags as if they were two empty plastic bags. But that’s how we lycanthropes are, strong.

“It wasn’t necessary to bring them. They don’t weigh me down,” I say as we enter my room. Immediately, I feel nostalgic. So many times, I cried on that bed because of Gael’s rejection.

Yeah, get over it.

“I know you’re strong, but I’m a gentleman.”

I ignore his words and concentrate on admiring every detail of my room, where the only thing new is the paint and the sheets covering the bed, but everything else is still intact.

“It’s amazing that I’m back here,” I comment to myself, although I know Gael has heard me. I sigh and hug myself. I’m so afraid of what’s in store for me, as I don’t want to suffer again like before.

“And believe it or not, I’m so happy you’re back,” he says.

Hearing those words in the thick tone of Gael’s voice makes me shudder, but what causes my heart to jump frantically in my chest is his breath on my neck and the warmth of his body on my back.

Why is he so close?

I swallow heavily and squeeze the end of my shirt tightly to control this nervousness that is making me lose my composure.

Gael stops slouching and turns me around so that I’m facing him, but I don’t dare raise my face and look at him. I don’t want to…

“Precious Gia”—Gael lifts my chin, forcing me to look him in the eyes—“what must I do to regain your affection? I was so afraid of losing your friendship that I ended up making things worse between us.”

I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to cry, no…

“Gael, it’s not your fault I fell in love alone and confused my feelings. I shouldn’t have assumed that you were my mate because of a simple teenage crush. You’re not. I get it.”

The sadness in your gaze hurts me in a suffocating way. That somber expression and hopelessness in your countenance is unbearable. And all those emotions confuse me.

If Gael is not my mate, why do I feel his suffering?

“I’ve felt yours too.”

What? How?

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Link?” He laughs in amusement and raises an eyebrow as if he’s stating the obvious.

“It’s one thing to talk through the bond. It’s quite another to do what you just did…”

“You think too much, precious Gia. You’d better rest. You know that tonight, there’s no way you’ll get out of the party. The alpha already has everything ready.”

I shrug my shoulders and sigh. I’m not in the mood for parties or anything like that. But Gael is right. There’s no way to free me from the blissful welcome.

“Will you bring your girlfriend?” Why the hell did I ask him that?

“I don’t have a girlfriend…”

“Then you don’t have anything serious yet?”

“You said so.” Gael leaves the room without adding more.

For my part, I let myself fall on the bed when I find myself alone in the room.

How can I bear to see you next to her? Tears wet my face like torrents. I’ve only just arrived, and I’m already crying for Gael.

I’m such a fool.

“Don’t let that bitch keep touching him.”

“Like that’s up to me.”

“He’s my wolf.”

“You’re wrong.”

Even my wolf is a fool! How come she wants to claim a wolf that doesn’t belong to her?

“Mate.”

“He’s not, he…”

A sob comes out of my mouth painfully. If Gael is not my mate, why did I feel my insides tearing when he slept with that woman?

I don’t understand... I shouldn’t be affected by what he does with another. It shouldn’t hurt, at least not in this unbearable way.

I’m so afraid; if I almost died when Gael lost his virginity, how will I deal with jealousy when I’m around him?

And to think that my problem got worse that afternoon, two years ago, when in the woods.

My she-wolf confirmed what my heart was screaming.“Mate!” I heard, and Gael’s scent became intense in my nostrils.

That day he watched me with bewilderment but immediately denied everything and told me I was hallucinating.

Now I doubt my sanity very much.

Did I really hallucinate? If so, why did Gael and I start talking over the link from then on? Sometimes I think he plays with my mind.

I also think he makes fun of me behind my back whenever my mental imbalance arises.