Worthless to Priceless The Alpha’s Rejected Mate

CHAPTER 43

KADEN’S P.O.V: THE PAST

I stared at my mother with a blank expression waiting for her to say that it was all a joke but she remained smiling as if she had just given me the opportunity of a lifetime. I glanced over at Lucy who looked up at me through her lashes in what was supposed to be an innocent look but ended up making my skin crawl. I promptly looked away and I saw her smile fall.

I was pissed that my mother kept trying to interfere and shove Lucy down my throat. I had told her time without number that I was not interested in Lucy that way but she seemed determined to have me mate with Lucy. I wanted to tell her that I had a mate but I knew that conversation was not going to end well at all so I stayed quiet.

“What do you think?” she asked when she realized I hadn’t said anything. “Lucy is available to start whenever you want. She is a hard worker and she-”

“You don’t need to speak for her,” I cut my mother off.

She was shocked that I had spoken back to her and I saw her entire being deflate- she was upset. I ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

“You’re right,” she said with a small nod then she nudged Lucy. “Why don’t you hand him the CV that you made and he can go through it and tell you exactly why he knows you’re the perfect candidate.”

Mother added the last part while looking directly at me and I knew she wasn’t speaking to Lucy in that moment. Lucy picked up a bright pink folder that was on my desk and handed it to me. I wanted to throw it in the bin but mother was staring at me in a way that had me flipping it open.

As soon as I opened it, I knew my mother was the one who wrote it. She had highlighted plenty times that Lucy was good with children and leading a pack as if that was something that my secretary needed to know. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and I placed the file back in Lucy’s hands.

I knew about the internship position and I wanted to offer it to Amelia so I could have an excuse to be around her at every moment but I couldn’t tell my mother about it because she was against the idea of me being with my fated mate. I still didn’t know why she hated the idea so much but I was determined to find out and in the meantime I needed to figure out a way to fix the mess that she had just created.

This new development also meant that I couldn’t claim Amelia as my mate yet because I knew that mother was going to throw a fit. Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Thank you for the offer, I will think about it,” I said pointedly and they all knew what it was- a dismissal.

I saw my mother frown as if she couldn’t believe that I had dismissed her. I wanted to make my point clear so I walked across the room and took a seat in my chair then started browsing through some documents. I was barely skimming over the words but it had the desired effect because my mother cleared her throat.

“It seems you’re very busy right now,” my mother said and there was an undercurrent of hurt in her tone. “Lucy will resume work in a few days and you can discuss the rest with her.”

She said it with no room for argument and I sighed. She held Lucy’s hand in a tight grip and together they walked out of the office. As soon as the door closed behind them, I picked up the object closest to me which happened to be a vase and I threw it at the opposite side of the room with a roar of frustration.

THE PRESENT:

I was in the office thinking about how to fix the issue with Lucy when Pamela told me that Amelia was awake. I left everything I was doing and I rushed to the house. I couldn’t believe it. I had wanted to be there when she woke up but some urgent work had pulled me out of the house and into the office.

As soon as I got there and I smelled her mouthwatering scent, I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and never let go. I had to calm myself down as I walked in through the doors so as not to scare her with my eagerness. She was already seated at the table and I knew I couldn’t do the things I wanted in public so I waited.

Being Alpha, patience is one of the skills that we have to learn and I used to pride myself on my extraordinary patience but that patience was nonexistent when it came to Amelia.

I wanted to pull her into my arms. I wanted to say damn everyone else in the room and kiss her senseless but I couldn’t so I settled for placing my hand behind her chair. Even that felt like it wasn’t enough but still, I waited. I waited until everyone had finished dinner and went off to do their own thing and then I told her I wanted to talk to her.

As soon as the door closed, I couldn’t control myself again. I kissed her like a man starved and like she was an oasis in a dry desert. I held her close and I ran my hands down her body. I had missed her presence and her scent and just being around her was overwhelming. My senses were in overdrive and it felt like I was going to explode. If I had died in that moment, I would have died a happy man.

My wolf was doing a happy dance and jumping for joy and I could barely concentrate on anything around me. I wanted to mark her and make her my own. In that moment, I didn’t care about my mother or any of the tantrums she could have thrown, all I wanted to do was to make Amelia mine and my wolf seemed to agree.

He reached out to hers so we could begin the marking process but he couldn’t. It was like there was a wall that was preventing him from reaching out to her. It frustrated him and it was at that moment that I realized that she wasn’t as into the kiss as I was. She was kissing me back but there was a stiffness to her body and a hesitation in her actions that led me to realize that maybe, she didn’t want it.

I pulled back from her and forced my wolf into the recesses of my mind because he wasn’t helping me by putting images of all the things we could be doing into my head. Amelia cast her head to the ground as if she was ashamed to look at me and I gently tilted her chin upwards until she was staring at me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked and she swallowed deeply but didn’t respond. “Did I do something wrong? You can tell me, Amelia.”

She still didn’t respond and she cast her eyes to the ground once more. There were a lot of emotions swirling through her irises but one of them was guilt and grief. My thoughts went back to the boy from earlier and I had to force down the growl that threatened to rise from my chest.

I took a step back from her to try and calm the murderous thoughts in my head. Did she love him? Were they together? Is that why she refuses to let me mark her, because of him? I was furious and I wanted to find the boy and kill him with my bare hands.

I glanced over at Amelia and she wrapped her hands around herself as if she wanted to hide from me. She slowly made her way over to the bed and took a seat but she still refused to glance my way. I knew I couldn’t ask her about the boy because she wouldn’t be honest so I decided to ask the next best person. I mind linked Caleb immediately and he responded within a few seconds.

“I was just about to mind link you,” he said and he sounded out of breath as if he was running. “Pam told me that you were home so I planned to show you what I found in person.”

“Tell me it is about the boy from earlier,”

“It is,” he said but his voice had gone solemn as if he was worried about how I was going to react to it. “He was a wolf in Amelia’s pack. His name is Blake and he was a soldier. He was dating Amelia and they were supposed to be mated the moment she found her wolf but he left her for her sister and was suddenly promoted.”

I couldn’t help but scoff to myself. She was still hung over a boy who left her for a flimsy position. It infuriated me that she was still thinking about him and that in turn made me want to storm onto Gregory’s territory and torture him slowly not only for invading her thoughts but also for breaking her heart. The only thing that was stopping me was the fact that I knew it would be a declaration of war.

“Is that everything?” I asked and Blake hummed.

“It is for now but I will keep looking.”

I ended the mind link immediately and turned to Amelia. She was still seated on the bed but now she was watching me. Her expression was carefully blank as if she was trying to analyze me and see what I knew and what I was going to do next.

I made my way over to her slowly and when I stood in front of her, I knew I towered over her and it made her uncomfortable because she shuffled in her spot. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable so I reached behind me and pulled the chair from her desk. It had been my home for the past three days although she didn’t know that.

I pulled the chair forward and sat down so that I was facing her. In our position, I could feel the heat of her skin on mine even though we were not touching and I could feel the pull from her bond. If it were any other day, I would have pulled her into my lap but I had other things to handle.

“What happened earlier?” I asked but she stayed silent. “Do you not feel the bond between us? Is that what the problem is?”

“I can feel it,” she began slowly and she opened her mouth to say something else but I cut her off.

“Is it because of Blake?”

When those words left my lips, her eyes widened and whatever she was about to say disappeared from her lips.

“I-” she began but she fell silent. She opened her mouth to speak but no words would come out.

I stood to my feet so quickly that she chair fell over.

“Kaden,” she began and I stopped waiting for her to tell me that she wasn’t thinking of him but she couldn’t say any words.

I had my answer.