Jacob

"Anastasia, why don't you just say it?" I dip my head closer and whisper in her ear.

She's been saying the same thing over and over again, and I'm not even sure where she's getting at. But I notice her eyes lingering a little too long on places she shouldn't even be looking at, and it sparks something inside me. Something that urges me to forget the physical pain I'm in and focus on Anastasia, who tilts her head back spontaneously as I say her name yet again.

What am I doing? I had only just seen them tonight, Derek's lips possessing hers just outside my house. Why did I care so little about their mate-bond, and only pay attention to what I'm feeling right now?

It's her again. She always seems to have this effect on me, making me forget my responsibilities as the Alpha, forcing me to succumb to her enchantment. But how can I overlook what I feel, with her pale skin like priceless porcelain, her lustrous red hair calling for my fingers to be lost in their locks? I close my eyes and lean in even closer, when a familiar scent catches in my airways, and I'm suddenly strung back to reality.

The reality in which she belongs to someone else.

"Anastasia!" I bellow as a warning, even if I'm not sure if it was meant more for her sake or mine. What is she doing here, nursing my wound and losing herself to me, stammering on her words as if my presence affected her as much as hers does to me?

Putting some much-needed distance between us, I point to the source of that familiar scent. "Is that Derek's jacket?"

"What?" Anastasia looks down, then back up with bewilderment widening her big gray eyes, and she shakes her head insistently. "It's not like that, Jacob. It was cold on the pier -"

It wasn't a figment of my imagination then. It was them on the pier, not just the image of them I thought I cooked up in my mind as a means to escape this nagging feeling that Anastasia meant more to me. It was real. And they had shared a moment between them - a beautiful one on the pier just the way Gisele and I would when we wanted to escape the burdens of our surroundings.

I let out a laugh, feeling so utterly stupid and pathetic for almost believing her when she said they decided not to pursue their mate-bond. It's blatantly obvious, and I'm a fool for imagining that Anastasia could be honest with me. "So it was you on the pier? Of course, it was!"

"Jacob, please," Ana pleads, reaching out but I shake my head and put more distance between us. If I stay here, Moon Goddess knows what I would do to make her understand that I was better for her.

"You know what?" I begin walking towards the door. "It's fine by me if you and Derek are together, but you don't need to lie to me."

I drop my towel just outside my door and rush down towards the main door. I hear her calling me from behind, but this time I don't allow her dazzling voice to get the best of me. I run up towards the woods, closing my eyes in my pursuit of freedom from the restraints of feeling more for someone who was already bonded to another male.

Not only did I fail to avenge my father tonight, I had also just lost Anastasia for good.

My wolf growls as I halt my steps, shrugging off this sense that Ana wanted to tell me something important tonight.

Why did I even care? Yet again, I decided to get too close to her, but when realization hit me, I was only reminded of the painful truth.

For so long, I'd blamed her for what happened to Gisele. Maybe I just needed someone to blame, so I wouldn't feel as if I failed my mate somehow.

Maybe it was always the shadow of my hidden feelings that I knew would chew me up with the sharpened teeth of guilt. Even though I had Gisele, there was always a part of me that pined after Anastasia. But I could no longer do that. Not when she's with Derek now.

I set myself back into motion, this time taking a slow stroll towards the healer's building. If any of the pack members were brutally injured in tonight's battle, they'd still be there receiving treatment for their wounds.

Inwardly berating myself for having failed to make sure they were all safe before going back to the house, I climb the hill overlooking the building and notice that some of my pack members are standing outside in their human forms. They're all staring into one particular window, and I speed across the hill to see what's going on.

My heart feels as if it's being wrung like a wet towel, the sense that something was horribly wrong spurring me forward. Kimon turns around when he hears me coming towards them and nudges Amelia, who rushes inside and comes back with a robe.

I take on the form of my human and Kimon throws the robe around me.

"What's going on?"

Kimon's eyes become wilting with sadness. "It's Connor."

"What?!" I push through the other members of the pack, trying to get a better view of what they were looking at inside. "What happened to him?"

"After you left, some of the rogues were still alive," he explains, placing a hand on my shoulder, "one attacked Emilio, and Connor stepped in to save him. But the rogue was too strong."

I stare into the window of the healer's building and see that Connor is laying on a bed, his body covered with a white sheet that bears the stains of his injuries in red blotches. Only his head sticks out from the top and one hand that his mate holds.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I see him turn his face towards her, and Kimon pats my back.

"He's just badly injured, but Demetria assured us he'll pull through."

"Luthor?"

Kimon shakes his head - something I only see from his reflection in the window, "he didn't come back."

I watch Connor and Tanisha as they sit there inside the healer's room, gazing at each other as if they're each other's worlds, and it serves as a painful reminder of the mate I lost. Watching them brings back the agony in my heart, how I felt as if a part me had fallen along with Gisele into the ravine, and how, for months, I'd battled sleepless nights and a constant pull in my chest as if my soul was trying to escape.

I sniff, trying to hide the fact that seeing the mates inside was moving me in ways I never thought it could. Kimon walks away to answer Megan's questions, and when he comes back, I bid him goodnight.

"Don't you want to get that checked out, Jacob?"

I frown, and only when I look down at the arm which he points to, I remember that I too, am hurt. And perhaps I'm ignoring that niggling pain in my arm because it would only remind me of Anastasia dotingly nursing the wound.

And there it was again - the recollection that no matter how hard I try, Ana would always be at the forefront of my mind. Even when I mourn the loss of my mate, she's always there, in the shadows of my mind, plaguing my thoughts.

"I'm fine, Ki. Make sure the others are fine, and let them know there'll be a meeting tomorrow at sunset."

I drop the robe and instantly take on my wolf form, hoping that the bestial rage would allow me to think with a clearer mind. I head back into the woods, whimpering when I close my eyes and see only one face.

Her voice is inside my head, tender and low, her eyes the magnificent blue of the ocean as she stares into my soul. What I feel for her is unlike any mate-bond I had ever heard of or even experienced myself. She was always there - since we were little kids. And I knew from the moment I first met her, her plump cheeks rosy, her lips pouted whenever she was just a fragile little girl. I loved her. I loved her even before she mumbled her name to me.

"Anastasia," she would say, "my name Anastasia."

And ever since then, she'd been Ana. My Ana.

Had it not been for what father told me - that an Alpha needed his fated mate to bear his children - would I have ignored the bond between Gisele and I, and picked Anastasia as my mate instead?

'Yes.' the voice in my head speaks up. "Yes!"

Perhaps my mind really is clearer now, and these are the thoughts of a less abstruse mind. Maybe what I have been denying for so long, is right there in front of me, pleading with eyes I sometimes find myself lost in.

I sprint faster, kicking dirt behind me as I speed through the woods towards my house. I look up to the moon in my haste, praying for forgiveness for losing my heart to someone other than my fated mate, and praying she was still there.

"Anastasia!" I call out as soon as I enter, rushing up the stairs in the hope that she's still there, waiting to tell me why she didn't pursue her mate-bond.

"Anastasia!" I yell at the top of my lungs, kicking my bedroom door in.

"Ana?" I pray, throwing up the switches to shed light in the room.

But the light I'm looking for is nowhere to be found.

I walk up to the mirror, finding that the table on the side has been cleared of all the equipment and the stained cotton swabs are all in the trash. I grab the frame of the mirror, staring into it and seeing nothing but the dishonest character staring back at me.

Dishonest because I'd been lying to myself all along. Dishonest because I'd blamed her for my own misgivings.

And now it was finally time to admit that because of that, I'd sent her right back into her mates arms. Something I confirm when I find her things are gone from her room.

Chapter Eighty-Six: Jacob

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