Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Why the hell not?”
“Is that relevant?” I asked through my teeth. It was one thing to discuss it with my mate. It was something else entirely to discuss it with her best friend.
“I’d say it’s pretty fucking relevant,” Rena shot back.
“She knew,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, she knew before she was like that.” I pointed to the door. “It wasn’t until later that she—” How was I supposed to even describe it? She’d just shut down.
“What else happened?” Rena demanded. “Come on. There must’ve been something.”
“She talked to my parents and their friends,” I mumbled, trying to think back. “They wanted to reassure her. They told her about our soul’s mate—”
Rena nodded for me to keep going.
“That the soul comes back. I think they thought she’d be reassured that we only have one soul’s mate.”
Rena stared at me for a long time before her eyes closed.
“You told her that your mate was reincarnated as her,” she said, letting out a long breath.
“I didn’t tell her shit.”
“But that’s the basics, right?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” Rena said, dropping her purse on the chair. “Did you think for a moment that maybe a woman wouldn’t want to know that she was her mate’s choice because she shared a soul with the woman he’d been with before?”
“I didn’t tell her,” I repeated. “And that’s not how it is.”
“I don’t give a shit who told her,” Rena snapped, glaring. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“They were trying to help.”
“Well, maybe they should keep their help to them-fucking-selves. Do any of them even know Reese?” She scoffed. “You don’t even know Reese. What am I saying?”
“She’s my mate,” I growled.
“Did Reese tell you anything about her childhood?” she hissed.
“I know that she grew up in foster care,” I shot back. Calling Rena had been a mistake.
“Yeah? Did she tell you why she was in foster care?” Rena asked quietly, the venom in her voice burning through me. “Did she mention that the cops found her starving in a run-down motel when she was five years old? She doesn’t remember it, but we got her records when we turned eighteen. They think she’d been there for at least a week. There was an empty box of gas station cupcakes that they figured she went through in the first couple of days, because, you know, five-year-olds have no impulse control, and they assume that the food will keep coming. There was tap water in the bathroom, though, so at least she had that going for her.”
My throat was so tight it felt like I couldn’t drag air into my lungs.
“Yeah,” Rena said slowly. “So, I doubt that hearing about how you didn’t cement the bond with your mate the first time, and she got reincarnated into a child who was left in a fucking motel room to starve probably didn’t give Reese the warm and fuzzies.”
I clutched the back of the recliner to stay on my feet as Rena turned away.
“I’ll call you if I need you,” she spat as she went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
My hands shook as I moved toward the door, leaving our rooms. By the time I hit the stairs I was jogging as my heart pounded in my ears.
I wanted to find Mordecai and level him. I wanted to strangle my father for calling him. I wanted to burn the whole world to the ground, starting with Reese’s fucking parents. The weight of Rena’s words felt too heavy to carry.
Reese found me on the front porch an hour later.
“Rena shouldn’t have told you that,” she announced, startling me. “That wasn’t fair. I don’t blame you for that.”
“You heard her?” I asked, turning to face her.
“She wasn’t being quiet.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I murmured as she sat down in the chair next to me.
She wasn’t wearing a coat. It was too cold for her to be outside without a coat.
“You didn’t tell me that you’d walked away from your mate and then kept her husband alive so she could grow old with him,” Reese countered, looking into the darkness. “Some things take time to share.”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to know,” I replied. “I just didn’t want to bring it all up again.”
Reese nodded. “I can understand that.”
“She wasn’t like you,” I began, making Reese flinch. My gut clenched, but I continued. “She was shy and soft-spoken. She deferred to her husband. She’d say something, and then she’d look at him like she wanted to see how he felt about it.”
“Did you know her long?” Reese asked quietly.
“No. Only a few days.”
“Is that all?”
“It was horrendous,” I confessed. “Being that close to her. The bond just kept pulling tighter and tighter, and I knew she felt it too, but it was different for her.”
“How so?”
“I think it was annoying to her,” I murmured, trying to remember all the things I’d forced myself to forget. “Like an itch she couldn’t scratch. I don’t think she even realized that it was me who was causing it. She was so wrapped up in her husband that it wouldn’t have even occurred to her.”