Cranston High

Bray • 8

"Because of him."

I drop my arm away from her shoulder, confused and bewildered at the terror that's now flooding her face at the mention of him.

Who is this him exactly? And why would he strike up so much fear in our mate?

"Him? Him who? I don't completely understand Haze." Brans confusion matches my own.

"He is an evil and diabolical man, who has been haunting me and my family for years now. We all had to go into hiding because of him. He craves the power that my other half will ultimately provide for him. He has already killed one member of my family, my Aunt Joann, to get what he wants and he won't stop until he is able to capture either me or the other members of my family. That's why I can't be involved with any of you. He will obliterate anyone who tries to get in his way of him getting exactly what he wants. I can't take that chance with any of you. I won't be the cause of any of you losing your lives just because you just happened to be mated to me. I'm sorry guys. I just....can't." Hazes clear refusal leaves me completely shattered.

Before I could offer her up a reasonable reply back she takes off into a mad dash, running straight back to the Elite building while leaving me and my brother just standing there in a mask of confusion and complete uncertainty.

Aggravated, I thread both of my hands straight through my long strands of hair. Holding my hair back off of my face I fist up my hands while pulling roughly at my strands of loose hair as I glare at the back of Hazes retreating figure.

When she rounds the corner of the building, now completely out of our sights, I drop my hands away from my head and down to my hips then turn to my brother while sucking in a tense breath in between my teeth.

"This is far more complicated than what I anticipated. What are we going to do now Bran?" I truly hope that he has a clue about what to do because my ass sure doesn't.

"First we need to tell the others, then we can go from there." Bran replies. I can't argue with that sound reasoning.

"Then let's go." I give Bran a sharp nod before we both leave out in search of the others.

In a way I'm glad that Haze finally acknowledged us as her mates but in a another way I'm now more terrified now that she did it.

I don't want to put my brother and the others lives on the line just for a mate. It may sound somewhat cynical but in all honesty we hardly do know anything about her. We really don't know her yet.

I care about what happens to all of them especially my brother and Jay.

The mere thought of Jay sends me on a spiral of pure agonizing guilt.

It's not only the fact that I did that with him knowing that I had a mate, it's a bit more complicated than that, it's the fact that I enjoyed it far too damn much. I know that I made Jay feel insignificant and I hurt him but that wasn't my true intentions at the time.