Rejected by one Alpha, Loved by another

Chapter 98: Hackles

Kai's POV

15 minutes ago-

I read everything she wrote down.

Twice.

At first, I thought she was just writing down her simple feelings but when she wasn't anywhere in the house I knew she would have gone out.

I assumed she would have gone for a walk, but it seems that she repressed her wolf to only shift when she wanted to, and I have never seen her shift before. I don't even know what she looks like in her wolf form.

"Kai?" My mom says. She looks a little pale and quite frantic when she says my name.

My mother never gets frantic. She's always been this happy, composed and relaxed woman. Under pressure, she manages to settle situations as well as her duties but when I look at her right now I already know somethings wrong.

"Mom? What's wrong? Have you seen Millie?" I ask and that's when I hear the howling, the snarling and whimpers to my right.

"I haven't but two wolves are fighting. Badly" she says. She health with me and my brother fighting, arguing over simple shit that we turned into an argument, she separated us when it got too much for her to handle and then we suffered with a week's worth of chores to learn how to work together.

"Go inside, I'll go and sort it," I tell her as I shift into my wolf form and sprint toward the woods. I listen to heavy breathing and the sounds of the waterfall, I'm just about ready to rip the wolf's neck out when I smell her.

-

I storm to the waterfall. I can feel her trailing behind me slower than normal so I know she's injured somewhere.

After walking into the water, I shift back into my human form. My body is submerged under the water from the waist down so she can't see anything she isn't ready to see.

"Get in" I snap out at her. I don't want to snap at her, I don't want her to feel like she's unsafe with me but my anger got tipped off the moment she started her rejection.

Assuming shit that didn't need to be assumed.

"Kai-"

"Did I fucking stutter, Millie? Get. In. Here" I say and she obeys. She obeys because I use my aura on her which wouldn't usually work with her being my mate but because we haven't mated and she hasn't officially become a member of my pack yet.

Her paws hit the water along with a hiss from her mouth.

I try to stay angry at her. I do try, but looking at the blood in her fur, the pain in her eyes and hearing her whimper only makes me feel softer toward her.

Pulling her to my body I stroke her face. The touch is hot, igniting a warmth in my stomach that I've never felt before.

"Baby-Girl" I whisper and she eventually lets the tension leave her body. "I don't know what the fuck you were fighting about but I don't want you to ever mark this body again. Only I get to do that" I say while I wipe the blood from her fur, her eyes close and I can imagine how it must be to her now. I never gave myself time to think about it on her part. I was too pissed and hurt that she wrote it down instead. To pissed at me for not reminding her that she needed to talk to me, that she's my person and I'm hers. Too pissed to see that she was hurting and I left her to it on her own.

"Shift back into your human form baby" I whisper against her snout. She blows a ruffled breath, still sassy and still beautiful when doing so too.

"And get rid of the sass," I tell her and after a few moments of relaxing her muscles in the cold water, I swim out with her wolf form in my body under the waterfall where no one would be able to see us if they walked by.

"Kai-" she whispers from her wolf's mind linked to mine.

"Just relax princess. Come back to me and let me look after you" I say and she does. She shifts and I can just see the top of her breasts as she shifts and shakes and it's only then that I see the split lip, bruised cheek and claw marks on her body.

"They will heal shortly" I grit out. My fingers trail over her beautiful, naked skin and I try my hardest to not look but fuck it's so damn hard.

"It won't. I don't heal the same way every other wolf does. It's one of the downfalls to me having complete control of my shifter side. I don't heal quickly enough"

I tuck some of her hair behind her ear, pulling her slightly closer to my body but not to the point of full contact.

"When was the last time you took your medications?"

"I- I don't know. Two weeks? Three maybe?"

"Christ Millie!"

"I don't even know how it started. I was so far into my studies and food wasn't a priority, neither was sleep and I think I just forgot but then I felt alive! So alive and so much better but then I felt sad and hurt. I felt unloved and I don't know..."

"You are loved, Millie!" I tell her as I swim a little closer. Looking at her body, so perfect and smooth, so soft and tanned I reach out to touch her but stop when I realise that she doesn't need me to be piercing on her until I get that permission to.

"Do you know how impossible it has been to have you close by in this water without touching you? Without gripping you to me?"

"Kai-"

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do Millie, that's not me and I won't do anything while holding you in the lake or when you haven't been on your medications to think properly enough but-" he says as he runs his palms down my arms and toward my waist. "But just know that I want you! All of you, the happy the sad the crazy and the fun. I want you to feel my emotions the way I feel my own. I want you to know that you have me in your corner"

I don't say anything so I simply hover nearer to him and kiss him lightly. "Okay"

"But there is something we need to talk about," he says and that has my hackles up.