My Place, My Fate (Book 1: Fate Series)

Chapter 11

'No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.' – Julius Caesar

I was being a coward.

So what Sebastian had kissed me!

So what I had experienced momentary brain-lapse and responded!

So what I had slapped him across the face when I came to my senses only to realise the kiss was long over, and he was smirking down at me in all his arrogance.

So what I had isolated myself in my room for the past three days, in the hopes that I would not run into him. In the past 72 hours since the kiss, I had gone through every excuse I could come up with to explain my momentary lapse in judgement. 

The moment when he had ensnared my lips in such a scorching and brutal kiss that had rendered me senseless, it was as if at that very moment, I was a woman again. Not a shell of the broken being I had been reduced to. And the woman in me had clung to the scraps dealt to her like a drowning man.

That was all it was, scrapes. 

In the form of a drunken mistake.

It was the main reason I was acting like a coward. I could never face him again. How could I face the first man to kiss me so passionately ever since my mate's betrayal? And worse still, knowing that I had responded when he very well might not remember its occurrence?

I groaned, dropping my face on to my hands. The pack had gotten so used to Sebastian and I's brawls that they had taken my seclusion as a repercussion of another argument. Lucky for me, the tension among the members towards me had reduced. No more weakly veiled insults and jabs, and hostile looks.

It was thanks to Sebastian though, and no way was it thanks to my near-death experience. It had taken him a good long while to finally accept the truth regarding his 'lost' mate, and finally inform the pack as to why their alpha's daughter called a rogue mama.

They had been grateful for saving Sophia, but I could still sense their wariness of my presence. Saving their alpha's daughter had simply allowed them to be courteous, but I wasn't looking to get invited to any pack barbecues any time soon.

Regardless, Sebastian had made the atmosphere hospitable, and I could at the very least lower my guard somewhat knowing that no one was going say something wrong in front of Sophia. For the past couple of months, I had tried to shield her, as best as I could, from the foul words they hurled at me. I had no intentions of explaining to my daughter what a whore meant.

Still, I had not gotten around to thanking Sebastian, or better yet I was too busy playing chicken to face the man.

"Amelia," Adam called. I lifted my bowed head and caught Adam's confused gaze.

"What?" I winced at my tone of voice. I had not meant to sound rude. 

I had just reached an unspoken level of mutual respect with Adam, and sounding like a petulant child was not making things better.

"I have been calling you for the past minute," he stated choosing to ignore my curt tone.

"My mind was elsewhere. What did you want?" I asked rising slowly from my bed. Sophia had just gone down for her afternoon nap, and I did not want to wake her.

"The alpha wants to see you in his office, now." He said in his most authoritative voice- a clear statement that it was not a request.

The protest was at the tip of tongue. In my book, I was not ready to face him. Yet when I responded, I was not expecting the words that left my mouth.