Rejected

• EIGHT •

The next day I could tell Elise still didn't want me going out with another guy as she voiced her opinion in class.

"Mariah are you sure you want to go through with this." She asked as we walked to our third afternoon class.

"Look I already told you, Jon said that Patrick was cool with us going out tonight." I said.

Mariah shook her head, "it just doesn't make sense, you're his mate."

"Ugh please stop." I sounded frustrated "I know I'm still new to this whole Werewolf lifestyle, but honestly Elise, how can someone claim that I'm his everything and then turn around and just hand me off to another guy?"

"That's what doesn't make sense...Weres, especially Males...they just don't just hand off their mates to another guy willingly."

I shook my head, "even if he hadn't done that, how do you explain his actions...I mean after you had slipped up back in Cali." I said cautiously, "you were torn up about it until you came back and you worked things out with Vance...well Patrick's messed around over and over again with random girls and it doesn't even seem like it phases him...like, well, what if he only thought I was his mate, is there a chance he could've been wrong about it?"

She pulled her eyebrows together, "I don't think so, but to be honest Mariah I don't know everything there is to know about our people."

I nodded, it was understandable.

"But seriously, what makes someone a mate in the first place?"

"I-it's hard to explain...like for us, we feel things more than a humans in general." She said before emphasizing what she meant. "Y'all are happy we are elated, y'all are mad we're furious, when we love we love deeply, but not nearly as deeply as when we find our mates because when it comes to our mates...well, basically our mates are our whole world."

It always sounded so romantic when Ellie spoke about how magical mates were.

"Our mates are our hearts, we do everything we can to protect them, because when they hurt, we hurt in return. Their happiness is our happiness, mates are two people that sort of become one...when you find your mate, well for me at least, when Vance was around everything seems perfect... every touch was damn near magic."

"And it's not like that anymore?" I asked confused.

The night after Ellie and Vance's Rehearsal dinner, despite Harper taking me home I had seen and heard enough to know that they had gotten their wolves back...something that Ellie herself had confirmed for me the next day.

I knew she was so thankful to get her wolf back and she told me how she and Vance were still trying to figure out if their old wolves had come back fully, and if they'd stay or if they would have adverse effects from whatever poison they were exposed to when they were taken.

"Well as you know after that night when Vance and I got into the car accident those same sensations came back and more as we know what it's like to lose that...we don't ever want to take for granted something so special ever again."

"Well then you'd think Patrick would want the same thing...I know for me every time he's around me despite my trying to bury my feelings for him deep down to forget about him, I can't help but feel weirdly antsy and excited and if he gets super close I can almost feel those electrical tingles like I had when we were on the road together." I admitted then sighed, "which makes what he's still doing all the worse."