The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 69

Chapter 69

TESSA POV

Luca grabs my hair, my neck straining at the cruel angle. “Do it. He’s just some pack nobody. He’s breaking his Alpha’s rules by being out here on his own anyway.”

The tiny fragments of my mind that secretly wondered if there was ever a real chance for me and Luca were clear of all doubt now. Painfully clear. He’s rotten inside. Our bond was broken before it even began.

“I’ve done it,” Luca spits, adjusting himself, pushing the bow into my hands, his chest pressing my face into the grass. “I killed for you.”

Spluttering and retching, Luca allows me to turn my face to the side where I gasp for air. My wolf returning means I can catch his almond and blackberry scent more intensely each passing minute.

I managed to croak out. “What do you mean? Who would you kill for me?”

His face is absolute seriousness. “Your parents. When you left me. RAN FROM ME-” the full hate of his hissed words hitting me along with his nose and forehead, pressing painfully into my eyebrow and cheekbone. “Just got on your shitty train, leaving me behind, I went to put things right.”

Retching loudly, my face is quickly shoved back in the grass. But I’m fighting him. My hips rising up and down, hitting Luca’s stomach, groin, shoulders twisting against his huge weight.

I’m so grateful for the thick layers of this dress’s skirt, I don’t want to feel his body against mine.

I want him dead.

That realization hits me with stunning sadness. I want my best friend, my only childhood friend, dead. I’m fighting not just to stop him going anywhere near Maxim. But because I want to ram a full set of arrows through him.

Luca flips me over with ease, one hand slamming over my mouth. “There is no option where you’re not mine Tessa. Do you want to know why?”

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His whole body shudders, his legs straddling me. “Fucking hell Feisty. Can’t you feel the sparks? We’re meant to take on the world together. Us. Like we talked about for fucking years. Me and you. My best friend…” to my surprise his voice breaks a little. But I’m just a poor substitute for the naive girl he left behind. I won’t ever fit the mold he has for me now.

My wolf, groggy and recovering from the wolfsbane, made the effort to pick up Maxim’s scent. But not my mates touch. There is no sparks. We’re a limp, spent connection.

But I can’t shout for Maxim, or warn him to run. Luca’s band of foul smelling psychopaths will be closing in as we speak. I need him safe. Laid underneath my mate, my heart screams for another man.

Breathing heavily, Luca’s jet black eyes are wide, but lifeless. He slowly peels away his fingers from my mouth and brushes a few tears from my cheeks. “Talk. Talk or I take this bow and do the job for you. The bastard has got to die anyway for finding us. That’s how it works.”

My lips are shaking but I manage to whisper. “My parents? Why? They didn’t even know I was leaving?”

Stroking a long skein of my copper hair, Luca looks almost wistful. Like we’re in some other version of events where we lie in the grass together and calmly talk about death.

“I killed them, not because I was angry. Don’t think that. I did it because it was the first step to proving I could look after you. Freeing you of them. There was no drama. I packed all their shit up and everyone just assumed they’d left town. Or joined the rebels. I announced I was recruiting in the village the next day after all. But they were already dead.”

My lips are still shaking, tears falling freely. He’s so calm. So scarily at ease with his dark confessions. I know he would do unspeakable things to Maxim. “I slit your fathers throat. And I took out your mothers tongue. She choked on her blood. As she deserved!”

“No, Luca, no…” but he is in full flow as I watch his band of men close in on us. All of their eyes land on where my dress has ridden up to my thighs. My cheeks burn with fury. Luca gives a nod and the tall Tarela languidly leads them up the hill. I’m left waiting for the cry of battle.

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Chapter 69

My eyes drift away from Luca, trying to look upwards, staring up at the slope and panicking. Only for Luca to wrench my jaw downwards, dragging my gaze back to his desolate black pools,

“You mother, what a joke. You were so lonely and cold. She chose money over you. But I’m choosing you Tessa. I can still make things right, if you let me I can fix it all. It will be perfect.”

“It’s not possible!”

“Oh I can. I really can,” and for the first time a wicked little grin rose up his face. “You’ll forget all about him you know.”

My heart chills. “Who?”

There is no sound above. Oh Gods what if Maxim has been killed. What if he’s caught and hurt up there. Luca presses his arm across my neck, reaching into his pocket whilst I fight off a collection of dizzying, blurry stars and scorched lungs.

He roughly releases my throat. Whilst I splutter and roll over her hisses into my ear. “Maxim fucking Pagano.”

Everything stops. Luca rasps. “Final year. Dark brown hair, beard. Industrial zone urchin. Specialised in assassin training, scent–tracing. Everything. Barely holding onto his place in the pack.”

“You don’t know him-” but a vicious slap sends me rolling down the hill for several metres. I barely know my own name but I get hold of a fist–sized rock and hold onto it tightly.

“Nothing up here boss!” Tarela shouts down. “You sure you saw someone?”

“It was some fucker in a black leather jacket, I caught a glance before ducking. So get searching.”

“Yes Sir. Everything okay down there, you need any help?” Standing two metres above us, I can see the spittle shining on his lips and chin, smirking down

at me.

It resembles the way a dog stares at a joint of meat coming out of the oven. Expecting a bite. Expecting something out of what they’re staring so longingly at. I scramble a bit further backwards.

I’m not naive. The more I piss Luca off, the closer I come to being flung to his pack of deranged animals. My stomach turns as I meet Tarela’s gaze head on, daring him to say something.

“Leave the bag. I’m going to need some of the gear,” Luca grumbles as a tattered gray backpack slowly rolls down the grassy folds of the hill. “There are some caves a bit further up, that little scout will have scurried into one of those. Check all of them. What was he looking at?”

“He’s found some of our dead. Oakley’s batch? They got fucked up a couple of weeks ago?”

“And?”

“He’s slashed up the back of half a dozen leathers. He’s seen the exile scars.”

“Fucker. Then he definitely can’t get back to Ravenbow. Find him. NOW! I’ll join in a second!” before muttering dark curses,

Stood to his full height, Luca stretches his neck, head tilting to the right. My wolf is begging me to hold on a bit longer. If a weakened wolf tries to shift too soon it turns into a gory horror show no amount of healing can ever piece together.

“When they catch this guy, you’re putting an arrow through his heart,” Luca s

states. “Then I’ll do the same to this Pagano when I take Ravenbow. He’s a

fucking dead man.”

Luca’s ramblings make me he doesn’t actually know it’s Maxim out there. Right now. He must be going off basic descriptions. But then Maxim isn’t looking for me, he’s working for Alpha Hale, checking corpses, like a scout or spy.

Luca doesn’t know everything. He isn’t some omnipotent being who can just ruin my life at will. He’s just another damaged man. One I can reject. Or if

have to, kill.

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12:39 Sat, 14 Jun G G

Chapter 69

It’s

almost scary how warm my heart feels knowing he’s close. There is a deep, I know my love. He loves to hide high up in trees and get comfortable. growing need to bite him for real. To keep him, I don’t want to pretend he isn’t everything to me.