Chapter 40
0040
(James POV)
It has now been a month since Lily and I rejected each other.
I am currently standing outside my father’s office, prepared to make a new series of demands on him. I
have not been to this office since the meeting that we had before Stephanie’s memorial. Being here
brings back a lot of memories that I would rather forget, and many that I am still trying to understand.
tla
I had woken up in a hospital bed roughly four days after the rejection.
Just before I woke up, there had been a fuzzy period of time in which my brain was starting to adjust to
consciousness again. During that period, a part of me fought with my body about whether I should wake
up at all. It was not that I wanted to die. It was that I was scared. Of what, I was not certain… but I knew
I
that once I woke up, I was going to be forced to face a reality that I was not sure that I wanted to be a
part of.
During the period of fuzziness, various memories flashed through my head. Although they were choppy,
they were enough to remind me that I had made a real mess of things. In an effort to humiliate and
intimidate my second chance mate, I had publicly bragged about getting bl ow jo bs and sexual favors
from other she-wolves, apparently forgetting that we were at a memorial service for my first mate.
amy
And, worse than that, I had gone ahead and accepted the Little Brat’s rejection. I was vaguely aware that
there had been good reasons for me to do so, but in my semi-conscious state, it was difficult for me to remember any of them. Instead, I could only think about the Little Brat’s bright green eyes, her strength and confidence as she yelled at me in the crowded hall, and some of the words she spoke that suggested that much of my life had been built on lies.
Waking up and confronting some of those potential lies was the last thing that I wanted to do. On the other hand, a bigger part of me knew that I had to wake up, because what haunted my semi-conscious state most of all were the memories of how Nick and Robert brought Lily to the memorial unconscious, bruised, and absolutely battered. I could not help but worry, even while semi-conscious, about what condition she was in when they found her after the rejection. I also worried about how Lily had gotten all of those injuries in the first place. Was there someone in the pack who had purposely hurt her?
Ironically –even though my worries about Lily were what ultimately convinced me to open my eyes– once I woke up, no one would tell me anything.
Apparently, my father had given a variety of alpha orders to prevent me from experiencing any level of stress until I was fully recovered. Honestly, I appreciated the alpha orders that prevented the she-wolves from visiting my bedroom -I really did not enjoy those visits anyway- but the other alpha-orders irritated
Nevertheless-given that the intent behind the alpha orders also prevented me from having to have a
conversation with my parents about all that had happened- I was ready to file my irritation with the alpha
orders away in my me ntal folder of grievances against my parents. I figured that Luke would help me find
ways to work around the orders anyway.
The problem n was that I then discovered that Luke was not there. Or, rather, that he was there… but that
he was completely closed off and unreachable to me. I should have anticipated that Luke would retreat
for
a while they give us all sorts of warnings about the impact of rejections in school- but I found
myself caught completely off-guard.
Everything in me shifted when I realized that Luke was gone. His absence set me up on a roller coaster
of emotions that I was not prepared to handle.
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