Anastasia

"Aren't you gonna get that?" I ask Derek when his phone rings for what feels like the millionth time this afternoon.

After a failed attempt to find a spark between us, I felt guilty and wanted to make up for it somehow. That's why we're here, at a table in a diner, grabbing a late lunch while we try to salvage a friendship that seemed to be slipping away after that awkward kiss on the pier.

Derek looks at his screen and rolls his eyes. "It's not important. It's just Kimon."

"Why would he be calling you? Don't you think it's important?"

He shakes his head, "if it was important, Jacob would have called."

I notice Derek bite his lip as if he made a blunder by mentioning Jacob's name. He shoves his phone back into his pocket and calls the waitress over to pay the bill.

"What do you want to do next?" he asks as he hands the waitress a few notes.

I check the time on the ancient wall clock near the door of the diner and sigh. "I think we should make our way home."

He nods and follows me out of the building, and we both hop into his car. I have a feeling that this is our last ride together, but for some reason, I'm not in the least bit disappointed. I know my heart, and it doesn't belong to this man, who would have been chatty had it not been for what we both discovered today.

Neither of us could bring ourselves to pursue the mate-bond when our hearts belonged to other people.

It draws upon evening when we finally enter Jacob's street. As we near his house, I notice that the lights haven't been turned on yet, which means he hasn't returned since this morning.

Derek switches off the ignition, and I turn to face him. "Thank you for today."

The air between us is densely coarse, and I wonder what I can do to ensure that things go back to the way they were before we figured that we were fated to be. Even if it meant that Derek and I weren't on speaking terms. This feels like a heavy burden to carry, and I tense up when he turns in his seat, folding his arm across the wheel.

He clears his throat, before he speaks, "Jacob was the one who told me that Mother Selene makes no mistakes."

"Derek, what are you saying?"

"For the sake of our devotion, and for who we are as werewolves, I just want to be sure."

I shuffle in the seat to turn to him, not quite sure where he was getting at. "I don't think I'm following."

"May I -" Derek looks down, "may I kiss you again? I don't want us to throw this away if -"

"Yes," I whisper in response, closing my eyes and parting my lips.

I hear him take a deep breath, and feel the warmth of his hand as his fingers creep into my hair. He draws me closer, and when his lips press to mine, I feel no urge to respond. None at all, and I know why.

"Derek, I'm sorry -"

He shakes his head, rubbing his lip with his thumb. "You don't have to be sorry. Maybe you're right, after all. Maybe we can't do this if our hearts aren't in it."

"Our hearts are where they shouldn't be. Medeia has her mate, and Jacob hates my guts."

"Jacob doesn't hate you, Ana. He may despise you, but hate is too strong of a word."

Hate or despise, either was enough for me to cower from what I truly feel for Jacob. I wave to Derek as he drives off, and wonder if what he said is true. Does he really know that Jacob doesn't hate me? Or did he say that only to make me feel better?

But if Jacob only despised me, maybe I can change how he feels if he knows the truth. That's all I can hope for.

I walk into Jacob's house, noting that the lights have been turned on now. I didn't even notice if he came back, or if he was here all along. Warily, I watch my every step, stopping at each door to check if he's there. I don't know why I'm feeling as nervous as I am, but being so used to being unwanted seems to be the reason why I'm treading so carefully.

I ascend the staircase, having failed to find Jacob anywhere downstairs. Tiptoeing down the hallway, I notice his bedroom door slightly ajar. I find him standing in his room facing the full-length mirror in the corner. He winces, and sucks in a haggard breath through his teeth, his dark brows curled as he stares at his reflection.

He doesn't seem to notice me, being caught up with whatever it is that has him standing there and focusing on the mirror. I am so deeply entranced by the deep blue in his eyes, it takes me a while to notice why he's standing there in the first place, a towel hanging low on his hips, his back drenched in fresh beads of water. He'd just come out of the shower, and I wonder where he'd been this evening, even though it's not my place to take a shot at guessing or questioning him about it.

His body is twisted, his head dipped, and I only see it when I step into the room.

"Jacob!" I exclaim, rushing up to inspect the arm he has folded around his midriff while he tends to a terrible gash in his forearm, "what happened?!" It doesn't occur to me that I'm way out of my right coming in here like this, but seeing him hurt, and knowing why his face twisted the way it did - from pain - makes me want to do something to help him.

I reach out and touch his shoulder, but he's quick to dodge my touch and he steps aside to impose the most suspicious glare I'd ever been given in my life. I gulp, feeling a terrible sense of deja vu, and coil into myself as if he'd just unleashed the most gut-wrenching accusations and curses at me.

"Nothing happened," he says without emotion, but the look on his face as he dabs a cotton swab into the slash in his arm tells me this is far from nothing. But I know Jacob well, and it was anger that made him tight-lipped.

And I wonder if he'd seen Derek and I…

No. He can't possibly think that anything was going on between us. Yeah, we tried and failed at that. And I had set out to come to tell him how I really feel. What I didn't expect was to find him injured so badly, that even his Alpha blood wasn't enough to stop the blood from seeping from the wound. He isn't healing fast enough.

"Let me help you," I assert, grabbing the crimson-soaked swab from his hand and discarding it in the trash can. I'm about to grab a new one, when his long fingers cuff my wrist.

"I said it's nothing, didn't I?" His voice is steely as he narrows his eyes at me, almost as if challenging me to insurgence.

Challenge accepted!

I grab his wrist and peel his hand from me, grabbing the cotton swab from the table and defiantly stepping closer. I won't back down now, no matter how much he'd hate hearing what I have to say. But I won't say it until I've taken care of this nasty injury.

"Ana," he grates, and I press down a little harder with a swab dipped in herbal cure that has him gritting his teeth, unable to speak the warning he clearly had on the tip of his tongue.

"Will you at least tell me what the hell happened? You're not even healing, Jacob."

I look up because he hasn't answered me, only to find his penetrating gaze bearing into my soul as if he's searching for a reason for why I was so concerned about nursing his wound. My cheeks feel hot as I attempt to pull my eyes away and look back down at the task at hand. The bleeding is subsiding, but the depth of the wound troubles me. I reach over to the table for a roll of bandage.

Jacob clears his throat as I begin unrolling the dressing, and leans his hip against the table.

"Where were you today?"

So that's the more pressing issue here?

I begin wrapping the dressing around his arm, pointedly avoiding looking into his eyes. "Derek asked me out -"

"I know about that. But where were you?"

I gulp as I fold in the end of the dressing, but find that my feet refuse to move when I attempt to stand back. Jacob looks down at his arm, then looks back up and cocks up a brow. "Huh?"

"We went for a drive," I notice how Jacob's eyes grow darker - the way they became whenever he was on the brink of a rageful outburst - and I choose my words wisely, "and decided that it's not for us."

"Don't speak in riddles, Anastasia," he warns.

"Yeah. Sorry. I meant we decided not to pursue the mate-bond."

Jacob's eyes widen momentarily, before returning to their suspicious glare. "Why would you do that?"

I look down at my feet, feeling my toes curl inside my sneakers. All I want to do is come right out and say it, tell him how I really feel about him and that the reason why Derek and I can't go on forcing the fated mate-bond on ourselves is simple. I'm in love with Jacob, and I always have been. I bit down hard on my bottom lip, trying to find the words that have seemingly escaped me, and before I can open my mouth, Jacob grabs my chin and compels me to look up into his eyes.

It's almost as if he can sense what I want to say, and his eyes soften the moment they lock with mine. My heart skips a beat, and my breath hitches in my throat, and for a while, I feel as if I've lost command of my body and mind. Instinctively, I draw closer to Jacob, the touch of his fingers against my jaw sending flapping butterfly wings in the pit of my tummy.

"Because I - because I -" I stutter on my confession, his penetrating gaze making it so hard to think straight. "Because I -"

"If you say that again," Jacob leans in, dropping his hand from my jaw to my neck, "I'm gonna leave."

Leave? Why would he leave?

Frowning, I move back, only to see his eyes light up as if he has hope in them. Maybe he wouldn't be upset if he heard it after all. Maybe the threat of leaving is only to coerce me into revealing my true feelings. Or maybe I found too much of the freedom I craved in those azure depths, that I pray too hard for what I can only dream of.

To be loved by Jacob Knoon.

"Jacob," I breathe, the rest of what I want to say lost to the sound of my heart pounding in my chest when he takes a step closer.

"Jacob," I say again, whispering so softly I'm not even sure he's heard me. He takes another step forward, leaving no space between us, and I'm scared that if I breathe, I might feel the heat of his skin against my chest.

"Anastasia," his low tone echoes my whisper, and he dips his head closer, the heat of his breath fanning my ear, "why don't you just say it?"

Did he know? Is it something an Alpha can sense even when you couldn't find the words you want to say? Is it an innate knowledge or just a hunch? Either way, I find my eyelids fluttering like the butterflies in my tummy, and my head falls back as I silently plead for him to come closer.

But when he does, he says my name again. Only this time, it's an accusing roar.

My eyes fly open and I watch as he puts some distance between us. "Is that," he points to me, "Derek's jacket?"

"What?" I look down in disbelief, having forgotten that I still had it on. I look back up, shaking my head aggressively. "It's not like that, Jacob. It was cold on the pier -"

"So it was you on the pier?" He bellows with scornful laughter. "Of course it was!"

"Jacob, please," I reach out, but he steps aside and shakes his head.

"You know what?" he says as he makes his way to his bedroom door. "It's fine by me if you and Derek are together," He turns around, and the darkness in his eyes borders on the line between sadness and anger. "but you don't need to lie to me."

I'm about to tell him how wrong he is when he drops his towel on the floor and rushes down the corridor before bursting out of the front door and running into the woods. I stand there, just watching as he transforms into the mighty Alpha wolf before disappearing into the shadows.

Hastily, I rip the jacket off my body, throwing it onto the ground as I silently curse myself. I was so close to telling him how I really feel, and now I've lost him forever.