Chapter Fifteen

I pushed open the kitchen door and looked around warily. I wasn't sure if Gamgam would be in a good mood or not. She had kicked me out of the kitchen but she hadn't exactly said I couldn't come back. I, however, was not one for taking chances with my life. "Gamgam?" I tried my hardest to keep my voice meek as I looked around for the tall female. There were a few other shifters running around and I watched them with a small frown.

"I thought I told you to go with Sterling." Gamgam's voice came from the island and I moved closer to where her voice had come from.

"Well I helped him with the Hunters and I'm here to help you make supper because councilman Edwards will be dining with us." I watched as Gamgam grabbed a head of lettuce and set it on a cutting board before grabbing a knife.

"They sent a councilman? Do I need to kill him before he takes out puiu meu de lup?" Her tone was serious and I shook my head quickly. I honestly didn't want Jovan to be murdered. He was nice.

"No. He was just delivering the 'no killing people for looking at your mate' speech to Dickhead." I leaned against the island as Gamgam scowled darkly, savagely cutting into the lettuce head.

"Why did he need to leave his lofty seat to come and tell Alpha Sterling that?" Gamgam viciously sliced through the head of lettuce once more. Her tone was agitated. She didn't like the fact a councilman would be in her territory. From all our conversations I had learned Gamgam did not like the Hunters or the Council.

"Jovan wanted to meet Dickhead. He's funny and very not like what I heard a council member would be like." I smiled as I moved closer to her to help her out.

She grunted at me before she pointed to a bowl of various vegetables. "I shall have to see about that." She sniffed lightly and I grinned as I moved the bowl over to a cutting board and grabbed a knife from the butcher's block. The kitchen was busier than I was used to. Pack members flitted around quickly in the space. "Sharon, if you don't check those fucking roasts for temperature I am going to shove my foot up your ass!" Gamgam went back to her cutting, her slices were almost angry and the head of romaine lettuce was quickly placed in a bowl before another head of it was grabbed.

I methodically cut into a bell pepper. I didn't much care for them but if Gamgam gave you a task you did it without question. I faltered in my cutting. Out of everything that had happened in the past week, learning that my grandfather had placed a bounty on my head was the worst. I swallowed and tried to push the thought away, there was no use opening that drawer in my compartmentalizing dresser.

"Dean, you better watch your fucking mouth with your elders before I pour a bottle of soap down your fucking throat." Gamgam's voice boomed in the air and I smile a bit before I grabbed another pepper and started to cut it. "What is wrong, fetita?" I glanced at her from the corner of my eyes and she was rummaging through a drawer.

"There's nothing wrong, Gamgam." I said it quietly, silently cursing how observant Gamgam was. I didn't wish to discuss my grandfather with her or anyone for that matter.

"Don't you lie to m-Jonathan! Where the fuck did you put my peeler?" She slammed the drawer shut with a snarl. "If I don't get it in my hand in the next ten seconds, you little toad, I'm going to peel your skin off with it!" There was a scrambling further in the kitchen as a wide-eyed shifter bolted towards Gamgam, the wanted peeler grasped tightly in his hand.

She snagged it away from him angrily. "Thank you, now get me the potatoes!" She swatted at him with the spoon but he jumped out of the way and was gone. Gamgam turned and gave me a stern look, pointing the peeler at me. "What's wrong? And don't you dare lie to me." Her blue eyes flashed with fire and I slumped my shoulders, setting the knife down. Gamgam wouldn't leave it alone, I knew that for a fact.

"My grandfather put a search and return bounty on me." The words still brought a faint swirl of fear. I didn't like that he used the Hunters, I didn't think he would ever get over his hate of them to do so but there it was.

"That little prick! I want those fucking potatoes now, Jonathan!" Gamgam moved closer to me and grabbed a cucumber before pushing me out of the way so she could use the cutting board. She shoved the peeler into my hand as she set the cucumber down. "That grandfather of yours will have to go through me if he even thinks about coming after you. I gather that your status needs to be relayed to him?" I nodded and she huffed right as Jonathan came back with a bag of potatoes. Gamgam pointed at them and I quickly moved over to peel them.

"Of course." She huffed angrily as she quickly chopped the cucumber into slices. I quickly peeled a potato and looked around for something to place it in. "Sharon, what is the temperature on those roasts?" Irritation was clear in her tone and I sighed, placing the potato on the counter before grabbing another one and peeling it. Gamgam had nearly finished off the bowl of vegetables I had been cutting. She had a tendency of taking over jobs, I didn't think I had every truly finished a cooking job with her around.

"A hundred and sixty-two, Carrie." A female's voice came from the back of the kitchen and Gamgam scowled.

"Well the take them out and make the gravy! Why does no one take initiative around here?" The question sounded rhetorical so I didn't acknowledge it. I peeled a third potato and set it by the other two right as Gamgam slammed a pot onto the counter beside me. I jumped in surprise at the loud bang. She threw my three potatoes into the pot and snagged the peeler from me before moving me out of the way. "That isn't everything, Shey. You better tell me right now." She was rather quick at peeling the potatoes and I looked around, wondering what I should do, besides ignore Gamgam's question.

"Nothing else, Gamgam. I'm just a bit frazzled." I looked around again and Gamgam smacked my hand with the wooden spoon. I yelped and yanked it to my chest, scowling at her as I did so.

"Stop lying to me, fetita." She pointed at me with the wooden spoon. I grimaced before steeling myself and meeting her gaze head on. I refused to buckle under her scrutiny. "Dean, get your ass over her and peel these potatoes!" She set the peeler down and grabbed my arm before dragging me towards the door. I scowled at her but she ignored me as she yanked open the door and pulled me out. I opened my mouth to speak but she stopped abruptly and glowered at me. "What is it?" I wanted to ignore her, to not tell her but under her intense gaze I crumbled. The female was, quite frankly, terrifying.

"His touch made me panic." I figured blunt honesty would work. After all it had worked with Maricella, the female shifter had been strange. Well an adorable sort of strange but with a darkness that seeped in the air around her. She didn't show it but I knew it was there. Pain called to pain, hurt to hurt.

"Pardon?" Gamgam actually looked confused for a moment and it was an expression I had never seen on her face before.

"Sterling. His touch made me panic. I am pretty sure I cried." I watched as her face rapidly shifted from confusion to realization to a rather dark understanding before she grabbed my bicep and pulled me down the hallway. I stumbled after her until she opened a door and pulled me through. It was a bedroom.

Gamgam slammed the door before she gripped my shoulders tightly. "How many?" There was a surprising amount of venom in her voice.

I leaned away from her but her hands held me tightly in place. "What?" I frowned at her, unsure of what she was talking about.

"How many, Shey?" She was prompting me, urging me to hear the words she didn't speak. I focused on her face anger and concern shone in the blue depths. "How many did your grandfather send to you? I know you did not become Colectoare de Respingeri because you wished it. There would be no panic if it were so, that means it was someone who wished to hurt you. The only male I could see doing that is your grandfather. So how. Many." Her tone was firm and I felt a little bit shocked she said it, laid it out so perfectly. There was little I could do as that drawer in my dresser sprung all the way open.

"Eight but four succeeded." I choked on the last word, tears filling my eyes at the memories that exploded into my mind. The drawer I had labelled do not touch had been opened and I knew it would take a lot before the memories could be shoved and locked away again.

Gamgam made a sound in her throat, "That utter bastard. Sterling's touch must have brought all of that shit back didn't it?" Her eyes had softened and I nodded. It was hard to explain how the familiar feeling of the bond twisting at his touch brought all of that heartbreak back to me. It reminded me of each and everyone one of the men that had broken my heart and I couldn't breathe or panic through the thought of it happening once again. "You need to tell me, Shey." I knew what she was asking but I couldn't.

"I can't, Ga-"

"You have too, Shey. If you and Sterling are going to have a future, you need to let it go!" She gave me a small shake and I shoved her hands off my shoulders.

"I don't have a future. I don't have happy endings!" I felt tears blur my vision as I scowled at her. "I don't have them because I don't deserve them! I was born through rejection and I will die through it." I spat the words out and Gamgam pulled herself up, drawing her shoulders back.

She looked fairly intimidating staring down at me through her icy blue eyes. "And die you will. What do you think will happen to you if Sterling rejects you? Do you think you will go on your merry little way? That everything will be fine and dandy?" Her words were cold and I flinched back from the intensity of them. "Your wolf is dying, Shey, and if you subject her to another rejection she will cease to exist completely! Do you know what that will do to you? She is half of who you are! She dies, you die with her!" I swallowed hard, 'I will not accept half a soul', that was what Mene had told me. She had known and she told me to accept Dickhead because otherwise it was over, it would end. She didn't want half of me.

"That is why Mene is trying so hard to get you to open your fucking eyes! Do you think she wishes to greet your wolf without you? That she would want a half soul to balance? You would be eternally lost, Shey. Your cycle would be unfinished, broken." She grabbed my shoulders again and shook me once more. "Is that what you want? To be lost in the darkness, unable to be born again. Unable to complete your cycle on this earth? That is worse than eternal banishment, that is worse than Mene rejecting your soul casting you off to her brothers. Is that better that trying to make this work with Sterling?" I tilted my head up and tried to blink away the tears that filled my eyes but all I succeeded in doing was sending them cascading down my cheeks.

I didn't want to cry. Crying was a weakness and Alpha's weren't weak. My mother's words ran through my head almost viciously tearing into my skull. "I don't deserv-"

"You deserve whatever Mene gives you! She has given you Sterling." Her words echoed what Mene had told me in my dream and I looked away from her, unable to bear her intense scrutiny. Her hand grasped my jaw and yanked my face back to look at her. Her eyes were like two blue flames, the anger and intensity they held felt they they would burn me to ash. "Do not punish puiu meu de lup for your sins, Shey Lazera. If you hurt him..." Her voice trailed off but the threat hung in the air as if she had shouted it. I stared at her and she let me see the truth in her eyes. There were no lengths she wouldn't go to protect Sterling.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to proceed from that point on. Tears leaked from my eyes and I couldn't stop them. I didn't deal well with feelings but she was right, Gamgam was always right. If I lingered on the rejections, the heartbreak. If I didn't deal with them they would fester and rot. I felt my chin tremble. Maybe they already had. Ten years was a long time to dwell. I didn't have a choice, I didn't want to die, to return half a soul to Mene. I didn't know how to fix myself but I had to start somewhere. Emotions were a weakness but at the moment I was weak already.

"The first was Jason, he was second born to the Smith Alpha Claim. He convinced me he loved me. Brought me flowers, listened to my silly demands, kissed me under the moonlight, and promised me the world. I loved him so much." A lance of pain surged through my chest at the memories of him, of my naivety that had hurt me, and I gasped, a new wave of tears falling from my eyes. I had loved him with such an intensity that I had been blinded by what had been happening around me, happening with me. "We were together for months until he brought me to a beautiful picnic. We laughed and we talked and then we watched the sunset together. He sat beside me, grabbed my hand and he rejected me with a fucking smile on his face. Like he enjoyed it, enjoyed my pain." Another harsh surge of pain filled me and I clutched at my chest, bending over. Gamgam slid her hands from my shoulders to my back and pulled me against her chest. The action was comforting as my body defaulted to panicked pain, not knowing how to react to the strong emotions surging through me.

"He hurt me so bad that I was afraid I would die. He left me there, hurting and in pain until my mum found me. She carried me home and then drug him back so I could accept it. She demanded it. Demanded I do it." I felt a spark of anger in my chest, a sharp heat through the pain. My mother had done it for me, had dragged Jason broken and bleeding and dropped him at my feet like a prize and demanded I return the favour. "She tore into him. He had hurt me so she had made him feel the pain of it. I doubt those scars truly healed on his face." The thought made my mouth twitch slightly, the ache in my chest fading a bit. My mother had protected me, her pup, with a fierceness that had continually surprised me. Which is why it made what happened hurt so much more.

I slumped forwards slightly, the weight on my shoulders feeling overwhelming. "I miss her."

"I know you do, fetita. I know." Gamgam rocked me from side to side and she ran her hand over my hair gently. With that the dam broke. I cried to the naive young female I had been. I cried because her heart had been ripped out by a smile and eight simple words.

I reject you Shey Lazera, as my mate.

That had been the very first time I had been rejected. Jason had been my first love and my first heartbreak in the same breath. I would have said he was the most painful but he truly wasn't. No, Jason wasn't the most painful rejection, that had come later. It made my heart clench in my chest and I winced at the pain as a new flood of tears escaped my eyes. I didn't want to delve into that drawer of my mind where I had tucked everything away to be forgotten but I had to, something that to give. Mene didn't want half a soul and that meant Sterling was the only ending I had.

"I loved him, Gamgam, and he hurt me so bad." The words were nearly a garbled mess and she shushed me gently and before I knew it we were sitting down on the bed. I wrapped my arms around her tightly I didn't want to lose the comfort she brought me as the pain of the memories wracked my frame. It almost felt relieving, as if it had been a painful splinter or thorn that had festered inside of my chest. I had removed it and now all of the poison was leaking out slowly but surely.

"Love has risks and pitfalls and hurt but what the little toad did to you was inexcusable." She shushed me gently and I nodded in agreement to her words. The sharp spears of pain slowly faded to a dull ache and she let out a small sigh. "Who was next?" That sent a harsher pain through my chest and I clutched at it tightly, trying to rubbed the ache away, willing it to fade. I felt weak and I couldn't be weak, I was an Alpha.

"Allan. He didn't come until I was seventeen. I tried hard to forget about Jason and then Allan was there. He made me smile again, made me laugh. He teased me about everything till I got mad only to wrap me in his arms and kiss every inch of my face begging for forgiveness." Jason hadn't hurt nearly as bad as Allan. Allan had helped me pick up the pieces of my heart only to throw them down to break all over again. "He was first in line to the Bellagio Alpha Claim. His eyes sparkled when he looked at me and my mother didn't like him." I fell silent.

"I wondered if she had known all along what was going to happen. If she had figured out what her father was doing." I said it quietly. I had always wondered why she had been so standoffish with Allan but she had known and she had tried to show me. I hadn't listened because I had been desperate to be loved to prove that I was more than the rejection I had been born too. "I loved Allan more than I loved Jason. I loved him so much that I believed every word he told me." I thought back to the memory of the rejection. I had been so happy before it had crashed down around me.

I was spinning around and around, the rain soaking my clothes through to my skin. It was cold and dreary but I was happy. All I could think about was him. Allan Bellagio. My mate, my reason for my happiness. I loved him to the point my chest felt overly full. He had put me back together after I had tried so hard to hold the pieces together after Jason.

I laughed as I spun until I was dizzy. Jason barely even phased me anymore. I loved a male with blond hair and green eyes instead. I loved him more than anything, my mischievous green eyed imp. He could make me laugh with a look and make me smile with a single word.

"Sh-Shey." At the choked name I spun around, nearly falling before I was enveloped in strong arms. The smell of sawdust and soap filled my nose and I nuzzled the chest I was pressed to. The arms held me almost to the point of pain but I didn't care because he was there for me. "Oh god, Shey." His voice cracked and his form shook as he adjusted his arms around me, pulling me tighter to him, pressing his face into my hair and letting out deep shuddering breaths.

I struggled to pull away from his grip. "Allan, what's wrong?" I asked it hesitantly as he let me go abruptly. I caught a flash of red dripping from his nose and mouth. "What happened?" There was a dark smudge of a bruise underneath his eyes and his lip was swollen, I could see the split in it that was bleeding freely.

"It's nothing, Shey." He ran his hand through his wet hair and I stared up at him. My heart clenching unpleasantly in my chest at the look in his eyes. He opened his mouth and snapped it closed, guilt flooded his green eyes, sorrow as well. I took a step back.

"Don't do this." I could barely recognize the voice that came out of my mouth. It was soft and pleading, like I had done for Jason.

He winced, his face twisting into a grimace. "I reject you, Shey Lazera, as my mate." Each of the words were like a physical blow and I staggered under it, suddenly feeling all of the cold, all of the pain at once. I hit my knees, my throat vibrating from the scream of pure pain that erupted as I was burned from the inside out. Strong arms wrapped around me and I struggled to fight them off. "I'm sorry, Jellybean. God I am so sorry!" The words were whispered into my ear as I crumbled under the pain he had given me. He rubbed my back, holding me tight to his chest as I sobbed out the hurt.

"I accept your rejection." I was barely aware of the words falling out of my mouth but I could hear his grunt as it slammed into him. His hand on my back never faltered, his grip remained strong as he soothed me through the pain he caused and for some reason it hurt more than the rejection did. I fought out of his grip and scrambled to my feet my chest heaving. Anger replaced the pain as I looked down at him kneeling in the puddle I had fallen into. "I hate you!" I stared into his green eyes and he saw the truth. I hated him to the very depths of my being because he had destroyed me after her had fixed me. I would never forgive him. Pain filled his eyes and he lower his gaze to where his hands were clenched into fists on his thighs.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He muttered it almost as if to himself as I backed away, unwilling to be with the male who had just cruelly dashed my heart back to pieces after he had fixed it.

How didn't I see it? How had I been so stupid?

"No! Don't you ever think that. This wasn't you, Shey. This wasn't you!" He had jumped to his feet, his hand reaching for me. I hadn't realized I had spoken aloud. Anger mixed with the pain in his eye. "Don't you ever blame yourself for this. Don't you dare." I stepped away from his hand. I felt hollow, empty.

"Shey, let's get you away from here." My mother's voice was calm from wherever she stood and I reached for her blindly, needing her comfort. I didn't care where she had come from or why she was there but I was glad she was.

"Don't let her think that! Don't! I beg you, don't let her believe it. I didn't do it because of yo-"

"I think you have done enough damage. Go away and leave me and my daughter alone." She wrapped her arms around me and I hugged her tightly. I glanced back at Allan and pain filled eyes looked at me before he clutched at his chest, dropping his gaze from mine.

I jolted out of the memory with a gasp, a fresh round of tears escaping. Allan Bellagio had loved me as much as I loved him. Why hadn't I seen it before? I had been so lost in the pain that his rejection had caused I didn't see it. It soothed some of the ache in my chest, even as tears streamed down my face. The heartbreak I felt was just as painful but it felt nice to know that I had been loved by someone.

"I broke his heart too." At the words the pain nearly dissipated completely. He had loved me and I smiled softly, wiping at my eyes. "I guess they all weren't immune to the bond." I shook my head and Gamgam let out a small chuckle.

"No they weren't. I would bet anything that most of those little shits fell in love with you just as hard as you fell in love with them." She smoothed my hair down and let out another sigh as I clung to her. I felt tired, exhausted really but letting it all out was nice, cathartic in a way. I didn't like feeling so vulnerable in front of anyone and that tempered a bit of the relief I felt. "The bond would punish them regardless of their feelings. No one fucks with the future." Honesty rang out in her voice and I nodded.

"Bastian was about the fifth one my grandfather had sent. After Allan I had stared demanding rejections but Bastian was stubborn." He was so stubborn that he gave me a run for my money and my mouth twitched slightly as I remembered the arguments we got into. Screaming matches really. "There was no reason for me to fall in love with him. To be honest we were as ill-matched as anything. Lost my virginity to him for some reason. One minute we were fighting and then the next we were naked and filled with regret. Probably best to happen that way. No feelings were involved." Bastian had probably been one of the less painful rejections. We hated each other and I think the only reason he stayed around as long as he did was because of the sex. It had been that good.

The pain in my chest at the mention of Bastian was just a twinge. I felt relieved at it. It wasn't overwhelming. We had fought more than talked and he never tried to put me together like Allan had. My memories with him were purely angry screaming or hot hands and seeking lips. I didn't regret him, not in the least but I regretted feeling anything for him.

"I also figured that no longer being pure would get my grandfather off my back. If I wasn't pure he would stop trying to break me like he was." I shrugged and wiped at my face. "He did break me though. He broke me with Jack." At the name my voice cracked. It was fucking painful even thinking about him. A flurry of sobs erupted. Fucking Jack had been the worst, the most painful and I hadn't even loved him like that. He had broken my heart in a completely different way.

Jack had been my best friend growing up. Until the age of fourteen we had been inseparable and a team but I had to leave and I didn't see him until after my eighteen birthday, a week after I had buried my mother in Altia. I had looked at him and for the first time in years I felt hope that the pain would stop would go away because Jack was there. Jack would save me.

"He was my best friend, Gamgam." That hurt more than anything because my grandfather had used it against me. He had used Jack against me and broke me so badly that it was the one point in my life that made me wonder if I had the strength to pull myself together again. "It was right after my mother had died. She was the last bit of light in my life and then he appeared and he shone so brightly I was blinded. I though-I hoped." I coughed as a sob forced its way out of my mouth, searing my throat with its intensity. Pain, brutal pain filled me at the heartbreak Jack had caused. Sharp shards in my chest bumping together, cutting my insides making me bleed pain into my veins.

"I hoped he would end my suffering. To take the pain away. To stop the rejections. He hugged me brought me home, let me bathe, fed me supper, and let me cry in his arms. I thought it was all over but then he did it." I trembled as I remembered how I had felt, how I had became physically ill as he said the words. That had been the worst rejection because it had been my best friend that had done it. "He rej-" I couldn't even say it.

I coughed, trying to loosen the lump in my throat. "He rejected me, Gamgam, and I thought I was dying because my best friend refused to save me, to help me. He rejected me, hugged me, and told me to go home to my grandfather, and that hurt worse than anything else." I pressed my hand to my mouth and closed my eyes. There was nothing in this world that compared to that feeling. That feeling of my world being ripped away, the last little bit of innocence and trust disintegrating completely.

I cried for myself, for the pain I had been put through because of a male I had never even met. My grandfather was cruelty personified and I hated him with every fibre of my being. Hate filled me at the mere thought of the male. I hated how his cursed blood ran through my veins. I wanted nothing to do with him because my hatred was endless but I hated myself even more for letting him break me.

Tears landed on my lap and I brushed them off of my cheeks but it was ineffective as more simply took their place. I didn't like thinking about Jack. I didn't want to think about him but he was the one splinter in my chest that had festered the worst. If I didn't let it out it would only grow worse. It was hard though because he hadn't just broke my heart, he had shattered my trust and innocence in one fell swoop.

"I wonder if those assholes have set my kitchen on fire." At Gamgam's blunt words I let out a watery sounding laugh. I slowly crawled further onto the bed and curled up. She placed a hand on my head, gently stroking my hair.

"You can go check on them. I'm just going to wallow for a few minutes or hours." I gave her a small smile as I blinked through the tears that still cascaded down my cheeks. It was like I had somehow unleashed ten years worth of tears and they weren't going to stop until they were all gone. My chest ached and I rubbed at my sternum, willing the pain to go away but I knew it wouldn't work. Emotional pain was much more difficult than physical. At least with physical pain you could find the source and fix it or even take some pills to drown it out. Emotional pain was a different sort of crippling, you couldn't do anything for it but hope it would fade into the background, leaving you alone.

Gamgam kissed my temple gently before standing up. I watched her through blurry eyes as she opened the door and left, closing it with a soft click. I buried my face into the comforter. I wasn't sobbing but my entire body was trembling. Gamgam had patiently pulled back the layers and exposed all the hurt that I had and it felt good. Painful and horrible but good in a rather sadistic sort of way.