Rejected To Be Your Second Chance: Rejecting My Alpha Mate (Book 3)

~Kade~

We were inside her cottage. It was exactly as I remembered it. She was running around in the small space, fixing the kettle and lighting a fire.

“Analise,” I said as the others sat on the chairs with quizzical looks in their eyes.

“How is— Why did… what’s happening?” she said to herself as he scrambled for cups.

“Please stop.” I grabbed her hand and held her still.

Her eyes penetrated mine. An intense feeling slammed me in the chest when I saw her fearful gaze.

“Let’s sit and talk,” I said and guided her to her usual chair.

Justin rubbed his hands and cleared his throat. Analise sat down, and I fixed her a cup of tea, remembering how she had done it before with ginger, rose petals, and honey.

“I’m sorry, but may I ask why I haven’t caught your scent before?” Justin asked.

Analise ran her fingers over her wrist and looked down at it. On the other arm, she had bracelets, but the other was bare.

“My scent… it was guarded,” she said.

“Was?” Cara asked carefully.

Analise smiled and looked up at us.

“Yes, it’s guarding someone else now,” she said softly.

Cara and Justin shared a look, and we were all having trouble seeing how she was Nathaniel’s big guarded secret. This was not the woman I had met earlier. They looked exactly the same, but the woman I’d met was confident, strong, and powerful. Now, she looked like a crumbling mess of insecurities and fear.

“What happened to you?” My question earned me a slap from my sister, who hit my arm and scolded me with her gaze.

“That’s rude,” Cara hissed.

Analise’s head jerked up, and she swatted away Cara’s comment.

“No, that’s okay. I understand his confusion. When we met, I was different, but you see, much has happened since then,” she said lowly.

“Why did you stop meeting with me?” I asked her.

“It began as me hoping to guide you and your mate on the right path without disclosing too much of what I outdented. It was working too. Whenever you were together, your bond grew stronger, and your hearts filled with hope and love, but after he found out, it led you both back on that path of vengeance and defeat. The power it took for me to benign your spirits to me was taking a toll, and the fact that it wasn’t working as I had hoped was only making it worse. My energy was running out, and I needed to stop, but when I did, I also noticed the strings of the future breaking and reattaching, with fragments changing and new realities forming. The future isn’t looking good, Alpha Kade, for any of us.”

I leaned back in the chair and looked down at the table. I fixated my gaze on one thing, not thinking about everything else occupying my mind.

“You’re the Seer. You’re the one Nathaniel is protecting,” I said, and it was met with a scoff.

I looked at Analise, who had a nasty expression. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

“That royal asshat isn’t protecting anyone but himself. He found me many years ago. I was hiding from others who had heard of my powers. Werewolves aren’t the only species who want to see the future. Nathaniel offered me shelter, and I believed him. Everything he said sounded genuine, and not for a second did I doubt his intentions. It wasn’t until I got here that I began to notice the shift in him. He put me in this cottage and told me that I couldn’t meet the pack for my own protection. I didn’t care. I loved being alone for once, but then his visits began to get less and less friendly. Nathaniel wanted me to tell him things that I saw. He asked me to dip into my gifts and tell him the future.” Analise shook her head. “I wish I hadn’t because that’s where it all went wrong. I saw the downfall of the werewolf species and the Emberclaws rising to power. Nathaniel’s eyes, when I told him this… it was like a whole other person, but he had just been waiting to hear those exact words. His plan was set in motion after that, and I’ve been helping him.”

I could see the regret in her eyes, her face paling as she remembered. Her fingers nervously ran over her chair. So Nathaniel found Analise, knowing what gifts she had and forced her to help him. Still, what did he have over her to enable her to do this for him? She didn’t seem like the kind of person to help annihilate an entire species, just so someone like him could climb to power.

I looked at my sister, who was confounded. She sat back in silence and sighed.

“Were you the one that led him to Layla?” Cara asked. A question I, too, had on my mind but couldn’t bring myself to ask. Too much was at stake if she were to give the wrong answer.

‘Stay calm, Kade, whatever she says’ Cara said through the mind link.

Analise’s eyes started watering, her chapped lips parted, and she licked them as she looked away from me. Slowly, her head began to bob up and down in response to a question that would bring fire to my veins. She turned back, her eyes locking with mine, and a soft breath left her lips. It looked like more life was draining from her for each passing hour. However, right now, I fought myself not to be the one to take it from her completely.

“I’m the Seer. I see the future, and I saw her,” she said.

‘Don’t you fucking dare’ Cara warned.

‘She’s the reason Layla is gone and in constant danger’

’Is she? Or could this have been prevented if her mate had chosen her?’

I turned and glared at my sister. Hers darkened just as much as she looked at me.

“It’s not her fault, Kade. It’s yours,” Cara seethed.

“I would argue it’s Nathaniel who’s to blame for this, but all right,” Justin said with furrowed brows.

“She led him to her!” I growled.

“Technically, I was led to her,” Justin was protecting Analise.

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Analise said and reached out her hand. “Nobody is to blame. It’s always been written in the stars. Layla’s path was paved long before any of you ever met her. What I did was a desperate attempt to change her story, but nevertheless, it is hers, and only she has the power to change it. Layla is the key. Whether or not your former mate wouldn’t have returned, or you, Justin, hadn’t gone looking for her or Layla ended up with her first mate, it all would’ve made no difference. I see that now.” She slumped back in her seat. Her eyes held a look of defeat so deep that it caused even me to feel a lump of worry.

“There has to be a way to undo this,” Justin said.

“You can not undo what has not yet been done. We’re talking about the future, not the past,” she said.

“You said it almost worked. Your plan to change the ending of this premonition… how can we continue it?” I asked. There had to be a way. There was no other option.

“I have already set it in motion, the final hope. All we can do now is pray that it works,” she said.