Her Chosen Mate

Part 52

(POV - Aria)

Rain drops tracked down the other side of the window, the dark clouds clotting the sky just behind the tops of the swaying trees.

Aria didn't really know how long she'd been sitting there, curled up in the soft seat of her bay window, her forehead pressed to the cool glass. She clutched her phone to her chest, her fingers trembling slightly. The sharp edges of her phone dug into her hands but she barely felt it.

It all paled in comparison to the gaping wound in her chest, twin to the fresh mating mark on her neck.

She'd tried to call Marcus so many times, desperate to hear his deep voice, only for the vicious guilt eating away at her to stop her each and every time. She couldn't bring herself to tap the dial button, no matter how much her heart yearned for the sound of his voice and the comfort of his arms around her.

But she didn't think she had the right to start a new relationship with Marcus, not anymore. Not when her true mate had done the unthinkable even after he'd used her and cast her aside. With a sense of intense foreboding, she recalled the last few days and how her life had completely fallen to pieces around her.

The night his sentries had dragged her out of the woods and dumped her at his feet, he'd taken her to his house, the scent of his impending rut overwhelming her and serving a useless warning for what might happen. His eyes were black with wild lust, and he could barely form coherent sentences when he threw her onto the bed and pinned her to the mattress.

She had realized too late, far, far too late, what he'd been about to do, and she hated herself for every second she spent in his bed.

Aiden had forced himself down on her, one of his large hands pinning her wrists above her head, the bruises there still tender three days later. She'd begged him to stop, choking on her wolf's bliss at being accepted by her true mate. She'd tried to free her hands, to buck him off but he was so much bigger, so much stronger, and her wolf wanted every moment she was given. In the end, she'd lost to both Aiden and her own wolf. She'd been used yet again, and she had no one but herself to blame.

In the lull after his first wave, when he'd drifted off to sleep with his fingers pressed into her skin possessively, she'd silently cried, mourning the loss of her one chance at being happy.

She knew that there would be no way that Marcus would ever accept her after this. Who would ever want her after being marked and then rejected again by her true mate? They'd think there had to be something wrong with her.

And maybe there was something wrong with her.

The first day had passed in a similar way, Aiden coming to and taking what he needed from Aria while she silently endured it, trying to ignore her wolf's overwhelming pleasure.

She knew that many wolves had been in her position, and many more would do it regularly to help their fellow packmates through their heats and ruts. But she never imagined that she would be filling that role with her true mate instead of being his one and only choice from the beginning.

The second day had been far, far worse.

He'd woken up and flipped her onto her stomach, his palm flat between her shoulder blades and pinning her down. She couldn't remember the things he'd growled in her ears, his claws breaking her skin. She'd kept her cries muffled in the damp fabric of the pillow beneath her but nothing could have muffled the scream that tore from her throat when his teeth sank into her throat, right on top of her scent glands, her skin splitting and bleeding while the mating bond between them sang. Their wolves reached out and intertwined, their souls following suit, blinding her with the shock of foreign happiness that burst through her body.