The One He Claimed by Cooper

Chapter 154: Choices

Zahn

I’m furious. I’ve never, ever known an Alpha who defers to his mate. For anything. I thought for sure that Hunter was just letting Sophie feel like she was in control of the situation. However, I was sorely mistaken. How dare they think they can keep me from my mate. She’s MY mate!

Adding insult to injury, I wasn’t even given a guestroom fitting my station as an Alpha? And they are giving Jocelyn the choice to see me or not? No f**king way. I’ll never see her again!

‘I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s hoping for,’ Kortan, my wolf, says in my head.

‘Can’t you do something?’ I ask him, not for the first time.

‘What is it you want me to do? She hates both of us. Even Cassidy hates us. She wanted her mate. We weren’t her fated mates. I don’t know that she’ll ever forgive us.’

‘We need a Luna,’ I grumble.

‘Maybe that’s your problem,’ he says.

‘What’s that?’

‘You want a Luna. You don’t care if it’s Jocelyn or not. She does.’

‘We need an heir, Kortan.’

“Short of raping her, Zahn, we’re not getting one. Maybe we should accept her rejection and let her go,’ he says sadly.

Not for the first time, I think back to my mate, my fated mate, Caralyn. Why did she have to kill herself?

Kortan whines in my head. I loved that woman, loved her with everything in me. But she never returned that love, never trusted me to be a good mate to her.

I can feel Kortan questioning the claiming process again. The public claimings. They were standard, everyone did them, it was the law. But my mate wasn’t the only one to kill herself after being claimed. Alpha Ezra’s mate had killed herself too. And there were others, others who lost their mates and either went into isolation or began hunting for a new mate, like I did.

‘We should have waited for our second chance mate,’ Kortan says. This is an old argument; one we’ve had many times.

‘We didn’t and now we have a mate. We need her to accept us.’

hers as much as

are you talking

than expecting her to accept us as we

do

were pregnant. They had seemed…happy. I can feel Kortan’s desire to make his mate happy. We care about Jocelyn. Not like we did for Caralyn, but I don’t want her to die. She’s a Beta, she’d be a good Luna, but I’ll admit my own

we should do what the other Alphas suggested. We may not like their ways, we may not agree with them, but they have

the bed, staring at the ceiling. Kortan is right. I don’t agree with their ways, but I can’t disagree that they have what I want. They have Lunas who obviously love them, and they have their pups in their mates’ bellies. All of these Alphas will have heirs long before I do, possibly before my

Jocelyn POV

news and

“Good news first.”

blood work looks good. You’re healthy, although I’m going to recommend some vitamins for some deficiencies you have. You don’t have any lingering infections, although it seems that you

so. I was unconscious for

images. “Whoever set your bones either didn’t know what they were doing, or they were overwhelmed with the large number of bones that were broken. Without

walk, and I still have

think there’s any way to remove the scarring. When your wolf returns, because I think she will, she can

it is, doctor. I tried to kill myself. It was a suicide

be long and slow. You’ll have to heal at a human pace and for the bones to set, it will

your body, and you

to the biggest concern

as long as you’d

say that?” I

“This

what your mate said.” I watch as

“Brooklyn would know.”

at the x-rays. You don’t have to be

an option to get my body back to

You can choose which leg, but based on your injuries, it looks like you landed on your right side. There’s more damage there,” he says, drawing a line with his finger from the

is still

more difficult. My suggestion would be to wait and see if your wolf returns. A three-day recovery

do

the case, you may want to speak with Luna Sophie about having guards placed on you. In my experience, Alphas don’t appreciate being

that. “Protect me. Yeah, that’s what he’ll