The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter Three Hundred Twelve

TIMMONS

Clenching my teeth so hard I hear them start to crack, I hang up the phone and turn back toward the living room.

Am I fooling myself in thinking that Kendall isn’t as desperate for Bartlett as everyone else thinks she is? I mean…maybe she really is into Bartlett. After all, she spent an entire year and a half popping up at the bar before they started dating. Maybe she really was there to get his attention, but I find that hard pretty hard to believe because for on.every time she showed up, she’d wander over to me, not Bartlett. And while she was there, she spent ninety percent of that time staring over at me – not Bartlett. And I spent seventy percent of that time pretending not to look at her and the other thirty being an asshole to her whenever I gave her my full attention.

I’d usually be there with Koda or Rain and most of the time I’d only stay maybe an hour or two before I left. She always lingered

somewhere near me, whether she was there alone or not.

Fuck…and in all of that time – in that entire year and half, give or take month or two – not even once did I invite her to sit with us. On the few occasions that she did manage to talk to me, or to get me to talk to her…I’m sure I made her regret it. Damn it…I even took her friend home with me once. A girl that had accompanied her there from work. Another waitress. That night, I knew I’d done her wrong. That I’d gone too far. She didn’t cry in front of me, but I remember how her eyes shone as I left. They were wide and wet…unbearably pretty…and absolutely sparkling with tears. Her friend’s name was…Sharon…or Karen… Charlotte? I don’t even know.

But what I do know is that that was the day.

I think I finally

kept picturing Kendall’s eyes and the unsteady set of her perfectly cut lips. After dropping the chick off at her place, I headed back to the bar intent on making sure Kendall saw me without her friend. I even toyed with the idea of buying her a drink and sliding into one of the back booths with her so that I could erase that last image of me from her mind. And maybe even replace her last look

my mate and just go on dating her. But when I walked inside, I didn’t see her

despite that I’d never drawn any from her, I knew without a doubt that they were hers. So, I kept on walking, only stopping when I got close enough

A searing, burning pain that would rip right through my chest each and every time I saw them together and then haunt me

and remorse. Resentment and hate. Heartbreak and devastation. Those were the things that lay in bed with me while I

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into a bloody pulp, then thrown her over my shoulder like a caveman and taken her home. But the universe was and is a proud, vindictive, retaliatory bitch…and she knew exactly how to prolong my suffering. I didn’t grab Kendall when I had the chance. I didn’t claim her the way nature had intended for me to. Instead, I took for granted that the gift that had been given

But I don’t think so. Especially now that I know she’s pregnant. She’s desperate alright, they got that part right, but not because she’s in love with him. She might actually think that Bartlett could be the daddy. I mean, she doesn’t know what we are, so it makes sense that she might think so if

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Three Hundred Twelve