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Chapter 22 OUTTAKE

"You may think of her like a daughter but you are my mother, not hers. I can't be with her mom, because I know her. You all think she's perfect... she called me nothing. She crushed me and went to go make love to my brother..."

"Whoever I'm looking for to me I know, with 100 percent certainty will be 10 times the woman that Lana is... I won't have to worry that she secretly still loves my brother. She mostly stayed away from here... she knew I was here mom, dad... she knew I was here but never came back because it hurt her to see the man she loved with his new mate. She couldn't even return for me! She was so hurt that you accepted your mate that she stayed away from me, so she wouldn't have to see you and your mate Jace!" Kaden shouted, his whole self shook as he laid into us back then, baring all what he held inside.

"W-why?" I had asked, me. In such a state I didn't know - it was the minute my heart broke. I was furious with Kaden, why had he just told us all this. Why did he have to - and even now, I hate myself for those three seconds where I blamed Kaden when Lana and Jace were the bad guys in my heartbreak.

"Why what? Why wouldn't I tell you guys this? That my mate wanted my brother so much that she rejected me and stayed away from me because she couldn't bear to see you move on Jace?" even in my foggy mind, I remember Kaden, his laugh so mechanical and his arms waving around hysterically. I had thought, "This is what happens when mates aren't together." I had never saw it happen, the crazy that comes when mates fight the bond, but even in my haze I thought, that was what it looked like.

"If she's hurt right now... don't look at me... blame yourself Jace. Mom, blame him... you too dad," back and forth, he shook his head, and then slowly, he took a step back, and then another. "You lectured us over and over about not falling in love with someone because one or both of us would end up hurt...My mate just happened to fall for my brother and I was the one that ended up hurt," broken, bloodied and beaten, Kaden entered the car, racing away, and he hadn't looked back.

The dust from the car settled and no one spoken, everyone glancing between Lana, Jace and I, somehow I was in the middle and all at once, memories of the phone calls that Lana had with me, the man in her bed, the one she called Rome. The one that even after she moved back to the U.S. he followed her to her school, I hadn't met him yet, she hadn't taken a picture and it was like this 'Rome,' was a ghost. Yet vividly, moments where I called and they were in the middle of some very intimate acts, and Lana picked up, breathless, teasing me for interrupting, each one came back.

I had asked Jace if he met this Rome because he was at the same school with Lana, surely he knew, I had just wanted to make sure Lana wouldn't get hurt. I felt my stomach turning, jumping off the stairs, over to a bush I emptied my stomach, and when my mate tried to come to me, the look of hatred in my eyes, stopped him cold.

Lana and he gave me space, Lana moved out of the main house, because anytime I saw them together, even so much as just eating silently, I was violently ill. Jace and Lana had managed to make a fool out of me, but then Jace and I spoke.

We worked back to a new level in our relationship we weathered the storm.

Could we weather this new one? I wanted a family; I wanted a large family, with as many siblings as I had, twins running on both side of our family's I knew we would be bound to get them. I had my mate, and then, he came to me. After Kaden left, after we had fixed our shattered bond, after I realized that my mate chose me, after everyone told me the same thing, after I finally realized I was no longer angry with Lana. I pitied her.