Unrejected Mates

Chapter 46: "Helplessness"

Celia POV

Hannah gently takes care of my bruised face and split lip. That's all the damage, but I still can't shake off the fear and disgust because of what almost happened. Eric looks at me blankly; he didn't say one word when he took me back to the cell.

"She will need some ice," Hannah says, and Eric nods and leaves.

That's when I finally break down and start crying as she hugs me. After that, we don't talk; in our situation, I doubt we can find any words that will sound comforting.

Terry enters our cell, holding the ice wrapped in the towel, and gives it to Hannah.

"Thank you for calling me," he says, and she nods, pressing the towel into my swollen face. I look at him this time, this time pleading, and he notices.

"No one is going to do anything to him, I promise. I told Eric to feed him and..."

"And you? What are you going to do to him later?" I ask.

I see his jaws clenched, and something dark flashes in his eyes, but at least he doesn't start shouting but also refuses to look at me and steps a little away from both of us.

"You shouldn't care about him after what he did; he is not worthy of your forgiveness..."

"And are you? You asked about forgiveness too. Why do you think you deserve one and Hank doesn't? He hurt me, but for him, I was an enemy, a relative of people who killed his parents! But for you, I was a sister, and you hurt me. You allowed others almost to kill me! What makes you different from the monster you called Hank is!" I scream and start crying harder.

Terry doesn't answer; he walks to sit next to the wall, saying he will be sleeping there. Hannah finishes pressing ice to my face and later helps me lie on the bed. She is so much tougher than me, she doesn't cry or shake, and she saved Hank and me by calling Terry. I look at her with my semi-open, puffy eyes as she slowly caresses her big stomach.

I close my eyes, but I'm too nervous to sleep. I have no idea how much time passes with the three of us just being in one room in complete silence.

"You are not going to sleep?" I hear Terry asking.

"I don't feel tired. I guess I'm too stressed, and the little one is moving a lot, plus my neck hurts," Hannah answers.

"I'm sorry about..."

"Don't apologize when you don't mean it. I know who you are and how it comes to this; I understand your reasoning in a way, but you will make both me and my child suffer, maybe even kill us both. So don't apologize if you don't intend to make it better."

I don't open my eyes; I don't want them to know I'm listening.

"Just don't torture Hank again; Celia felt his pain last time, physically," Hannah says. "Killing him will also have an impact on her."

"If you want to play me, I will let him live..." Terry hisses.

"I want him to live. He is my friend, Beta of my pack, part of my family, so I want him to live." But Hannah says in a stern voice, "You are the one making decisions now, so you have also to decide whether I have told you the truth or not."

"You think I'm a cruel monster, don't you?"

"Yes, for me, you are a monster. But my mate once told me that hunters and werewolves had been enemies since ever, and there was o lot of cruelty and injustice on both sides. So logically, I can accept you don't have to feel for me, my baby, or Hank. But what you are doing now to Celia can't be explained or justified, no matter what. You are selfish; you think you have a right to decide what is good for her."

"I'm her brother, I'm not the one who raped her or made her an orphan, and when she was beaten, I was too weak to do anything. I couldn't stop my grandfather or Jordan; I was too weak. But now I'm not. So now I can take care of her," Terry says, his voice strangely calm.

"But you are the one who sent Jeff, I think, and two others to their apartment, and both Celia and your uncle were beaten. That's how they ended in my pack because we spotted your men. I agree that meeting Hank again was challenging and very painful for Celia. But unlike you, Hank hasn't even once tried to push away the responsibility for what he had done. He stood against his Alpha because it meant protecting Celia. And their mating was also your fault. Because of you, Blythe threatened to take them as the prisoners of the Council; Hank had only two options: marking her or going rogue and taking her with him. But it was Celia who chose to mate. She decided to trust him. When you had a confrontation in the mall, she chose him, not you. And your response was to attack her new home, kidnap her, separate her from her daughter, and lock her here as some animal. You've ignored her decisions, justifying them by knowing what's best for her. But you don't know what is best for her; it has been too long, and you no longer know her. "

"You really shouldn't talk to me that way," Terry says, still very calmly.

"Since you want to sell me, you can't hurt me, so I'm going to use it because that's my only card now."

After that, for some time, there is silence.

"What will happen with Celia if I do something to her mark? Gabriel Blythe said before that burning your mark could've killed your baby." Terry decides to break the silence.

"I can't give you the answer. Rejecting or breaking the bond is different each and every time, but it can sometimes kill the one who burned his mark out. But there are no rules cause each bond is unique, and a lot depends on the emotions and feelings of the mated pair. So I don't know what will happen if you burn her mark out or kill Hank."

Kyle POV

I move slowly; my wound still hurts as I open the door to Mikkeli's study. I see him sitting on the couch with his fingers buried in his hair, he raises his eyes to look at me, and the despair on his face is so real. 

It's been two days since Hannah is gone, and we have found nothing. I have no idea how Mikkeli manages to deal with it. I know how awful this is for me, how scared and worried I am, so it must be so much worse for him. No one should go through this kind of torture.

I don't ask him how he feels; I just come closer and sit beside him. He wraps his arms around me, buries his face on my shoulder, and starts sobbing.

"She alive; at least we know that," I say quietly. "Hannah is strong, and Hank and Celia are with her; they will find a way to survive this. And we will find them."

Mikkeli keeps crying on my shoulder. Finally, after he has no strength to continue, I force him to go to bed; he hasn't slept for two days.

Hayden is with Dalton and the trackers in the living room, discussing the next step of their search. All our allies are on high alert, everybody is working, and everybody is praying for the end of this. 

As I enter my room, I see Rob curled on the bed, sleeping but whimpering and moving around as if having nightmares. I gently touch his face and start whispering his name, and it works; after a moment, he opens his eyes and looks at me as if he is trying to figure out where he is. Then his face sinks, and tears start coming from his eyes.

"I loved her, Kyle, I know what she did, but she was my mother, she was my mother..."

He wraps his arms around me, bringing me closer and crying with his nose in my hair.

"It's alright, Rob, it will get better; we will survive this, we will go through this," I say as he keeps crying, wrapped around me like ivy.

Helplessness is the worst of all the things that can happen to you. 

So, what are your thoughts about Terry so far?

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