***IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE AT THE END***
Jane had most certainly been hungover before, but never in all her years of partying had she ever been like this. It felt like she'd been dragged through hell and back and Satan was dancing with a sledgehammer through her head.
Trying to return herself to the land of the living as she gingerly peeled her eyes open was almost too difficult to bear. She nearly gave up and went back to sleep when she felt a cup of water in her hand and heard her best friends voice, "And so she lives."
She didn't reply for a while, too busy trying to adjust to the bright lights of the room and rehydrate her dried out throat. But when she finally spoke she winced at the harsh, strained quality of her own voice, "What happened?"
"Give it a couple of minutes- you always remember everything."
Elle then took the cup away from her and slid dark shades over her eyes, "That should help with the light."
"Thanks." Jane laid back deeper into the pillows behind her head, recognizing almost instantly that the bed she was laying in wasn't her own. Looking down, she saw the hospital gown and sterile sheets before the combined smell of sickness and disinfectant hit her nose.
"I'm in the hospital?" She asked to which her best friend just nodded and pulled out a nail file. Clearly Elle's patience was wearing thin with having to sit by and watch Jane, especially considering there was no patience with Elle to begin with.
"I'm in the hospital." Jane repeated to herself as though hoping it would trigger some type of memory, and it did, "Oh no! Is Nate okay?"
"He's fine. But what I would like to know is how you went from being Nate's rescuer to being so drunk you came in here wearing your mate's shirt and having to get your stomach pumped?"
"What happened to my jeans?!"
"They're safe. Well... at least they are if that dry cleaner can get all the vomit off it."
She wanted to cry.
She loved those jeans like they were her first born. Luckily, Elle seemed to realize this and stopped her nail maintenance to gently rub Jane's arm in a consoling manor as she muttered, "There. There. They'll be okay."
Knowing that crying would only make her headache ten times worse than the earthquake it already was, she held off her sadness about her jeans and downed some aspirin before Elle stated, "You owe me an explanation. I guess I owe you one to, for kind of ditching you at the most stupid time- but I want to know why you broke our pact of no drinking."
Jane sighed. She knew Elle was going to demand answers for her drinking last night, but she did have a real reason for breaking their pact.
Readjusting her pillows she leaned back as she explained, "Ever met a hunter in real life? I truly hope not, because they're friggin' terrifying! One look in their eyes and I just knew Nate and I weren't going to make it out of there alive. They wouldn't let us leave unless our blood was splattered on the walls and our bodies unrecognizable. There was only one way I was going to get free and that was to use their testosterone against them."
Elle seemed to mull this over before, "You challenged the leader to beer pong?"
"Yup."
"Good girl. Seems you learnt a thing or two from me after all."
"You bet. Now you going to tell me why you left?"
Elle moved from the chair she was seated in to the edge of the bed and faced Jane, "Not until you tell me what you were doing in Levi's shirt."
"To cut a long story short. My shirt was gone. I shifted into my wolf. His shirt was available. The rest is history, now explain."
Elle sighed and twirled some of her blonde hair around her finger, "Mike and I, we're... taking a break."
At the news Jane sat forward, the pains from her body stopping her from reaching out and embracing her friend, "What?! How? Why? Do you want me to kill him? I know the perfect place to hide the body."
Elle cracked a sad smile and shook her head eyes directed to her hands, "No. Not yet anyway. We got into a fight last night. It was pretty bad too, I'd never been so mad at him before. I should probably start off by saying for the past few months he's been... distant. Spending less time with me, not talking to me as much- almost secretive in a way."
Elle shrugged and looked out the window, the light reflecting on the tears in her eyes, "I never thought much of it, until now I guess. Last night, when Mike called me I didn't understand how he knew where I was. How he knew I was there. Turns out not only did he go behind my back and install some type of tracking device in my phone! But... he was already there."
There was a short silence before Jane whispered, "Doing what?"
Elle shook out her shoulders and the tears vanished from her eyes as if they had never been there, "I don't know. He wouldn't tell me why and I told him it was either he tell me what's going on or we..."
"Take a break?"
"Yeah," Elle let out a long sigh, "I'm sorry, Janie. I just got so caught up in everything with Mike I forgot that I'd just left you and Nate at the party. But, Mike would never let anything happen to either of you, so I knew it would be okay."
"Don't beat yourself up about it," Jane tried to take the hurt and the pain away from Elle as best as she could, "I just hope you two can work things out."
"Me too, Janie."
Elle leaned forward into Jane's open arms, careful not to add any more discomfort or pain. When they pulled back Elle smiled, "I'm gonna go check on Nate. He's still recovering from surgery, but doctor said he's going to be okay."
Almost as soon as Elle had left, Jane felt her heavy eyes sealing shut and sleep overtaking her.
***
For the second time that day, Jane was waking up feeling the desperate need for something to calm the raging headache inside her head. It certainly didn't help that there were two idiots outside of her room having some type of shouting match with each other. She was a split second from yelling at them herself, before she recognized the voices.
"This is your fault, Levi! Don't try and act like it isn't," Mike hissed at his cousin sounding the angriest Jane had ever head.
"I never told you to lie to your mate," Levi argued equally as pissed as Mike, "You did that all on your own."
"It's because of you that I had to lie in the first place! Even now you won't even let me tell her the truth even when she... when she-"
"You act like I forced Ariella to take a break from you! When really Mike, I warned you from the beginning that this would happen. I told you to just reject her, but you didn't listen to me. No, you had to go and mate her and fall in love with her and now look where that's gotten you! You should've known better, people like us should never be with people that aren't like us!"
Jane frowned after Levi's little spiel. Did he just unknowingly confess that the reason he rejected her was because she wasn't born with the blood of an Alpha?
"So what, Elle isn't like us? I still love her more than anything in this world and because of you I'm going to lose her. Say what you want, blame it on my ignoring you or whatever- I don't care. Just know that because of you, I'm going to lose her."
There was silence after that.
The only noise, the constant beeping of the heart rate monitor beside her, before her door swung open and in walked her precious, high and mighty Alpha. Who thought he was far too good to be with her because she wasn't blessed with as powerful DNA as he was.
She couldn't stop the venom that leaked into her voice as she spat out, "What're you doing here?"
Despite her obvious rudeness towards him he chuckled and sat on the chair Elle had been residing in, "You mad at me to huh Tiny?"
She didn't reply, just clenched her jaw and glared at him.
"I promise you, I tried to save your jeans but between holding all your hair back and keeping you from face planting into your own puke my hands were a little busy."
She was so taken back by what he had told her, surprised that she'd forgotten all about the fact that he had indeed held her hair back and kept her from face planting into her own puke.
"You really did that?"
He nodded, "I guess I'm not as bad as you think Tiny. Now how're you feeling?"
"Why do you even care?" Mad Jane was back. Something as odd as him momentarily taking care of her really didn't amount for the rest of the crap he'd put her through. Trying to reject her was one.
"I don't know. To be honest I'm only here to see if you could tell me anything about what Ronan said to you."
"I remember everything."
"Everything?" Levi asked seeming to catch on to her double meaning and she nodded as she repeated, "Everything."
"Well then Tiny. Exactly what is it that you remember?"
"I remember Ronan was waffling on about me being special or something. How he'd waited a long time for this moment. He also told me you kept a lot of secrets."
"Did he now?"
Suddenly tired of playing games, Jane popped the tension bubble in the room, "He was right to. As you confessed that your perfect relationship isn't so perfect after all."
"What gave you that impression?" Levi folded his arms as he stood up off the chair.
"You told me you didn't love her. Now don't get me wrong, Erin is a fantastic girl and I could see why anyone would want to marry her. But if you don't love her, I have to wonder why."
He smiled at her. Not one of his playboy smirks, but one of the real smiles he'd been showing her last night and the look of deeply etched sadness in his eyes almost made her question everything she thought she knew about him. Almost.
"I do love Erin. Just not in the way I'm supposed to. I've known her since we were in pre-school and I do love her, just not in the way a husband is supposed to love a wife, or the way a mate is supposed to love a mate. But that's not what you asked was it? You asked me why."
She nodded, weary of what he was going to say next.
"Well, you see Tiny, I can't answer you... more like I won't. Honestly, it has nothing to do with you and I can marry or mate to whomever I want and I don't really have to have a reason for doing it. In other words, I don't really care about what you think. My love life is no concern of yours and you need to understand that as the Alpha I have no obligation to explain myself to anyone - not even you Tiny."
She couldn't understand why his words hurt her so much. Why just hearing the anger and irritation in his voice made her feel like curling up and dying. Hadn't they been making progress? At least working their way towards being friends.
But he's a jerk at heart.
He always has been and he always will be, he was nice to her - but only for a moment.
"Wow," she whispered breathlessly, "I don't know how else to say this Alpha but get the hell out of my room."
He smirked, "With pleasure."
As the door banged shut behind him she reached behind her and threw all the pillows at the door he'd just left through. Wishing she was able to throw them at his conceded head. But as the last pillow was flung from her hands she fell back onto the mattress regretting she'd dumped all her pillows because her stupid mate had said something that she had allowed to get to her.
If he thought finding his precious apartment destroyed was bad... he has no idea what hell she's truly capable of creating.
~*~
Authors Note
Looks like Levi is back to being a jerk again. Not that he ever really stopped I guess.
Thankyou all so much for commenting and voting on this story I am so grateful for everyone's support and kind words! It also makes me kind of sad to admit that I'll be back at work and school soon so updates will be going back to once or twice a week :(
But, I will be posting teasers for chapters when breaks get too long on my profile page so anyonne who follows me can read those :)
(Sorry for the long A/N)
Jasmine
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