Chapter 86: Chapter 86

I bury my face in her neck, stealing a whiff of her scent.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“To see you, why else? You haven’t been answering my calls, I tell her, placing her back on her feet. I stared down at her; she had lost weight, which should be impossible with how skinny she already was.

Her pants rolled at her hips to hold them up looked four times bigger than her. Her white shirt, I could tell, was one of Kade’s. Her pants were also too long as she had those rolled too at her ankles. She glances down the driveway nervously, and I look behind me.

“Expecting someone?” I ask.

“Kade hasn’t been by for a couple of days. He said he was out of town, but” she pauses.

“But what?”

“Nothing, but sometimes this car comes and parks down the end. They never get out.” She shakes her head.

“Probably just paranoid,” she laughs.

“Coffee?” she asks, and I nod and turn back to my car, grabbing the bags out before following her inside.

The porch creaked as I stepped on it, the wooden blanks bending under my weight. The door even hung weirdly as she opened it, having to lift it like the hinges were busted. Stepping inside, it was tiny. The kitchen, bedroom, and living room are all in one little room.

“Where is the bathroom?”

“There is an outhouse out the back,” she shrugs, turning the stove on before filling a camping kettle and placing it on the element. I stared around in disbelief at how he had his mate living. There wasn’t even a bed, just a fold-out couch that was neatly made. I sat on the edge of it. The springs groaned, and I could feel the metal bar beneath digging into my backside.

“You should come back with me,” I tell her.

“Not this again, Gannon, please,” Abbie whines, and l growl before remembering the bags clutched in my hands. I hold them out to her, and her brows furrow.

“Take it,” I tell her, and she sighs, walking over before grabbing the bags. She places them on the table and looks inside them, and her eyes light up as she pulls out some sugar clouds. Those I had noticed were her favorite; she immediately opened the bag and grabbed one out. She offered me the bag, but I shook my head. I didn’t like sugary stuff; I only ever brought them for her when I took her in town once to grab supplies for Clarice and noticed her looking at them.

That was also when I found out she only had candy before her parents died and only on special occasions when they could afford it. So I always made sure I had a neverending stockpile on me when I would see her.

I watch as she stuffs another in her mouth before pulling her pants up as they slide down her hips. The lolly staining her lips red and coating them in sugar. land chuckle before watching her go to the tiny fridge and open it. I growl when I see it is nearly empty, besides half a bottle of milk and a block of cheese.

Getting up, I check the cupboards to find them almost b**e.

“Why is there no food here,” I growl.

“There is, Kade, said he would come out soon to bring more,” she shrugs, retrieving coffee and teabags.

“What the f**k have you been eating?” she chews her lips nervously and looks out the window at the forest.

“Have you been hunting your own food?”

“No, I promise, I didn’t k**l anything. I just took some bird eggs,” she gasped, confusing my anger at being directed toward her for hunting.

“Bird eggs?” I scoff.

“I tried to k**l a rabbit, but I couldn’t do it, I swear,” she stutters.

“I don’t care about you hunting, Abbie. My point is you shouldn’t have to. You are an Alpha’s mate, not some f*****g slave, or a d***y little secret,” I snarl.

“I’m not; he is introducing me to the pack soon. It isn’t safe. He is having issues with a neighboring pack,”

she stammers, turning back to her kettle that started whistling.

“Do you know how stupid that sounds? You’re his f*****g luna, and he has you living out here in squalor,”

“It’s not safe,” she defends him.

“The safest place would be by his side, don’t you think, not out here along the border where anyone could get you,” I argue, but she had every excuse under the sun to defend him, lies he had fed her.

It was like arguing with a brick wall. I f*****g hated this mate bond b******t. It made she-wolves blind to their mate’s errors, gullible and all made worse is he only has to show her the tiniest bit of what she perceives as a kindness because she has known none and believes wholeheartedly that is how it works, that she should trust blindly because he is her mate.

“No, you’re coming back with me,” I tell her, grabbing her arm.

“What no, I have a mate, I can’t just leave. He will worry.”

“Worry? Where the f**k is he then, Abbie?” I yell at her trying to drag her toward the door.

“No!” she screams, thrashing in my grip. “Gannon, stop,” she says before she starts crying.

“He loves me, he said he loves me, he will be back,” she sobs.

“I f*****g love you. He doesn’t,” I scream at her.

Abbie whimpers, and I realize my claws had slipped out, nicking her skin, thankfully not deeply, and I let her go watching as it healed.

“You have a mate out there somewhere. How can you say that?”

“No, I don’t; I want you. Why can’t you see that?”

“But I am not yours, I am Kade’s mate, he loves me, and I love him,”

“If you think this is love, you are mistaken; you don’t hide someone you love away, you don’t force them to live like this,” I snap at her. Her brows scrunch together. And tears well in her beautiful hazel doe eyes.

She shakes her before sniffling, wiping her hands on the front of her shirt. “You should go,” she whispers, unable to meet my eyes.

I s*****w, and she wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her arms as she turns back toward the kitchen.

“Abbie?”

“Gannon, please, just don’t,” she breathes.

“Tell me your happy here? Tell me something because this, this isn’t right, I would take care of you,” I tell her.

“I’m not yours,” she says slowly, emphasizing her words.

“But you could be. You just need to ignore the bond, Abbie. See-through his b******t,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.

“It’s temporary he will be back soon,” she says, pouring the hot water in her mug and jiggling the teabag.

I click my tongue, unsure of another way to convince.