TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 364

There hundred and sixty four

Wesley POV

Isabella stood before me with tears in her eyes. I stared at Joanna, waiting for the punchline.

She had to be joking.

There was no way she could say something like that with a straight face and expect me to take her seriously.

I looked at Mom, then Dad, then Anita and Grandma Cassidy.

Surely someone would laugh.

Anita had a terrible sense of humor when she wanted to torment me, and this was exactly the kind of thing she would pull.

Nobody laughed.

That was when I started to worry.

My gaze settled on Dad. He wore a small smile, the kind he used when he knew I was struggling to understand something and had decided, for reasons known only to him, that patience was the appropriate response.

“I know this is a lot to take in, Wesley,” he said. “But it’s true.”

I laughed again. It came out sharp and empty. There was nothing funny left in it.

“You’re telling me Isabella is my mate?”

No one answered. They acted as if silence was confirmation now.

I turned toward Isabella.

“Is this true?”

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Of all the things I had expected to hear today, that had not even made the list.

I had spent my entire life believing that the person who would become my mate would be a stranger and not the woman I’d fallen in love with. And somehow, everyone else had discovered that Isabella was my mate before I had.

“How long have you known?”

She hesitated.

“Since the first day I saw you.”

The words hit me hard.

“Since the first…”

“Wesley, she didn’t know what it meant at first,” Joanna said. “She thought you could feel it too and were pretending not to. She was afraid you would reject her.”

I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

Isabella had known.

All this time, while I had been trying to understand why my body reacted differently whenever she was near, she had carried the answer and said nothing.

“I was scared, Wesley,” she said, her voice trembling.

+15 Bonus

My shock gave way to irritation.

“Scared of who?”

“I… I was scared you would rejectme. I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you decided I should be the last person to know?”

I turned away and pressed my fingers against my forehead.

None of this made sense.

Everyone had been watching me go through this without knowing the one thing that could explain it.

I turned back to Isabella.

“So how does it feel now that you see me as some charity case? Some mad wolf who needs his mate’s touch?”

Her eyes widened.

“I love you, Wesley. And I want to help you.”

I let put a bitter scoff and looked away.

Those words should have comforted me.

Instead, they hurt.

How could she love me and still decide I couldn’t handle the truth? How could she look at me every day while knowing something about my own life that I didn’t?

My eyes burned.

I refused to let anyone see me cry, but the tears came anyway. I turned my face away and wiped them from my cheeks, angry at myself for losing control in front of everyone.

For years, I had been afraid of my wolf. I had been afraid of what it could do to me, to my family, to anyone who got too close.

Now I stood in a room full of people telling me that the woman I loved was the one thing my body had needed all along, and somehow, that was supposed to make everything better.

I wasn’t sure which part of that I hated more.

“Wesley, son, please.”

Dad reached for me, and I recoiled before he could touch me.

“Don’t fucking touch me.”

His hand dropped. Hurt flashed across his face.

“I don’t want this bond.”

Mom gasped.

Joanna let out a small laugh. Not because she found my pain funny, but because the statement seemed almost impossible to believe.

“What an incredible thing to say,” she muttered.

“I’m serious.” My voice cracked. “I don’t want it. Nobody is going to force me to accept something I can’t even feel. I’ll reject it ”

Isabella’s face crumpled.

+15 Bonus

“You can’t

I turned toward her.

“Who the hell are you to stop me

She flinched.

Guilt cut through me, but I pushed it down. I knew I was hurting her. I knew every word was making it worse. But hurting her now felt better than letting her stay with me and eventually getting hurt in ways neither of us could take back.

“Maybe one day you’ll thank me when you realize I was trying to get you out of this before it was too late.”

“Wesley…”

I could feel my control slipping. I needed to leave before I said something I couldn’t take back.

Grandma Cassidy’s voice cut through the room.

“Enough with the self-deprecation, boy. You can have a day or two to think about this, but you are not rejecting the bond. We

will not let you.”

“I don’t need permission.”

“No, you don’t. But you’re also not thinking clearly.”

I wanted to argue, but Mom stepped in front of me.

“Please, Wesley. Just calm down. You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”

She reached toward me, then stopped herself.

Her eyes were wet, and seeing her like that only tightened the pressure in my chest.

I couldn’t breathe in that room anymore. Everyone was looking at me like I was about to break something they had spent years

protecting.

Grandma Cassidy sighed.

“Let him go, Lisa. He needs to get this out of his system. Let him walk. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

The Daughters looked unhappy. I could see it in their faces. They thought I was being unreasonable, as if I had thrown a tantrum over some inconvenient piece of news.

What did they know?

They hadn’t spent twelve years afraid of their own wolf. They hadn’t watched the person they loved become afraid of them. They hadn’t wondered whether loving them meant putting their own life at risk.

They hadn’t lived with the fear that had followed me since I was thirteen.

Mom finally stepped aside and I walked out. I didn’t even think about my car. I just kept walking, ignoring the guards who watched me cross the grounds.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify