Denied by Destiny: Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond

- Jace -

"Grandchild?" A few voices ask at once, all eyes looking to Jaxon in replica astonishment, myself included.

"Jaxon, what are you talking about..." Josie calls out, but my eyes are locked on my brother, whose hand...that has remained on my shoulder for some time, suddenly has some weight to it.

Suddenly I can feel myself being pushed down by a gravitational weight.

"Jace..." He turns to me, a graveness within his eyes.

"Jaxon?" Mum demands out but she is immediately hushed by Jaxon.

"Mum, just stop... Jace..." My head tilts slightly to his hand on my shoulder, he had crossed the floor to be by my side...he was preparing to support me before I even knew why.

Why would he need to support me..

Then a flashback, to their odd behaviour the other night. The way he wouldn't leave her alone...the way he snatched the champagne flute out of her hand.

"No.." I gasp out.

"Yes."

"You are certain?" Auntie Rosa had said the baby was human, but Josie was right...when has Rosa ever been around humans. Except for my beach club and I put an end to that...being with her instead. "Of course I am certain, she's only ever loved you."

No, if she was pregnant with my child I would have felt it, I would have recognised the pull even more.

I would have sensed if she was pregnant...

"Not if you took a wolfsbane shot!" My wolf whimpers out in my head, for once his aggression towards me is replaced with a yearning for her, a fear that I've done things I can't undo. Irrevocable damage to the mate bond.

"No." My knees fall to the ground, a thud ricocheting around the now silence of the room. Everybody had been so loud, so vocal that I couldn't make sense of what was being said. But now that I am met with an eery silence...I can feel it, feel the truth calling out to me.

It had been all this time but I had been ignoring it, the mate bond was trying to warn me, trying to force me to open my eyes to it. But I kept denying it, kept pushing it back down...ignoring it, fighting it.

That she has been pregnant all this time. How she had tried to reach out to me again and again...how brave she had been even to arrive here.

Strength beyond anything I coulet

I

muster. I flaunted a fake mate before her very eyes, touched another.....purposefully, when my own mate stood before me. Pregnant with my own child.

I've broken her heart yet again, pushed her to an unknown enemy.

Somebody who has used my mistake against us, against our parents. Biding his time....just waiting.

He thinks he can dare have what is mine? Dare have what is destined for me....

"Jace...oh no Jace.. " Callie's voice is tearful, pained.

"What have I done." I breathe out, my voice barely audible.

"What have you done?" Ares shoots me a glare, his jaw tense.

"The baby....it's mine." I close my eyes, my admission loud for all to hear.

"How is that even possible? The baby is a human." A tearful wail escapes Auntie Rosa.

"Because...I am in love with her, and she me.."

"But you have a mate?" Ares grunts out, as he moves away from his mother...making a beeline for me.

"No...she is my mate?" I meet his eyes.

"You have two mates?" Mum gasps out only to be met with Callie's response.

"No...no Jace and I aren't mates..."

A silence settles across the living room, not one person takes a breath as they must all be thinking the same thing.

"You rejected my daughter? My pregnant daughter?" Uncle Orpheus roars out, his eyes turning to that ofnoveldrama

his wolf as he takes large heavy steps towards me, as does his son.

"I didn't know she was pregnant..."

"We need to stop fighting over what

has happened and get to her, she could be in trouble." Jaxon moves to block me from them but I don't care what they do to me, they could punch me til I was black and blue, on the brink of death... kill me...but first I need to get to Cleo.