Beauty and The Beta (Bailey)

24

Chapter 24 Jordan

I hear my sister footsteps pounding up the stairs. Evidently she does not want to talk. And quite honestly, I have not got the energy to chase her. I wasn’t expecting to see her home. I was here to gather some things together so I could travel over to my fated mate’s pack, spend some time with her while she gathered her things together to come and move here with me. My fated mate. Seriously, meeting her for the first time today was like the ground had slipped out from under me. Like time had stopped.

You hear tales of what meeting your fated mate was meant to be like, but meeting Gia was everything they described and more. Her eyes sparkled like precious gems, and da mn, I thought my

heart would beat right out of my chest! Don’t even get me started on the sparks from her touch…

My wolf, Rory, was going crazy the moment we caught her scent. He was ready to scoop her up and take her home. Mark her and mate her there and then! We had been waiting for our fated mate for what seemed like eternity. And now to have her here felt truly amazing. I wanted to have her home with me as soon as I could, so I had suggested that she return with her family to her pack, gather her things, and I would come and stay with her for a few days in her pack. Allow us to get to know one another, and then return to her new home, my pack, as mates.

That was why I had been home in the middle of the day. Or else I wouldn’t have been home when Miles had been mindlinking, shouting his mouth off, for the goddess knows how many times today alone, about my sister. She seemed to be a constant source of irritation for him, which meant she became a constant source of irritation for me.

Bailey had never been normal. She wasn’t like the rest of the girls in school. She forever had her head in a book, or was always studying. It was humiliating having a younger sister that knew more than you. Not to mention embarrassing that she didn’t take much pride in her appearance like so many of the she-wolves within our pack. She was just not normal. I mean, she was never ugly, she had gained our Mum’s curls, and big brown eyes. She would always be considered pretty. Event with those ridiculous glasses she used to wear. But, she wasn’t bothered about the recent fashion trends like most of the girls, which drew attention to her. Making her a source of amusement for many, and a source of embarrassment for me. I hated that she was my sister.

Once we reached our mid-teens, Miles seemed to start hating her. Forever complaining about her. Picking on her. It became almost fun to torment her. She never cried, so it wasn’t like it was bullying. She was tougher than she looked, Bailey. I mean, in her late teens, soon after I shifted, I had heard her suffering badly with nightmares. She was screaming at night, but never once did she speak to anyone about them or go to anyone for help.

So, I think she was just more resilient than most. Able to take whatever was thrown at her. I don’t think it ever really bothered her. If it had, she would surely just have stopped the reading and tried harder to fit in, and she never had.

Her attitude had grown since she came back from university. More confident. More clever too, no doubt. I was proud of her, of course I was, not that I would ever tell her that. She has caused so much drama over the years. And continues to do so even now. All this sh it over her finding a job, made no sense to me. If she wanted a job outside of the pack, when at present we had no role in our pack for her, then I didn’t really see the issue, but Miles said she asked not to leave the pack, yet she said Miles would not allow her to leave. It made no sense. Why would she apply for jobs if ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Chapter 24.Jordan

she didn’t want them?

Miles had told me so many times Bailey had a crush on him. Even that she had made a move on him at his birthday party when he had first shifted, when she followed him outside. I couldn’t imagine Bailey wanting someone like Miles. But, then the tension between the two of them it all added up, so I believed him. But then, her almost laughing at it when I suggested it, made me question it all.

And now she is saying fate played a cruel game. Fate? What the f**K is she meaning? She is right though, if what she is saying is the truth and Miles has been stopping her working out of the pack, then there has to be some reason as to why. It made no sense. My brain was fried! He hated her. I was sure of it. So why would you keep someone you hated so close to you? Unless you didn’t actually hate them… did Miles actually like my sister? Eww…

Fate playing a cruel game? What cruel game would fate play with two people that seemingly hate one another? Then a realization hit me.

‘Tell me you are not saying Miles is your f**King fated mate?’ I mindlink my sister quickly, my hands trembling in shock. That can’t be true, can it?

I am met by silence. Is she choosing to ignore me? ‘Bailey. I swear you will answer me, or I ask Miles. I tried again, knowing she likely would not want me speaking to him about this.

I hear soft footsteps on the stairs again, and I step from the lounge where I had been sitting, and my gaze meets her tear-stained eyes. “I’m right, aren’t I?” I question.

She shakes her head. What? So why the f**K is she crying? Did she want him as a mate? Had he been right all along, and she had been in love with him?

“He rejected me. So, no, I am not his mate anymore.” She whispers, her voice barely audible, and I feel a pulse of anger through my body. He may be my best friend, but this is still my sister. Rejection is one of the cruelest things you can do to a werewolf.

“When?” I demanded.

“The year after he first shifted.” She says with so little feeling like she had become accustomed to all of this now.

“Why did we not know?”

“He did not want anyone to know. And that hasn’t changed. I just get sick of being made to look like I am in the wrong.” She says, sitting herself down on the bottom step of the stairway.

“Bailey, he is the Alpha, he should not have rejected his fated mate, that isn’t what they expect of him.” I tell her, knowing what the pack traditions are here, and she nods. She knows all this, but she has clearly had no say in any of this either.

“Is that why he won’t let you leave?” I question, unsure why that would affect anything. He had rejected her. She should be free to go out and live her life now. He made the choice to kick her to the curb.

“I don’t know. He wan’t rius me an ancwer

Chapter 24 Jordan

“Did you get this new job?”

She nods, “But he told me not to take it.”

I shook my head in irritation. What gives him the right to keep her here like a f**King prisoner? No wonder she has held so much resentment toward him over the years. I just thought she was being a moody teenager. And after that, a hormonal woman. But this fool had turned down his fated mate. The woman the moon goddess had selected for him. Hurting her in the process an unbelievable amount. I can only imagine the pain she had been through.

Knowing now, having experienced it myself, the draw to my mate, I can’t imagine ever rejecting her. Or the pain of not being with her. So the thought that Miles has done that to my own sister infuriates me. Not only that, all the nights we would go out to bars and clubs. He would pick up women. Sleep with them. Plus, he had dated multiple women over the years. She must have felt the pains of him cheating….

Another sudden thought hit me. The nightmares. The screams. They weren’t nightmares at all. They were Bailey in agony at Miles cheating while he and her were still mates. Before he had rejected her. No wonder she had never come to any of us. How could we have been so blind? Mum and Dad sleep like the dead, so I doubt they would have heard her. But how had I not known something was wrong?

“Bailey, why didn’t you tell us?” I dropped down to my knees in front of her.

“Think about it Jordan. Who were you going to believe? He told Harley today, who happened to overhear an argument that I had imagined the matebond. That it wasn’t even there!” she says to me in exasperation. “I have been nothing but an inconvenience.”

I feel like crap hearing this. I have failed my sister here, and I know I have. Though never in my wildest imagination would I have thought my sister would be fated to my best friend. It seemed like such an unlikely pairing. But, no matter what, she had felt unable to come to us for help, and that meant she felt trapped by the whole situation.

“Look Bai, I am sorry. I f**Ked up. Let me make it up to you? I met my mate today, so I am going to visit her pack for a few days, and then I will be home. We will speak properly about all of this then, yeah? But please speak to Dad, he needs to know.”

“You met your mate?” her gaze meets mine, a soft smile on her face, and I can see she hasn’t got the energy for any of this anymore.

I nod. “Yeah. She was visiting with some warriors. Her name is Gia, she will love you, I am sure!”

“That was why you were home? You were getting sorted to go?” she asks, like she suddenly knew why I was at home, and I nodded in agreement. “Well, get your things together and get to your mate! You don’t want to keep a girl waiting. Especially not your mate. This sh*t with me isn’t going to be going anywhere, it has been here for years, it will still be here when you get home.”

I smiled, pulling her to me in a big hug. “I am sorry Bailey. I wish I had known.” and those words. are ones I have never meant more in my life. Because I cannot believe how my best friend has treated my sister.