The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter Three Hundred Twelve

TIMMONS

Clenching my teeth so hard | hear them start to crack, | hang up the phone and turn back toward the living room.

Am | fooling myself in thinking that Kendall isn't as desperate for Bartlett as everyone else thinks she is? |

mean...maybe she really is into Bartlett. After all, she spent an entire year and a half popping up at the bar

before they started dating. Maybe she really was there to get his attention, but | find that hard pretty hard to

believe because for on.every tshe showed up, she’d wander over to me, not Bartlett. And while she was

there, she spent ninety percent of that tstaring over at- not Bartlett. And | spent seventy percent of that

tpretending not to look at her and the other thirty being an asshole to her whenever | gave her my full

attention.

I'd usually be there with Koda or Rain and most of the tI'd only stay maybe an hour or two before | left. She

always lingered

somewhere near me, whether she was there alone or not.

Fuck...and in all of that t- in that entire year and half, give or take month or two - not even once did | invite

her to sit with us. On the few occasions that she did manage to talk to me, or to getto talk to her...I'm sure |

made her regret it. Damn it...I even took her friend hwithonce. A girl that had accompanied her there

from work. Another waitress. That night, | knew I'd done her wrong. That I'd gone too far. She didn’t cry in front

of me, but | remember how her eyes shone as | left. They were wide and wet...unbearably pretty...and absolutely

sparkling with tears. Her friend's nwas...Sharon...or Karen... Charlotte? | don’t even know.

But what | do know is that that was the day.

The day | think I finally pushed her over the line.

| didn’t even fuck the girl. | couldn’t because | just kept picturing Kendall's eyes and the unsteady set of her

perfectly cut lips. After dropping the chick off at her place, | headed back to the bar intent on making sure

Kendall sawwithout her friend. | even toyed with the idea of buying her a drink and sliding into one of the

back booths with her so that | could erase that last image offrom her mind. And maybe even replace her last

look atwith a better one. One with a smile or two.

I was going to do it and by the t| made it back to the bar, | had decided that if by schance she ended up

in my bed that night, | would simply pretend she wasn’t my mate and just go on dating her. But when | walked

inside, | didn’t see her anywhere near our regular corner booth, so | headed into the back toward the restrooms

and...that’s when | scented her. Her delicious aroma wafted towardfrom

the back hall, behind the restrooms. Bartlett's office door was wide open and as | approached, | could hear her

soft little moans of pleasure, and despite that I'd never drawn any from her, | knew without a doubt that they

were hers. So, | kept on walking, only stopping when | got close enough to see her petite body sitting atop

Bartlett's desk with Bartlett pressed in between her legs. The pair of them were locked in on each other. They

weren't fucking, at least, they weren't yet. But that day would csoon enough.

The sight of Bartlett's arms wrapped around her, around my mate, would becsomething I'd never forget. A

searing, burning pain that would rip right through my chest each and every t| saw them together and then

haunteach and every night when | was alone in my bed.

For sreason, the jealous rage never cforthat first night. It was anguish, and remorse. Resentment

and hate. Heartbreak and devastation. Those were the things that lay in bed withwhile | tossed and turned,

too depressed to sleep. Coupled with the knowledge that | had done it all to myself, | was a basketcase for the

next few weeks.

&

If it had been anybody else other than Bartlett, I'm pretty sure | would have yanked her away from him, beat the

prick into a bloody pulp, then thrown her over my shoulder like a caveman and taken her home. But the universe

was and is a proud, vindictive, retaliatory bitch...and she knew exactly how to prolong my suffering. | didn’t grab

Kendall when | had the chance. | didn’t claim her the way nature had intended forto. Instead, | took for

granted that the gift that had been given to me, would always be there forto accept, and just like that...it

was gone.

And now the whole goddamn world is convinced that she’s lovesick over Barty Boy. Or that she’s skind of

desperate dumpee that simply refuses to move on. But | don’t think so. Especially now that | know she’s

pregnant. She's desperate alright, they got that part right, but not because she’s in love with him. She might

actually think that Bartlett could be the daddy. | mean, she doesn’t know what we are, so it makes sense that

she might think so if she does. But | know it’s not his. So the real question is...who else could the father be?

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Chapter Three Hundred Twelve

The Doc's voice barely registers as he speaks to me, “She's fine, just ovefired I think. You need to be taking

better care of her. She's malnourished and hasn't been eating enough. It appears that she’s also lightly anemic,

so she needs to be taking iron pills...” The rest of what he’s saying fades out as my mind struggles to cto

grips with the latest task at hand.

Be nice to her, he said. Keep her off Bartlett's dick, he said. Fucking pleeccaaassseee...givea break!

Is it even possible for her to be obsessed with anyone else while I'm still around? If the pull for her is anything

like it is for me...then I'd

have to say, no, no way. She can’t be that into Bartlett. Because if she well that would mean that | killed the

bond.