I am Jace Andrews's boyfriend—what kind of bullshit was that?

Eyes followed me around as I walked, kids from my pack whom I barely knew greeted me— I didn't like the attention I was getting.

"Hi, Jordan." someone said.

"Hello, Jordan. Where's Jace?" another called out.

"It's weird not seeing you with Jace."

Blah, blah, blah it went.

The burning hatred I felt for Jace was starting to return. Things hadn't changed—Jace was still ruining my life with a happy smile on his face. It wouldn't have mattered if I started dating some random guy. Everyone thought I was dating Jace Andrews, the superstar of Bloomingdale High—this was a bigger deal to them than it was to me.

It became more absurd when a few mortal girls in pre-calc greeted me and told me how lucky I was to have Jace.

"We all knew Jace supported gay rights," one of them said. "So it's not that surprising to find out he was just closeted."

Sometimes their questions and reactions did bother me, but I was too tired to care. All I could focus on was Jace and his big mouth spreading rumors about us all over school. 

Sunny popped up at my locker while I gathered my stuff for Biology. I wanted to run but it was too late.

"Jordan, I'm sorry. Please talk to me! Please forgive me, just this one time—"

I had repeatedly told her that I didn't blame her at all for letting the cat out of the bag or the car incident, but I had been lying. The truth was that I'd been a little wounded at the thought of her betrayal.

"I just got my driving license, remember?" Sunny said to me as I tried my best to look at her. She really believed that I didn't have any hard feelings toward her for being the reason I had to emerge out of the crowd during the gathering. She went on to explain how Gordo had suggested to her father that he needed to find us another alternative to get us to school. Which lead to Mr. West buying a used van for all of us.

"I have to get to class, sweetie. See you after school. Let's have a nice long chat together later, okay?"

I could only nod.

"That's my awesome friend!" she said cheerfully.

After school ended for the day, I tried to take the bus but Gordo stopped me.

"I'm not sending either you or the boys anymore," he said. "Get out and get on with your friends. I don't have time to drive up the hill anymore."

I protested but knew I had to accept that Gordo's services were no longer available to me.

I didn't want to ride the van with Jace and the other boys, so I walked away from the parking lot, back into the school hall.

 "Oh, there he is—"

Damn it.

"Jordan!" Sunny yelled as she spotted me. "Damn . . . where were you? I spent ages looking for you. C'mon."

I shivered when Sunny opened the big old vehicle for me. The other boys, my brother included, were sitting properly in the passenger seats in the center of the van. The only seat left for me was the one in the back. Jace was riding shotgun like he had this morning.

I stood beside the van like an idiot.

"Jace," Sunny yelled, "get out. I want Jordan to sit there. Go take that seat in the back."

"Just tell him to sit here with me," Jace said in a sarcastic tone.

"It's okay," I said. "I can sit in the back."

"But . . . I thought you wanted to have a chat!"

"It's okay," I pressed on. "We'll talk later."

I climbed into the van and walked to the back side of the humongous vehicle. Being alone in the back felt nice—it wouldn't hurt if I was regulated to this seat every day for school.

Sunny drove the van smoothly up the winding road and the sight of the beautiful neighborhood emerged out of the blur. Surrounding us was the forest that once served as my playground when I was a child—I remembered running around in there with Stanley and my father. My childhood years were the happiest moment in my life—there weren't a lot of things to think about. As a teenager, I had a lot to deal with. There was gigantic piles of pre-summer assignments, teen depression and—and there's my mate.

Sunny parked in her father's garage. Once everyone was out, I pushed the seat in front of me down and walked out of the van.

A hand closed around my wrist.

"Jace," I hissed, "I don't have time for this. I have to go home."

"Who was that little guy with you? Was that your new boyfriend?"

He didn't sound serious but there was a rough edge to his voice.

"C'mon," I pleaded, "I have things to do. Let me go, Jace."

"If you don't tell me who he is, I'll end him tomorrow—"

God, he is serious.

"He's just a guy I met, okay?" I grunted. "He's a new kid in town and I met him at the library. Because of your big mouth, he won't be talking to me anymore. He's not an asshole that messes with someone's boyfriend."

There was an awkward silence between us when the others, Sunny and the boys, started to walk away.

"Someone's boyfriend?" Jace sniggered.

I wanted to lunge at him, kicking and punching and literally kill him. I suppressed the surge of anger inside me and breathed in.

"Wasn't that what you said to the whole school?" I grimaced.

I pulled my hand from his grip. I tried to say something bad to him before I left, but nothing came to mind so I just turned to go.

He grabbed onto my arm this time. Of course.

"Get away from me, asshole," I said. "I'm tired. I got so many things to do. Why don't you understand?"

He chuckled and gripped me tighter with his strong hand. He was extremely stealthy he could lift me up like I weighed nothing at all if he wanted. My hands got all sweaty and I didn't like the idea of being alone with him. His strength frightened me.

"Why would I understand a loser like you?" he said. "You possess the other half of my soul and have made the decision to never be with me—that's asking for trouble."

"So just fucking kill me, tear me open, take that motherfucking soul of yours and swallow it down your throat. I don't want it. I would give it to a dog if I could take it out."

I knew I had gone too far when he pushed me against the van hard. My back slammed onto the metal and I felt like laughing—it wasn't the first time I'd been treated like this. I couldn't believe my mate was harassing me again. I could never believe I would fall in love with my nemesis.

He pushed my forehead and my head hit the body of the vehicle. His hand traveled across my face, fingers lingering on my skin and touching the scar he'd made by pushing me the other day.

"I can make things worse than this, you know," he said as he touched the wound. "Don't try me, Jordan."

"God, why don't you fucking understand? I'm tired! I want to go home!" I screamed at him.

"Boys," a voice said behind us.

We stopped when we saw Alpha Dan standing before us. He had his hands crossed over his chest, panting hard. He steadied himself as approached the two of us.

To me, Dan was still the scary pack leader that tracked me down during the humiliating gathering.

"Jace, can I speak to you and your mate now?" he asked.

"Of course," Jace responded. He let go of me immediately and grinned from ear to ear.

"Jordan, come with us."

The Alpha turned around and Jace followed him. It was disgraceful for a wolf to disobey an Alpha's command, so I had no choice but to comply.

When I came to walk beside Jace, he bent down and whispered in my ear, "You're really dead this time."

*  *  *  *

Dan's office looked the same as it did when I had last been here. There was an expensive wooden long table in the middle of the room, gleaming under the sunlight that came from the window. Documents were arranged in alphabetical order on the wooden shelf behind the table. Everything looked shiny and polished, including the family portrait that was hanging beautifully on the wall, surrounded by wallpaper that had a decent-looking flowery pattern.

Sitting a few feet to the left of the furniture were tall bookshelves. There wasn't much fictional stuff there, so, yeah, it was pretty boring. Dan owned a lot of rare immortal encyclopedias, lycanthropic references and psychological studies' books since he used to be a university professor. The thought of him having a lot of knowledge about the human brain and the psyche made me shiver—this man could easily pull the truth out of a person.

Sunny could absolutely be like Dan in that aspect.

"Sit down, boys," Dan said as he sat behind the long table and leaned on it comfortably like nothing was wrong. I pulled one of the chairs in front of the table and sat down, trying to put on a calm façade.

 Jace took a seat beside me, his fingers closing over his mouth, stifling his sarcastic sniggers as he stared at me.

"So, Jordan," Dan turned to me, "I was talking to Jace about meeting you the other day. I hope you don't mind."

I didn't respond—what could or should I have said, anyway? If I had a choice, I would have run away and gone home to complete the biological graphs I needed to redraw and the essays and the reports . . . but instead I got stuck here with my mate. I was sure this was going to be all about him all over again.

"Since the mandatory gathering I called last weekend, I have to tell you that I've been observing the relationship that's . . . hopefully developing between the two of you. I have no choice—I led the pack for almost fifteen years and in that time there hadn't been any cases that involved a mate hiding from their other half before. Well, there were a few inevitable ones before my time, but we had none that had as dire a consequence as Jace's before. I'm sure you've been informed that it's not decent for a werewolf to hide from their mate when it's time for them to unite."

I held my breath to bear the building tension in my chest. My heart was about to explode. I exhaled and tried to breathe in peace, but it wasn't enough.

"So, Jordan . . ." Dan continued, "I'm going to ask you a few questions. Answer it honestly—I don't tolerate lies and I detect it easily. I hope you know that."

Jace tapped a finger on the table. He was trying to not look at me—or more accurately, he was trying to not look rude in front of Dan by laughing at me.

"Are you homophobic, Jordan?"

"What?" I automatically said out of surprise. It wasn't a question, but a request for a clarification for what I'd just heard.

"Homophobia, the hate or fear of two beings of the same sex being together romantically or feeling attraction to each other—it's a common human psychological behavior, Jordan, but I believe the power of the mate bond should've gotten rid of this by now. A mate will love their mate so much these little silly things won't be a problem, but I'm just making sure. Is the thought of having Jace, a boy, as your eternal mate, bothering you?"

"No!" I said. "I'm not homophobic. That is not the problem."

"Then what is?" asked Alpha Dan.

I forced a mouthful of air into my lungs before I replied.

"It's . . . hard. I just don't like Jace as a person. It doesn't have to do with his gender or anything."

"I treated him badly, Dan," Jace added to the conversation. "He doesn't think I deserve forgiveness."

A flame of anger flashed through me. I stomped my fist on the surface of the table and shrieked, "You've never said you were sorry before!"

"Enough!" Dan screamed. "I'm not asking you two to have a fight. What has Jace done to you that you find so unforgivable? Tell me. Spill everything now."

"It's hard," I told him. "You might think it's all childish, immature and stupid—"

"Maybe it's childish and stupid after all," Dan responded. "You may want to sit down and rethink it. Was it so bad that you can't even unite with the one who is destined to be with you for the rest of your life?"

Alpha Dan would obviously side with Jace—they were great allies. Dan would never understand me because he didn't have to mate his childhood nemesis who had ruined his life. He wouldn't relate to my situation well so he shouldn't be the judge.

"Is there any other things I am not informed about that caused you to want to hide? You can tell me everything now without harm," Dan pressed on.

I could look nowhere but my lap. Jace had his chin on his hand, his elbow on the surface of the table. He wasn't staring at me—I didn't know if that was a good thing.

"No," I finally responded.

"Then I have to say you don't have an appropriate reason to do what you've done. It should end with you asking your mate for an apology," Dan responded.

I pushed away the flaming urge to protest.

"What you did was very serious. You could have almost destroyed the bright future of this pack. And you're too young to lose your mate, Jordan—you could've died if Jace was killed. The power between the two of you is too strong—I have never seen anyone that has had a mate bond as strong as the one between you two."

I kept my words locked in my throat. If I let them out I would probably be exiled from the pack for acting so disgraceful towards the pack Alpha.

"Try to have good feelings for him, Jordan," Dan continued. "I'm pretty sure Jace is ready to have a romantic relationship with you. Don't fight it—it's useless. Mates are meant to be together. You're meant to have feelings for Jace—you have to accept that."

My tear glands decided to act up at that moment. I blinked and few droplets of tears dropped from my eyes to my lap.

My sobs created a long silence in the room. I heard the clock ticking, and the faint sound of Dan's boots knocking on the wooden floor. Something inside of me felt broken and irreparable. I didn't know if I should loath myself for what I had done or stick to remembering that none of this was my fault.

"Would you try and love Jace, Jordan?" Dan finally said.

It was a hard question—I couldn't possibly answer it. I didn't want to let my guard down, to let him into my heart. It felt too early—it would be unfair for me. I wanted him to apologize; I wanted the hidden dark side of him to emerge so the world could witness the truth. He deserved to suffer some.

Didn't he suffer enough when he was unable to reach you when he'd sensed you, Jordan?

"Would you, Jordan?"

I gripped the arm of the chair so hard my hand felt like it was bleeding.

"I—I don't know."

"I'll keep my eye on you, Jordan—it's for your own good. From my observation, you are being too hard on yourself and your mate. This should not happen. Because of this, I shall give Jace the responsibility to observe your manners. I fully entrust him now to all your actions from here on out."

"B—but, don't you think you're being too hard on me, Dan?" I broke out in tears. "You should've given me more time for this. Why—"

"Other alphas give harsher punishments than this, Jordan. Take this as a friendly lesson from me," Dan cut me off.

"I'll help him out in this, Dan," Jace butted in.

"I trust you, Jace," Dan said. "If I find you won't curb your way in the future, Jordan, I may come to a conclusion you won't be pleased with. I may even have to force Jace to put a bleeding mark on you."

"What?" I screamed.

My world was falling apart around me.

"You . . . you can't be serious, right Dan?" Jace said.

"I am, indeed," Dan said. "Bleeding marks are forbidden due to the unusual selfishness of the ones who bestow it, but it helps you to dominate Jordan's thoughts wholly and discard the bad things from it. Again, I would only allow it if it's necessary."

I was taken aback by how simple Dan said those words. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Tears simply fell like raindrops out of my eyes. At first Dan looked like he was sympathetic but stubbornness started to fill his face as he looked at me.

A mate marks a mate to show possession and dominance—the marked mate will be the submissive other while the one who'd put on the mark would be the dominant. Yeah, it sounded sadomasochistic, but I heard it could add some type of . . . interesting pleasure to the relationship between mates. Giving and receiving marks were dependent on the immortal's will, it's all free.

But some mates bit their mates until they bleed, and their saliva rivulets into their mates' bloodstream, causing a dark, excruciating effect. The outcome of the bleeding mark was that the dominants could access to their mates' mind, giving them the ability to control their marked mates. It rarely happened anymore; bleeding mark was prohibited by most pack leaders. Unless they approve it for some reason...

Alpha Dan's hand reached out and touched mine.

"Jordan, listen," he whispered as I sobbed, "I won't do that if you try harder. I'm worried, that's all—I don't want anything bad to happen in our pack. I have no choice. It's been a while since death has resulted from the consequences of our behaviors, and I don't want it to repeat for the very first time in our pack. You have to understand."

If Jace put a bleeding mark on me, I would be nothing but his living slave, controlled by his dark desires.

I couldn't stop crying—I sobbed and cried and pushed all the pain out of my chest.

"Jace, take your mate outside," Dan ordered. 

*  *  *  *

Jace had to help me out to the neighborhood street. He had his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to his body. At some point it felt good to have his warmth again. But this person holding me would probably be my master, the dominant who would force me to obey everything he commanded and be submissive to him. The more I thought about it, the more freaked out I became.

"Bleeding mark? That's not bad," Jace said. He was still pressing me to him. I was too tired to argue. I wanted to go home and slipped myself under the covers and sleep like nothing had happened.

"Okay, okay, I'm kidding, alright?" Jace said.

I didn't respond.

"Jordan," Jace sounded genuinely worried, "I won't do that, okay? I won't cut you with my fangs—you know that. I'm still too young to be your dominant or whatever—"

The pain started to weigh down on my chest again—I wanted it to go away so I pulled Jace's face to mine and put my lips on his.

I kissed him like I was going to die. I kissed him so hard I felt like flying. I pressed my lips on his lips and sucked his breath into me like it was a remedy that could heal me. It did heal me . . . I could feel it.

I pushed his chest as hard as I could and he stumbled back a little.

"You think I give a fuck?" I said. "Go on, bite me till I bleed—you don't have the balls to do it."

I turned around and walked in the other direction. Jace stayed where he was, frozen like a statue.

Don't look back, I said to myself, but I ended up running to him, reached his face and squeezed my lips over his again.

Jace didn't have the will to stop my lips; instead, he devoured me, taking and pulling and tasting me more like it was our last kiss before the world ended.

When I finally pulled away, I placed my finger on his lips.

"Don't say anything," I said. "I just need this shit."

I wanted to kiss Jace again.

The way his lips felt on mine was the only thing that played in my mind. Jace's lips were meant to be on my mouth. I could say that selfishly—the other girls wouldn't feel the same thing as I did when I kissed him. When I wanted him to be rough, his mouth went wild on mine, but when I needed gentleness, he went all Romeo, passionate and sweet on my lips.

I wanted to touch him. I wanted to feel him everywhere on me. I wanted to photograph the feel of his touch on my skin and framed it in gold.

Dan warned me not to fight it—the threat fortunately didn't beat me down or anything, because Jace wouldn't have me so easily.

He could think that he had had me already, but then I could turn things around, and his world would turn upside down.

*  *  *  *

My cell phone rang just as I sensed he would call me.

"I'm busy," I said when I picked it up.

"C'mon, Jordan, we need to talk," he said. "Please."

"Andrews, I think you're a coward," I said simply as I leaned my back on the headboard of my bed. "You allied with the Alpha. What a motherfucker."

"I have no time for your games," he said. "Come on, babe. Can you come out of the house for a little while?"

"I'm not your babe," I groaned.

"Jordan," he groaned. "Please."

"Not now," I finally said. "I'm really busy."

He sighed. I couldn't believe how vulnerable he sounded to me. He should have fought back—where was his egoistical bravado? It felt weird when all he wanted to do was to see me.

"You're killing me, kid," Jace responded.

"I'm not a kid. And you're a fucking asshole for letting the Alpha say what he'd said to me. I hate you."

"Jordan, what are you—"

I turned off the phone.