Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by his Brother
Chapter 204: _ Mateo, Not Mateo

Chapter 204: _ Mateo, Not Mateo

Mateo set me down inside the small shack like he expected applause for rescuing me from the rainstorm I clearly wanted to drown in.

I shook my arms free of his grip and nearly slipped on the wood floor, my wet shoes making an angry squeal against it.

"Don’t touch me again," I said, teeth chattering more from indignation than cold.

He raised both hands like I was the criminal here. "Señorita, I wasn’t trying to..."

"Stop calling me that!"

What the fuck was he doing acting so gentlemanly all of a sudden? Make it make sense!

He scrunched up his face in surprise. "But that’s what you are, no?"

To him? I doubt it. I was María José, his toy. Someone to whom he believed belonged only to him. He was a sick fuck.

"No! I mean... yes, technically, but it sounds like you’re about to ask me to waltz or write a ballad in my honor when you barely have any respect for me. I am not in the mood for your pretenses, Mateo."

He chuckled, shaking his head like I had lost my mind. "Good, because I’m not staying long. I just came to grab a few clothes. All hands are needed on deck with pack security, so I might be gone a while."

I stood dripping in the middle of the room, staring at him. "You came back for your clothes?"

He nodded, already halfway to the small chest near the wall. "And maybe my toothbrush. I don’t trust whoever’s in charge of supplies to bring me the soft kind."

"Oh, Dios mío," I muttered, eyes rolling so hard I could practically see the inside of my skull. "That’s fine, take what you want. Your absence will be the greatest gift I’ve received all week."

He stopped, shirt halfway over his head, revealing a lean waist I had no business noticing. "Is that so?"

"It’s like a dream come true," I said flatly. "To be alone. Without your annoying and threatening presence. Finally."

He turned to me fully now, damp hair stuck to his forehead with his brow creasing like I’d insulted his cooking. "That’s kind of harsh for a first meeting, don’t you think?"

First meeting? He was seriously going to play dumb, wasn’t he?

I blinked. "Excuse me? Whatever do you mean by first meeting?"

He tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "I mean, we just met. Pretty sure this is our first actual conversation, so don’t you think you’re being too informal?"

What?

He really WAS going to pretend. Just wow.

I laughed out loud, unhinged, like a villain in a show catching their reflection mid-breakdown. "Oh no. Oh no no no. Don’t do this."

"Do what?" he asked, clearly entertained.

"This whole... ’we just met’ thing," I snapped. "Are you messing with me?"

"I’m serious," he said, blinking innocently.

"You’re seriously delusional," I retorted, squinting at him. "Mateo, we’ve met. Twice. What the hell are you talking about right now or trying to prove?"

He made a face like I just told him he was adopted. "No... I don’t think so."

"You don’t think so?" My voice pitched, like it wanted to launch itself into space. "Do you think I hallucinated you, then? That you’re some figment of my trauma-fueled imagination?"

He opened his mouth to respond but I cut him off with a finger jabbed in his direction. "Because I remember you. First time was at my father’s pigsty. You came in... out of nowhere, when I had to sleep there as punishment. You held my hands. You told me I was precious or some poetic nonsense."

His brow wrinkled. "Wait. What were you doing in a pigsty, to begin with? As a punishment? Who punishes their daughter by throwing her in a pigsty?"

Well, Don Diego kind of does.

I gawked at him. "That’s your takeaway?! I said pigsty, not picnic!"

"I’m just asking," he said with maddening calm. "It’s not an everyday sleeping arrangement."

"You were there! You. Were. There." I shouted, throwing my hands in the air.

He blinked, then laughed.

Like I’d told a knock-knock joke and not just opened the lid to my emotional trauma.

"You really must’ve caught something from the rain," he said, shaking his head. "I’ve never been inside a pigsty with a woman in my life, let alone to visit you."

Look who’s suddenly playing dumb. Not cool, Mateo. Not cool!

I stepped forward, furious, and poked him in the chest. "Have you lost your memory or something?"

He flinched away, batting my hand aside. "I’m fine. And don’t touch me."

"Oh, you get to touch me and play firefighter and dramatic hero, but I can’t poke you to jog your broken brain?"

"Touching wet, possibly feverish women is different from being poked like a lab rat."

"I am not sick."

"You’re acting sick," he said, voice irritatingly light. "Feverish. Delusional. Maybe rainmad."

"You’re gaslighting me!"

He shrugged like I was a mildly interesting sitcom. "Am I?"

"Mateo, you consoled me that night. You told me I was the cleanest and most precious thing you’d ever seen. You looked into my eyes like you were about to melt, then you gave me your jacket. And then..." I jabbed a finger at him again, resisting the urge to break it off in frustration, "... you snuck into my room a week ago. You told me everything you knew about Axel."

He scoffed, raising his hands upward like he was expecting the Moon to come down and help him out or something.

"Axel? The Beta?"

"Yes!"

Mateo laughed again, louder this time, eyes crinkling with honest amusement. "Señorita, I don’t know a thing about Beta Axel, except that he’s about to marry your sister, Señprita Rosa in a few days. Why would I know anything else about him?"

The air left my lungs. It wasn’t cool being reminded of that while I was currently busy losing my mind.

I stared at him, cold again, but not from the rain this time. From the void he’d just carved into my sanity. The way his tone carried zero sarcasm. His face was blank of mischief. Just pure, infuriating, and genuine confusion.

"No," I whispered. "No. That’s not... he told me—you told me..."

He raised a brow. "I think you need to sit down."

"I am sitting down, emotionally!"

Mateo walked to the corner, grabbed a towel, and tossed it to me. I missed it by a mile.

He rubbed another towel over his own hair, unbothered. "Maybe it was a dream?"

"I’m going to kill you if you make me sound mad again," I said softly, not even angry anymore. Just profoundly done.

He smiled. "That’s fair."

"I swear, if you’re playing a prank right now..."

He came closer, slower this time. Then, he crouched again like earlier, but this time not to help, just to look at me.

His voice dropped. "You looked so sad out there in the rain."

"I was sad!" I hissed. "I am sad! You made me sadder!"

"I didn’t mean to."

"Well, you did! And now you’re here with this face and this..." I gestured helplessly at his face, then shoulders, then at his dumb presence. "... this... physical proof that I’m not crazy and you do exist, but then you say all these things like you don’t remember, and now I’m not even sure if you’re Mateo or a hallucination sent to punish me for ever trusting anyone!"

He exhaled. "Well, I liked that rant."

"Good," I muttered, "I’ve got more."

"Keep going."

"I don’t want to waste it on you," I said, wrapping the towel around myself in sheer spite. "I’ll save it for the next emotionally unavailable shapeshifter who rescues me from hypothermia and gaslights me in the same hour."

He laughed again, genuinely this time—and I hated how much I didn’t hate it. It sounded like warm sun and safety and lies—all tangled up.

"I’m serious, Mateo. If you’re hiding something—if this is some game, just stop. Please." I said quieter this time.

He tilted his head, and for a moment, he didn’t speak. Just looked at me like maybe he did remember and was trying to decide whether to admit it.

But then he stood and tossed his shirt into a bag. "I should go. They’ll be waiting."

I stood too, dizzy with the unresolved madness still swarming my head. "You’re just going to leave?"

"You said my absence was a gift, remember?" he said, grinning. "Don’t worry, I’ll take your blessing and go."

And with that, he walked to the door, tugging it open to reveal the wet gray world waiting outside.

"Mateo," I called, voice sharper than I intended.

He looked back.

"Just one last question. If you’re not the guy from the pigsty... and you’re not the one who snuck into my room... then who the hell was that?"

He met my gaze. "You should consider seeing a human doctor, MJ."

Then he stepped out and shut the door behind him.