Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by his Brother
Chapter 205: _ Need To See Him

Chapter 205: _ Need To See Him

After Mateo left, I couldn’t quite place my thoughts. He did seem genuinely confused. Like he wasn’t the one who found me in the pigsty.

Like he wasn’t the one who held me in it, who wiped chicken blood from his hands before telling me I was precious. Like he hadn’t pulled the blanket over my shoulders or whispered about Axel’s secrets in the dark.

But that didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.

I stood there in the middle of the shack, dripping, towel clutched like a flag of surrender, and stared at the door like it might open again and spit out answers. It didn’t. Just creaked once in the wind before falling silent like the rest of the world.

"Rainmad," I muttered to myself. "He actually called me rainmad."

The worst part was that I couldn’t even be offended. Because maybe I was. Maybe the rain had soaked into my skull and rewired things.

Or maybe... I wrapped the towel tighter—maybe I’d spent so long being dismissed and punished and ignored that I’d started inventing kindness just to survive it.

I sunk to the floor with a squelch. My shoes still hadn’t dried, and now the wooden planks bore the damp outline of my defeat.

No. No, that wasn’t fair.

He was real.

I remembered the way he’d looked at me that night... not just looked, seen me. And I hadn’t imagined the warmth of his jacket. Or the tension in his voice when he told me I didn’t deserve what was happening. That Axel was a liar and didn’t deserve me. That I had created a fantasy in my head.

That wasn’t fiction. That wasn’t fever.

"Unless there are two Mateos running around," I said aloud, voice filled with sarcasm and desperation, "and I just happened to pick the wrong one to yell at."

The room didn’t answer.

I glanced toward the chest he’d rummaged through. It was slightly ajar, one of his socks hanging out like a lazy tongue. I didn’t mean to snoop, but my legs moved anyway.

I opened it fully, half-expecting to find some obvious clue. A journal titled "How I Gaslit María José and Got Away With It." A collection of pigsty memoirs. A note that said "Gotcha."

But there was nothing.

Just clothes. A comb. An extra toothbrush still in plastic. A small notebook with blank pages and a single playing card tucked into the back; queen of Hearts.

Cute.

I shut it.

I need to think. Need to fucking think.

Could it be that Axel was right? Could there be a doppelganger or a witch, a shapeshifter, or something running around in the pack and assuming the form of people to do crazy things?

Crazy things...

The more I think about it, the more the crazy things seem to revolve around me. First, it was the pigsty. Then, a visit to my place, spilling Axel’s so-called secrets.

Then, just like that, the next day, Axel arrived at our place, asserting the so-called claims Mateo had made with me.

Axel did so many things that were unlike himself, he said a lot of things he wouldn’t normally do, making him seem as though he had been pretending all along.

What if I didn’t judge him by one day? What if I judged him by all the things he’d done for me for more than one day instead?

Suddenly, Axel returned, claiming it wasn’t him who did all of that. And then, Mateo claimed it wasn’t him either.

"Could I have been missing what has been right in front of me?" I whispered, a hand under my jaw while the other fumbled my temple.

My head began to pound as I dived deeper into thoughts... deeper than I ever had before.

Wasn’t the string of events too convenient? What if I decide to believe in Axel as he had believed in me all along?

What if... what if this was just some witch enchanted by my cursed beauty and had been playing both sides?

Fuck. Poor Mateo had done nothing to me and I’d accused him so badly. And Axel—Oh, Axel, I feel like a horrible person.

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.

What the hell was happening?

What if the real enemy wasn’t either of them? What if it was something wearing their skin?

And what if—God, what if... I’d just burned bridges with the only person who ever gave a damn about me?

I stood too fast, the room spinning like it wanted to throw me back down. My towel slipped a little, but I didn’t bother fixing it. Who the hell was even watching? The ghosts of my bad decisions?

I paced.

Back and forth, back and forth, the way caged things do when freedom is a memory. Or maybe a fantasy.

"I need to talk to him," I said. My voice cracked in the middle of it. "I need to talk to Axel."

Properly this time. No screaming. No accusations. Just truth. Whatever was left of it.

I owed Mateo an apology. I owed Axel a real chance.

Because if I didn’t—if I kept pushing him away, kept feeding into the chaos, I was going to end up exactly where I’d started: alone, confused, and swallowed whole by things I didn’t understand.

I reached for the damp clothes still hanging off the chair, but my hands were shaking too much to pull them on. I sat instead, breathing hard, like I’d just run through every Chapter of my life and still hadn’t found peace.

I claimed I loved Axel, but I didn’t even know him well enough to know what he could or COULD NOT do.

This was the same man who believed in me when no one else did. The one who helped me through hell and back.

Oh, Axel. I’m sorry.

"I—I need to see Axel. I can’t be so sure yet, but I really... need to look into his... His eyes and see for myself." I stammered, staggering up.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.