Unwanted

UNWANTED MATE REJECTED BOOK 4 EVE BALE CONTENTS Join my mailing list About Unwanted 1. Bennett 2. Helena 3. Bennett 4. Helena 5. Bennett 6. Helena 7. Bennett 8. Helena 9. Bennett 10. Helena 11. Bennett 12. Helena 13. Bennett 14. Helena 15. Bennett 16. Helena 17. Bennett 18. Helena 19. Bennett 20. Helena 21. Bennett 22. Helena Epilogue Excerpt from The Alpha’s Silent Mate Excerpt from Cold-Blooded Alpha Also by Eve Bale Thank you! This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Unwanted Copyright © 2023 by Eve Bale Cover designed by The Book Brander ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. www.evebale.com v.3 JOIN MY MAILING LIST Join my mailing list! Sign up to my newsletter for updates on sales and new releases (and a free story). ABOUT UNWANTED "I'm not the one for you, Bennett. I reject you…" She was the only woman I ever loved. One look was all it took, and I knew. Mate. Mine, and mine alone. I'd have set the world on fire for her. It never crossed my mind that she wouldn't want me, not until she rejected our bond and walked away. Forever, I believed. But then she strolls back into my life and tells me she made a mistake. Her rejection cut so deep I never recovered. Letting her back into my life isn't an option. I still want her. That will never change, but her next cut will destroy me. There's no woman I'll ever want more, but she's ripped my heart out once. But twice? Never again. 1 BENNETT A ringing phone cuts through my empty garage. Since there’s only one person who would be calling before nine on a Monday morning, I let it ring out. No self-respecting beta would ignore his alpha the way I’m doing, but they don’t have the excuses I do. Not excuses. Just one. Helena Morgan. My wolf growls his disapproval. Yeah, I know I’m second-in-command. I’d go if Mack really needed me. Ignoring the disapproving growls filling my head, I refocus on the engine giving Winter Lake resident Cyrus McGlenn so much grief. But that’s what you get when you buy a used car and don’t have your mechanic look it over before thumping down five grand for a piece of shit. And if your mechanic knows his wife, knows how shit of a deal he got, and how little cash he has to replace said piece of shit, he does most of the work for free. “Because I’m a chump,” I breathe. “In more ways than one.” The phone stops ringing. A hard click echoes across the garage smack dab in the center of a quiet retirement town on the east coast. A mechanical voice asks the caller to leave a message. “Bennett, you missed the game.” Mack’s voice is the same mellow tone as always. “There’ll be another game,” I mutter under my breath as I refocus my attention on Cyrus’s Toyota Camry engine. “Everyone missed you.” A pause. “You were the only one who didn’t show.” Which means she would have been there. “Which was the point,” I respond, again in an inaudible murmur. “Which was likely the point,” Mack says a beat later. “But we’re forgetting what you look like.” I snort. “Like fuck you are. I was there just last week.” “And last week doesn’t count, so don't think that you paying a flying visit and disappearing before Aerin could say hi, never mind, bye counts. She’d like to see you.” I stop working on the car, but I don’t lift my head from the engine I’m becoming as familiar with as my own face. Twenty-eight years old, and knocking loudly on the door of thirty, I’d expect to see a few grays if I hadn’t shaved my hair years ago. The age is in my steel-gray eyes, Mack likes to say. Maybe he’s right. Since Helena Morgan, a woman I thought I would love forever, showed her face in Winter Lake, I feel older than ever. Stopping in at Mack and Aerin’s house isn’t an option. At least, not while Helena is still in town. One glance at Aerin is all it would take for the omega gifted with the rare ability to heal a shifter’s soul to know exactly what having Helena back in my life was doing to me. Nothing good. Wolves mate for life. To meet yours, find completion when you meld with the other half of your soul, and have that person destroy you out of the blue… Five years ago, Helena Morgan nearly killed my wolf. She nearly killed me. There’s no forgiving her for what she did. No healing from it. Not a fucking chance. “Aerin is—” Click. I glance at the phone. A second later, it rings until a mechanical voice asks the caller to leave a message. “You’re going to force me to fill up your voicemail, aren’t you?” Mack sounds like he’s smiling. “Cause I’ll do it.” I don’t doubt you will. He sighs. “As I was saying, Aerin is working on the garden this weekend, and she could do with some help. Come over.” There’s no suggestion in Mack’s voice this time. His warm, friendly tone makes it sound like an invitation, but I’ve known Mack long enough to know an order when I hear it. And a beta always follows his alpha’s order. Looks like Mack’s finally had enough of me dodging and decided to run me to the ground. “We wanted to talk to you about something else as well,” Mack continues. I angle my head toward the black phone on the other side of my pale gray