My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 15

My Cheating Mate

Emma pov

The hot water stung my wounds, turning pink as it swirled down the drain. I pressed my forehead against the cold tile wall and tried to focus on the pain in my arm instead of the confusion in my head.

Jeremy was hurt.

I’d seen the blood, the deep gashes across his ribs, the way he’d limped slightly when he shifted back to human form. And despite everything–despite the affair, the betrayal, the plans to use and discard me my wolf was whining with distress.

Our mate was injured. We should help him. Should tend to his wounds. Should comfort him.

“No,” I said out loud, my voice echoing in the small bathroom. “He doesn’t deserve our care. He doesn’t deserve anything from

1. us.

But my wolf wasn’t listening. She was pacing frantically in my mind, pushing against my control, demanding I go to him.

It was the mate bond. That’s all it was. Biology overriding common sense, instinct trumping self–preservation. The bond didn’t care that Jeremy had cheated. Didn’t care that he’d planned to impregnate me and throw me away. It only cared that our mate was hurt and needed us.

I turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping myself in the thin motel towel. My reflection in the foggy mirror looked like a stranger–hollow–eyed, haunted, nothing like the bright–faced girl who’d baked cookies a week ago.

Had it really only been a week? It felt like years.

I dried off carefully, avoiding my injuries. The scratches weren’t deep, nothing that wouldn’t heal with my wolf’s accelerated metabolism. By morning they’d be mostly closed, by tomorrow they’d be gone entirely.

Unlike the wounds Jeremy had left on my heart. Those would take much longer to heal.

If they ever healed at all.

I pulled on clean clothes–sweatpants and an oversized hoodie–and tried not to think about Jeremy sitting outside, keeping watch, bleeding and in pain.

Tried and failed.

The bond tugged insistently, showing me flashes of what he was feeling. Pain, yes. But also guilt, fear, and something that felt almost like… regret?

No. I wasn’t falling for that. Jeremy didn’t regret the affair. He regretted getting caught. There was a difference.

1

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the door. He was out there. Right outside. I could feel him through the bond, a constant presence I couldn’t quite block out anymore now that he was so close.

And he’d fought for me. Protected me from those rogues even though I’d told him I never wanted to see him again.

My wolf whined again. *He protected us. He’s our mate. We should-*

“Stop it,” I told her firmly. “One good deed doesn’t erase months of betrayal.” 2

But she wouldn’t stop. The instinct to care for our injured mate was overwhelming, primal, impossible to completely ignore.

I lasted fifteen minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore.

Grabbing the small first aid kit I’d bought at a gas station, I opened the door. Jeremy was sitting on the ground just outside, leaning against the wall, his makeshift bandages- strips torn from his destroyed shirt–already soaked through with blood

1/2

Chapter 15.

+25 BONUS

He looked up, surprise flickering across his face “Emma? Is everything okay?”

“You’re still bleeding,” said flatly, refusing to acknowledge the way my wolf sang at his proximity. “Those wounds need to be cleaned properly or they get infected.”

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