"Nothing shifted."
"Everything shifted." His eyes searched hers. "And you're terrified of it."
"I'm not terrified." But her voice shook. "I'm realistic. You'll leave. Same as before. The moment this investigation is done, you'll go back to whatever life you've built and I'll be here. Alone. Again. I'm not setting myself up for that pain."
"What if I don't leave?"
Those words were dangerous to Maeve.
"You will." She ducked under his arm, putting the table between them. "You always choose duty over everything else. That's who you are."
"That's who I was." He straightened, frustration bleeding into his expression. "I'm trying to be different. Trying to show you I've changed. But you won't let me close enough to prove it."
"Because I don't trust you." She shifted to face him. "I can't trust you. Not when trusting you before got me left behind. Not when letting you in means giving you the power to destroy me."
"I would never?—"
"You already did." Her hands curled into fists. "Ten years ago when you stayed with a pride that was eating itself alive. When you chose loyalty to Hector's poisonous politics over coming with us. You destroyed me then. I'm not giving you a second chance to finish the job."
He flinched like she'd struck him. "Maeve?—"
"Get out." She pointed at the door. "This conversation is done."
"We need to talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about." She moved to the door, yanking it open. "Last night was a mistake. This morning is making it worse. Just go."
"I'm not giving up on us."
"There is no us." She met his eyes, forcing steel into her voice even as her lioness whined in protest.
He stood there for a long moment, jaw tight and eyes blazing with things she refused to name. Then he moved to the door, pausing in the threshold.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "I'm sorry. For staying behind. For hurting you. For making you feel like you weren't worth fighting for. But I'm here now. Fighting. Whether you believe it or not."
"Save your breath." She started to close the door. "I'm not interested in apologies or fighting or whatever else you think this is."
"You will be." His mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "Eventually you'll run out of walls to hide behind. And when you do, I'll be waiting."
She slammed the door before he could say anything else. Locked it. Pressed her forehead against the wood and tried to breathe through the panic clawing at her ribs.
Her lioness snarled, furious at the at pushing away their mate.
But he wasn't their mate. Couldn't be. Not when acknowledging the bond meant opening herself up to the kind of hurt she'd barely survived the first time.
Maeve moved back to the kitchen, her coffee cold and her body still aching with sense memory. She could smell him in her apartment now. Pine smoke and winter and something underneath that was pure Dante.
Her scent still clung to him too. She'd seen it in the way his pupils had dilated when he got close. Smelled her arousal and satisfaction written all over his skin.
Marked him without meaning to.
Her lioness purred approval.
Maeve grabbed her cup and dumped the cold coffee in the sink trying not to break it.
Last night had been a mistake. This morning proved it.
And if she kept telling herself that, maybe eventually she'd believe it.
