Ezra, I think.Ezra, where are you?
There’s no reply, no comfort, no thought. I muffle a cry with my trembling hands, and when the door to the bedroom opens, I half expect it to be Ezra there, but it’s not. Birdie Clarke fills the space, a large thermos in her hand. She glances down at my exposed body and closes the door behind her.
“We should get you some clothes.”
She walks into the room and sets the thermos on the nightstand, then turns to Ezra’s dresser and rifles through the contents. I don’t have a lot of clothes here. I’d been trying to go get them when…
“We took the liberty of collecting your things from your apartment,” she says, handing me a pair of sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt I’ve had since I was a teenager.
“Where is Ezra?”
Birdie frowns and tips her chin toward the clothes I clutch at my chest. “You should get dressed, Declan.”
I quickly do as I’m told, eyes tracing over my own skin, committing every new scar and welt to memory. I’m wretched looking. My formerly pale and smooth skin, now mottled with discolored bumps and ridges. My stomach churns and I feel sick, like I did after Ezra turned me.I can taste the bile in my throat.
My heart constricts.
“Where is Ezra?” I ask again.
“You need rest,” Birdie answers, and I clench my jaw together, becoming angry. I fist my hands at my sides and glower down at her.
“Where is he?”
“Ezra was shot, Declan.”
“Where is he?”
“I’m right here.” The door opens and Ezra is there in dirty clothes with a bandage on the side of his neck.
I don’t even think. I act.
I sprint across the room and throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around my mate and pressing our bodies together so tightly I think—I hope—for a moment, we’ll become one.
“Why can’t I hear you?” I whisper into Ezra’s neck. “Why are you gone?”
Ezra smooths gentle lines up my spine and presses a kiss to my temple.
“I severed the bond.”
I rear back, my horrified eyes searching Ezra’s face for the truth.
“You what?”
Ezra raises his hands and lightly traces his fingertips over the worry lines around my eyes. He smiles sadly at me and takes my hands away. “I severed the bond.”
“Why on earth?”
“Mother, can you leave us?” Ezra asks over my shoulder.
Birdie slips past us both and out of the room, closing the door behind her and leaving us alone in the painful silence that exists between us now.
“Why would you do that?” I collapse to my knees and twine my arms around Ezra’s thighs, pressing my cheek against the blood-stained and dirty denim of his pants.
“It was…” Ezra pauses, pulling me back to my feet. “It was an impulsive decision.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Ezra sighs and looks down at his dirty clothes.
