I shake my head, close my eyes, and release a slow breath. “I don’t lie to my parents, Seb. I may not tell them everything, but I don’t outright lie. What will happen if they ask to hear what I’ve been recording? I don’t have anything to play for them, do I?”
“But you will,” he says quickly. “We can work on something today.”
I climb out of bed. I still feel woozy, but I can’t stay in this bed tonight. “You don’t get it, do you? It was presumptuous and a violation of my privacy and my boundaries for you to access my phone without my permission and contact my family on my behalf. And you lying to them has opened me up to having to compromise my morals to cover up what you did.”
His hand goes to his chest as if I’ve shot him and he’s patching the bloody hole. “I was only trying to help. I was afraid they’d do something rash if they didn’t receive a response.”
“That’s not an apology,” I say softly. As much as it softens my heart to hear him explain why he did what he did, this is a new relationship, and I need him to understand that he overstepped my boundaries.
He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. “I am sorry that I lied to your parents on your behalf. I am not sorry that I called to tell them you were okay, just busy. Given the nature of our mission here, I felt like it was the necessary action for me to take to protect my mate.”
What? “Your mate?” Even as I say it, the strangest sensation flows through me, a rightness at the word, but also an awareness that the label has deep meaning.
“Have you forgotten already? You accepted me as your mate yesterday night.”
“We had sex. It wasn’t like we got married.” But I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth that they are a lie. Something more happened between us that night. I know it in my bones.
Seb looks like I’ve punched him in the stomach. His face is drawn in pain, and he has to steady himself on the wall. Slowly, he starts to breathe again. He reaches down to pick up my phone and slides it across the bed to me, where it remains beside the plate of bread and cheese. “I have made an error,” he says, so low I can hardly hear him. “Please forgive me.”
“I forgive you.” I pick up the phone and the plate and head for the door.
“Where are you going?” he asks, and I see his eyes glow golden, know that the dragon who stood sentinel by my side in the Gold Room is watching me through his eyes.
“Home,” I say. “I think I need to be alone.”
I walk out the door, but not before I see the absolute devastation on Seb’s face.
Good girl, the spider says. It’s for the best. If we keep him close, we’ll only hurt him. A spider eats her mate.
Fuck you, I think back to her. But as I make my way past the pool to my house, a part of me knows she’s right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SEB
Rejected by my mate. No way did I expect this. Part of me understood she might be shocked or angry about the phone thing, but I thought she’d understand, given the circumstances. I never thought she’d reject our mating.
She didn’t say the words, my dragon protests. He means she didn’t specifically reject the mating bond. But she may as well have. It was just sex, she said. Just sex. It was not just sex for me.
And now I’m torn into a million pieces. I might as well be bleeding out from a hole in my chest. I lie on my side in bed, staring out the window toward her darkened cottage as the sky gradually lightens. By the time the sun rises, I’m aching and hot with fever, my appetency returning with a vengeance.
Who the fuck cares? I may as well go up in flames. I won’t be able to live without her.
A knock comes on the door, and Patrick pokes his head in. “Ellison and Lucas have arrived and are waiting for you in the dining room. I’ve served coffee and cinnamon rolls whenever you’re ready.”
“Okay.”
“Sir? Are you all right? You look a little, um… Should I call Morwyn?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll be right out.”
I can hear him breathing. He’s not leaving. And then I hear him lift the still-full tray from last night and take it and the stand from the room. He’s a smart man. I’m sure he sees that the food was hardly touched and that Zoe isn’t in the room with me. Perfect. Now he’ll tiptoe around me and treat me like I’m made of glass all day. Just what I don’t need.
I slide from the bed and get dressed. It’s a tedious task. My skin hurts. I have to force myself to brush my teeth. But by the time I join my brothers at the table, I think I’ve come together pretty well.
“You look like shit,” Lucas says when he sees me.
I guess I haven’t hidden it as well as I thought I did.
