Can't fix the fact that she came here to kill me and spent four days fucking me instead. Can't fix whatever she's feeling right now—the shame, the anger, the loss of control that must feel like betrayal of everything she thought she was.
"I'll leave," I say quietly. "Give you space."
"Good." Still not looking at me. "That's... good."
I gather my clothes in silence. What's left of them, anyway—torn shirts, ruined trousers. Evidence of four days where neither of us held back. She stays on her side of the bed with her back to me, the sheet pulled up to her shoulders, every line of her body screamingdon't touch me.
At the door I pause. Look back at her one more time.
She's shaking.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't." Her voice cracks on the word. "Just go."
I go.
-
The next week is a study in silence.
She won't speak to me. Won't look at me when we pass in the corridors—just stares straight ahead like I'm not there. Won't eat in the same room, won't train when I'm watching, won't give me anything except cold distance and the constant hum of the bondthat tells me she's furious and ashamed and hating herself for what we did.
What she let me do to her.
I give her space because it's what she needs. I even move my things to chambers in the west tower. Take meals in my study. It's what she wants.
It's also killing me.
The bond was never meant for distance. It pulls at me constantly, that invisible chain demanding I close the gap between us. My beast paces and snarls, furious at the separation, at the coldness, at the mate who won't let us near her.Go to her. Make her understand. She's ours, she can't just?—
I ignore it.
She doesn't want me near her. That has to matter more than what the bond wants, what my beast wants, what I want.
Even if the wanting is eating me alive.
Eight days after her heat breaks, I find myself in the shadows of the training courtyard.
Not deliberately. I was walking to the east wing for a meeting with my steward, taking the long way around the castle. But I heard the clash of wooden swords and my feet carried me here before I could stop them.
She's sparring with Carter.
He's one of my younger guards—barely a century old, still growing into his dragon strength. I've known him since he was a hatchling, watched him train under my weapons master, seen him develop from clumsy youth to competent warrior. He's got a wry sense of humor and more courage than sense, which is probably why he volunteered to spar with the omega who survived my claiming when no one else would.
Right now he's laughing.
Actually laughing, his head thrown back, while she stands across from him with her practice sword raised and somethingthat might be a smile tugging at her mouth. He says something I can't hear and she responds, and whatever she says makes him laugh harder.
Something hot and ugly coils in my chest.
Mine, my beast snarls.She's mine. Why is she smiling at him? Why won't she smile at me like that?
I force the jealousy down. Bury it deep where it can't show on my face, where it can't poison whatever fragile truce might eventually grow between us. She's allowed to smile at whoever she wants. Allowed to laugh with guards who aren't monsters, who didn't kill forty-seven omegas, who can offer her easy companionship without the weight of three centuries of blood.
Carter doesn't make her remember that she was supposed to kill me.
Carter doesn't make her hate herself for wanting something she's not supposed to want.
