“Daciana.”
“Yes?” She looks up at me.
“I am your mate. Why aren’t you asking me to help you?” The words are torn from me.
“Why?” She blinks. “Because I know you can’t. You can say I’m your mate all you want, Kieran, but what has happened to you has left you too traumatized. You don’t want us to be mates. And I understand that. I’m not expecting anything from you.”
Her voice is practical, calm in a way that shakes me to the core.
“But you said we would face our enemy together.” Why am I fighting so hard to hold on to her? This is what I wanted all along.
“Yes.” Her eyes are steady. “Because I don’t want to die. But I also don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me.”
I grab her arm, my tone turning frantic. “That’s not what this is. It’s not that I don’t want to be with—”
She pulls away from me and says, quietly, “I understand that, but I won’t sit here waiting for you. I am sorry for everything you have been through. I truly am. But I’ve been thinking, and us being together wouldn’t be good for you. You said you want me to be happy. Well, I want you to be happy. Once this whole thing is done and over with, you should go back to your pack and find a woman who can give you a family.”
My mouth goes dry at this rejection. She’s phrasing it in kind words, but at the end of the day, it’s a rejection.
“And what about you?” I ask hoarsely.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. There’s Leon. Astra has been pushing us together, and he likes me. I could let him—”
My hands grip her upper arms, and I pull her up onto her toes.
“Leon?” My voice is dangerously low. “You would choose that boy over me?”
“Choose?” For the first time, I see a flicker of anger in Daciana’s eyes, her composed mask cracking. “There is no choice to be made, Kieran. You want me to sit here pining over you?”
My lips press together into a thin line. “He’s not worthy of you.”
“Then who is?” she snaps, pulling herself free from me. “Who is worthy of me?” She takes a step closer, getting in my face. “I am not the kind of woman who will wait around for anybody. Imay be younger than you, but do not think for a minute that you can control me. So, we have a fated mate bond. You don’t want to be with me? Fine. I won’t ask you to. But I will not hide from those who do want to be with me simply to appease you. The minute you decide to back off, you have no rights over me. That is how this works.”
Her eyes are flashing, and I am dumbstruck.
“The other versions of Elara, my past lives—you told me they never remembered. But I do. I remember it all now. I lost my babies. I was murdered over and over again. The grief from losing our children is stuck here”—she slams her fist against her chest—“and I have to hold it all in because I don’t know how to grieve. The trauma of being killed so many times is in my head. You’re not the only one suffering. The only difference is, you’ve had years to come to terms with it, while it has all come crashing down on me in a span of days!”
I suck in a breath. “Daciana—”
“No.” She moves away from me now. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t need you to want me. I have enough experience of not being wanted by my own family. I know how to handle myself. I don’t need you. I’ve never needed anybody, Kieran. And if my fated mate has his own issues to deal with, I’m not going to cry over him. I get it; you’ve been dealt a bad hand. But just like you, I have to look out for myself. Because nobody else will.”
She turns around and begins walking away, and my heart sinks as I realize how grave a mistake I’ve made.
Chapter Eleven
Daciana
The door to my chambers closes behind me with a soft click, and I finally let myself breathe. My face throbs with each pulse of my heartbeat, a sharp, burning sensation that radiates from my cheek down through my jaw.
I press trembling fingers to the wound, wincing as pain lances through the affected area. My skin feels hot and tender, slightly raised where the wolfsbane-coated claws made contact. In the mirror across the room, I can see the angry red mark, slowly starting to heal.
I shouldn’t have gone.
The thought crashes through my mind as I sink onto the edge of my bed. I’d sensed the hostility from the noble families—felt it in every sideways glance, every whispered conversation that stopped when I entered a room. Ever since I was chosen as liaison, their resentment has been a constant presence, hanging in the air like smoke.
But I never thought they would use wolfsbane on me.
My hands curl into fists against my lap. The substance is banned within the Kingdom for a reason: it’s one of thefew things that can truly hurt us. It can burn through our supernatural healing like acid. To coat their claws with it, to attack me with it in broad daylight in the palace gardens…I never thought they would stoop so low.
