His expression doesn’t change, and he doesn’t say a word.
Honestly, I’m starting to get a bit irritated by it.
“If she’s going to be your mate, then you better start getting her name right,” I snap.
He rears back like I’d cracked my palm around his face, and I can see the explosion of skin-stars going haywire now at his temples.
“What?!”
“I know you snuck out in the night to meet with her, Aloryk,” I tell him. “And I know you lied about it too.”
Oh, hell. Here we go.
It’s like once those words came out, the stupid dam in my brain breaks.
“Look, you and I both know your skin-stars haven’t appeared for me. And I can’t blame you for thinking that maybe someone else would be a better match. That she might be your mate after all. Maybe whatever you thought you had with me is just misguided because of our family link, I don’t know how these soulmate things work. But you met me first, and maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I’m not the one. Maybe dreams are just dreams.”
Aloryk strains against his bindings, trying to push himself up, trying to lurch forward as if to touch me.
And again, I’m thankful that he’s tied to that post - as selfish as that sounds. Because if he touched me…if he touched me, I think I’d crumble under the weight of how heavy my heart feels right now.
“Polly, you are my mate,” he says, a little breathless from trying to twist and turn himself out of the ropes. “I know this deep within my everything. You are meant for me, not any other female. I did meet with Daffy. I did. And I was a stupid male for my lie.”
I can feel my chin start to wobble a little as I watch him continue to try and slip free of his bindings.
“But it was nothing to do with my heart-stars, I swear it on Tribe and Temple - I swear it on my heart!” Aloryk starts grunting and panting as his desperation grows.
“Aloryk,” I whisper, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. He pauses and looks up at me through that brightshaft of sunlight, his skin feverishly warm beneath my touch. “Stop struggling. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“But I did not meet with her for mating reasons. I met with her because she is a healer, and…” he grunts again, trying fruitlessly to yank one of his wrists from the rope. “My wings…”
I frown. “Your wings?”
Aloryk swallows and I watch the bob of his throat before those violet eyes are on me again. “I wanted to be a whole male for you.”
Chapter 34 - Aloryk
I thought finding my Polly again would be a dream. But my dream is becoming a night terror.
She thought…she thought I had cast her aside for another female?
The very notion of doing such a thing lances a pain like no other through my chest. I could never choose another over my Polly.Never.
And she thought this is what I was doing? She fled the tribe because she thought I was trying to make my heart-stars ignite with Daffy…or whatever her name is. I do not care about Daffy beyond wishing her no harm. She is not my mate. Polly is. This, I know more than I know myself.
I have to make this right. I have to-
“Aloryk,stop!”
Polly’s voice is loud and quite suddenly she is sitting astride my lap, her little female hands gently holding my face. I am struggling for breath, my pulse races in my ears. I think she had been calling me, but I just could not hear her. I must have been struggling and straining against my binds because all I can do is sag forward, letting my forehead rest against hers.
“You were hurting yourself,” she says in a quiet voice.
I try to calm, but it feels like I will not be able to do that until I can touch her -reallytouch her. Hold her closer and fold her into myself to keep her safe and with me always. That awful dayI woke up to my mate gone will forever be a terrible dream, and I never want to experience this again. Slowly, I open my eyes, not daring to look into hers, but keeping them cast downward, seeing how my panting breath stirs her mishi-colored hair with each exhale. I see her heart skin-etching too, and promptly drop my gaze to see if myfuckingheart-stars have arrived yet.
They have not.
And it hurts even more, knowing that my Polly has doubts - thatIhave given her doubts.
