I drag a hand over my face and bite down on the exhaustion clawing at me. The argument feels like a losing battle before it even starts, but I try anyway.
“I just need to shower,” I say, the words coming out rough as I gesture to the caked-on mud decorating my clothes and skin. “I have guests arriving in a few hours and things I need to look over before they’re here and expecting me to dance for them like their personal showgirl.”
Seren snorts, a sound dripping with her unimpressed attitude, and shoves the door fully closed behind her with her foot.
“Oh, I’m aware of who’s headed this way,” she retorts dryly, folding her arms across her chest. “And if I’d known this whole circus was happening for that twat, Talis, and your nifty little engagement—an engagement that’swellpast its expiration date, if memory serves—I’d have castrated you days ago when the first delivery truck showed up.”
I let out a slow exhale, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “I appreciate your display of restraint, then.”
“Consider it a standing threat.”
Her tone is dry, almost conversational, but the words land all the same. I meet her gaze, weighing her, trying to get a read on what she’s after. She doesn’t look like she’s about to draw blood. She’s angry, yes, but not in the way that breeds violence. What I see most clear in her isn’t animosity at all. It’s fatigue. And beneath that lives fear.
Her eyes flick toward the bed, where Noa still lies asleep. Her dread sharpens, and I recognize it. I’m wearing the same damn expression every time I look at her too.
“I’m not bailing, Seren,” I try again, gentler this time. My voice sounds hollow even to me. “I’m just running across the hall to shower and then I’ll come back to check in on Noa before I leave to meet Canaan.”
Seren shifts, keeping herself squarely in front of the door like she’s guarding her family den.
“I have a sister,” she says suddenly.
The change in topic throws me. I glance toward the bed, wondering if she means Noa, but she doesn’t give me the chance to ask.
“Abloodsister,” she continues. “Not much older than me. But she hates me, and not in a ‘stole my favorite toy’ or ‘gave me bangs in my sleep’ kind of way. I mean full-blown ‘wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire’ hate.” She gives a humorless laugh that doesn’t come close to reaching her eyes. “She’s done everything she can to make my life hard—wasn’t happy unless I was miserable. I haven’t spoken to her or my parents in a long time. For all they know, I could be dead, but they haven’t cared enough to check. And yeah, I pretended for a long time that this didn’t hurt me, but it did. Italwaysdoes. Because no matter how strong you are, everyone wants to be loved and accepted by their family.”
Something pulls tight at her words—a sense of understanding. I think of my relationship with my father and how his love and acknowledgment were never freely given, how it always felt like I needed to prove myself to deserve either.
Seren draws a steading breath. “But then I found my way to Noa and Thalassa. They didn’t owe me anything and yet they showed up for me in ways no one else in my life ever has. Their love was simple. Unconditional. Thalassa guided me through the early stages of pregnancy, through the fears of being a single mom. When I gave birth, a day you always picture being surrounded by family, I only had Noa. And you know what? That was enough. She didn’t leave me for a second, even when she was still trying to hold herself together after losing her mom.” Her voice softens, cracking a little at the edges. “So, when I tell you, Rennick, that the girl passed out on that bed is my sister—blood be damned—I mean it. And when I tell you I can’t stand here and allow you to keep hurting her, I mean that more.”
She doesn’t raise her voice. Doesn’t lace her words with accusation. She just speaks the cold truth, and somehow that cuts deeper.
“I’m not trying to hurt her,” I tell her because it’s the truth even when it sounds flat even to my own ears.
Seren’s shoulders sag a little, like she’s been fighting this battle longer than I realized and has reached the point of exhaustion where she’s struggling to continue. “Maybe not,” she admits. “But if you walk out that door—if you leave her side right now—you’re hurting her anyway.”
My brow furrows, and a sharp thread of self-loathing cuts through everything else. The thought that I’ve been hurting her—my mate—in ways I didn’t even realize lodges itself deep, like a sharp stone in my gut. “I don’t understand.”
She mutters something under her breath that sounds a lot like, “Noa’s going to strangle me in my sleep,”then looks back up, meeting my gaze head-on.
“The rejected mate syndrome, it’s worse than she’s letting on. Her body is failing. She’s in pain, and a lot of it. But she keeps putting on that brave face because—Goddess fucking love this stubborn woman—she thinks that’s what we need from her.”
I flinch.
The wordsfailingandworselands like a blow to my body, and my eyes find Noa again before I can stop them. She’s still out cold, her breathing steady, her lashes resting soft against her cheeks. Seemingly peaceful. It’s a lie my mind and heart are desperate to believe.
“How much worse?” The question comes out rough, like it costs me to ask, because part of me already knows the answer.I’m not clueless about what rejected mate syndrome does, or what she’s been carrying because of me. I’ve seen herpale and trembling, her skin gray, her eyes rimmed in deep violet shadows. The coughing fit I caught her in the middle of.
But, there’s also been moments when I let myself believe she was healing.
Pink back in her cheeks, her eyes clear and steady again. I allowed those brief moments to fool me into thinking she was mending. That what I’d broken was slowly piecing itself back together under my watch and care.
Those moments were a lie. While I let myself believe she was healing, she was only slipping further away, swallowed by the illness dragging her down. Whatever time I thought I had to fix this is a fraction of what I thought I had.
Fuck.
“Bad enough that I don’t think yesterday was the first time she’s bled like that,” Seren admits with a weary lilt. “I found bloodstained clothes hidden at the bottom of her laundry basket the other day. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t from a cut. There was too much for that.”
Her eyes narrow when I glance at her as if silently daring me to judge or scold her for snooping through Noa’s things.
