“You’re right. I never called back. The truth is, I’ve been insanely busy, and you’renotmy mate. That’s why we agreed to be NMWB.”
He studied me for a little bit, rancor dissipating, leaving only sadness.
“The guy with the black hood. He was your mate, wasn’t he?”
If my silence hadn’t answered his question, my averted gaze confirmed the assumption.
He cursed, rubbing his eyes.
“Listen, Yvaine, I like you. I really do. Never met anyone like you, with that stubborn strength, that need to help and give, give, give.” He let out a breath, shoulders sagging. “I admire all of that. I admire you. I even—I don’t know—imagined us volunteering somewhere together in the future.”
He did?
A guilty silence was my answer, and he looked at me almost painfully. “My ex was my mate, and we…we didn’t work. Sometimes, the Moon Goddess can be wrong. Sometimes your fated mate can be faulty, with something that makes it impossible for them to provide the love you need or deserve. That’s not to say it’ll be the same for you, but I bet it’s not exactly been smooth sailing if you haven’t told anyone about your mate yet. I don’t see any mark on you either.”
I winced, recalling my mate’s disappearance after our first kiss.
Or how he hadn’t contacted me. I hadn’t either, but before the party, I’d planned to ask Rudolph for his number, then gather the courage to call him myself.
But now?
A part of me, the frightened and insecure part, wanted to give Sillas a chance. Too scared of the immense attachment I’d already felt toward a mate whose voice I’d never even heard.
He took my hands, swallowing my smaller pair in his, and stared at me with determination.
“I know you don’t feel the same for me…but you could.” He smiled then. The first genuine one I’d seen on him since the party. “I’m not stupid. I know you think you’re in love with him—because of the bond. Because he’s all you think you’ve ever needed. Because he’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever laid eyes on. And, oh, the sparks. The damned sparks always complicate everything.”
His hands on mine felt wrong. I detached them and took a step back.
“Maybe he’s good for you. But if he isn’t, if he fucks up, I’ll be here for you. I’m all in. We can have a relationship like…humans have. Real. Chosen by us.”
I swallowed as he bent and kissed my cheek, lingering a second too long.
He was offering stability. Kindness, maybe a friendly partnership.
But no sparks. And there never would be.
“Sillas…”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your mate. But don’t let it consume you like mine did.”
After a prolonged silence, I finally asked the question.
“What exactly happened between you and your mate?”
His eyes skated across the birch trees, maybe those darkening spaces between them, like they were his own memories…until they flitted back to me. And then he told me the saddest, craziest story I had heard outside the hospital’s walls.
His father, who had lost his mate, had slept with Sillas’s soulmate.
“I think I even forgave my father, at some point. He didn’t know. I didn’t tell him I’d found my mate… After all the pain he’d endured when Mom was stolen by leukemia, it had nearly killed him. I couldn’t make him lose his son too. He was my only family left.”
My heart nosedived and blew apart in my gut. When a wolf lost a mate, their mind snapped. Balance gone, reason shredded. Wolves without mates didn’t just grieve; they unraveled.
“But she…she knew he wasn’t me. Alcohol or not. Resemblance or not. So I rejected her. Since then, she’s tried to get back together with me, but I simply lost every single ounce of feeling for her.”
I covered my mouth. “I had no idea.”
“It’s okay. Four years have passed. I got over it, and I don’t need your pity.”
