I’d been reassuring myself since I was a child that I could get through anything, because nothing lasted forever. Dinner was gross? It only took fifteen minutes to eat, and then I was done. I couldn’t go out to play until my parents woke up? I only had to wait an hour, and then the whole day stretched out before me. I didn’t like my teacher? I only had her for one year. My arm needed to be set? It would only be a couple of minutes before the doctor was done. The mission I was on was miserable? A month, tops, and then I could leave the shithole behind.
I was tied up in some nasty-ass garage? I just needed to stay put until I heard something I could take back to Dalton.
It became a habit to break the tough times into bite-sized, accomplishable goals.
But when you had no idea how long something would last, it was harder to trick yourself into believing you could stick it out.
And the knowledge that Daniel could continue to leave me whenever he decided to, with no end in sight, made me feel like I was coming out of my skin.
For the rest of my very long life, assuming my immortality had come to fruition, I was tied to a mate that didn’t behave like one.
I knew he was going to check on his family. I knew he would make it back in less than three hours. I knew that he was conscious of every minute we spent apart because the moment he got back, he found me and held me and stripped me bare as he whispered how much he hated being away from me.
But he kept doing it. Over and over until I thought I might lose my mind.
It became all I could think about.
He’d brought back a laptop after one of his trips home, and he spent hours on it, searching for something that he never quite explained. He didn’t hide what he was doing, and he loved when I curled up next to him to read or watch TV while he worked, but the names he was researching meant nothing to me. I didn’t know if they were Vampires or humans, potential victims or villains—and Daniel was so adept at giving roundabout answers that I usually didn’t even realize that he hadn’t actually answered me until later.
When he wasn’t glued to the computer screen, Daniel teased and played and treated me like a queen. He was quick and funny, and he rarely took the bait when I was giving him shit. He had the filthiest mouth I’d ever heard. He knew exactly how to touch me. When we were together, there was nothing better, and as the days passed, I understood more and more how well we’d been made for each other.
But even when we were together, during what should’ve been the happiest period of my life, I was waiting for the moment he said he had to go again.
I couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t ignore it.
He timed his visits home randomly out of an abundance of caution, so I never knew when the bomb would drop. Some days it was before the sun rose. Other days, it was before dinner or right before bed. There was no way to know in advance, and I refused to ask because I wasn’t sure if knowing would even help. Then, instead of being braced for it, I’d be counting the minutes until I knew he had to go.
No. He didn’thaveto go. Hechoseto.
It would be different if he didn’t have a choice.
If he didn’t have a choice, then it would’ve felt like we were in it together.
He waschoosingto leave me, and I was in it alone.
I lay in bed, my hands clenched at my sides, staring at the ceiling as he moved around the room, getting dressed.
It had been more than two weeks since we’d found each other, and nothing had changed. I hadn’t left the property once, and still, Daniel’s family’s investigation had turned up no more information than my uncle’s. We were spinning our wheels.
“You should try to sleep in,” he whispered, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Then maybe by the time you wake up again, I’ll be back.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied, keeping my expression neutral.
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to ask why the separation was so easy for him. Why he had to go back every day, sometimes twice. I wanted to tell him that if he left, I was leaving too. That I couldn’t stand being stuck in the house for one more stupid day. I wanted to remind him that he hadn’t seen a single sign of the militia on his trips back and forth, and there was no reason for him to leave me behind. I wanted to ask if he was hiding me for some other reason, like maybe he just didn’t want me to meet his family. Did I embarrass him somehow? Did he think they wouldn’t like me?
The words caught in my throat until it felt like I was choking on them.
“I’ll be back in a few hours, yeah?” he said, leaning down to brush his lips over mine. “Stay just like this.” His hand slid under the blanket, smoothing over my bare belly and thigh. “I like imagining you curled up in bed, warm and naked.”
“I’ll see you soon,” I replied.
He brushed his lips across mine one more time before getting to his feet. Then he left, closing the door quietly behind him. I listened as his footsteps faded away down the hall and flinched at the sound of the front door opening and closing.
Scrambling up from the bed, I threw on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The routine had become almost second nature, and Iknew I only had about two minutes before his car disappeared. By that time, I’d locked myself in the bathroom and was on my knees, heaving into the toilet.
It was always worse when he left in the mornings, because there was nothing to throw up. It was just fifteen minutes of dry heaving until my stomach settled. Then, I had approximately eight minutes to take a quick shower before the body aches kicked in. After that, it was a crapshoot. Those two symptoms of the mating heat were easy to predict, but the panic and paranoia and sweating and racing heart were a little more choose-your-own-adventure. I was never sure which way things would go, or in which order.
My pop was waiting outside the bathroom when I finished. He handed me two gummies that I immediately swallowed, then took my hand gently as he walked us into the kitchen. On the days when luck was on my side, I was high before the body aches set in.
