“Do you want me to come over?” she asked.
“What, so you could watch me lie on the couch all day? No, I’m fine.”
“You really don’t sound fine.”
“This is the best I’ll sound for the next few hours,” I told her.
I wasn’t joking. The panic hadn’t set in yet, but I knew it would. It always did.
“How long has he been gone?” she asked sympathetically.
“About twenty minutes.”
“So three more hours?”
“Maybe a little less.”
“I don’t like this,” she said sharply. “I don’t like this at all.”
“I can handle anything for three hours.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” she argued. “I’m going to talk to Dalton about this?—”
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped in horror, lifting my head from the couch.
“Daniel should know better than this,” she continued. “How did no one teach him his responsibilities to his mate? I know his parents, and it just doesn’t make sense. Maybe if Dalton spoke to him.”
“Don’t, Aunt Halle,” I warned. “Leave it alone.”
“He must be in pain too,” she retorted. “And the human mate’s symptoms are even worse than the Vampire’s, so how is he just?—”
“Maybe he’s not in pain,” I countered, voicing the thought that had been whirling through my mind for days.
“That’s not possible.”
“He’s leaving every day, and it doesn’t seem to have any adverse effects,” I told her quietly. “He comes back completely fine. So maybe he doesn’t think that it hurts me because it doesn’t hurt him.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
“Either way,” I replied, willing to let it go. “He’s gone for the next few hours, so I’m going to lie here in my misery. Want me to call you later?”
“Yeah, do,” she said with a sigh.
I lay there for a while, staring into the empty fireplace. Intellectually, I knew the house was cool. Outside, it was sprinkling rain, and the wind was making branches from the willow tree on the side of the house clack against the siding, but it felt like the hottest day of summer beneath my skin.
Rising, I went to find my pop and Thunder. Misery loves company and all that.
I was so sick of everything. Sick of the panic and the pain and Daniel and the house and my own weakness.
“How ya doing?” Pop asked as I joined him on the patio.
“Why are you sitting out here in the rain?” I asked, raising my arms to catch the droplets. I was surprised they didn’t sizzle when they made contact.
“This ain’t rain,” he said with a scoff.
“You should have a coat on.”
“Worry about yourself,” he retorted.
