“You know what?” she said after a moment, taking a step away. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, and we can meet up once a day to fuck and exchange blood. That works for plenty of mates, and my body will just have todeal.”
“You know that’s not what I want,” I argued, following her out of the barn. My frustration grew. “I’m here with you twenty-one hours of the fucking day, Rosemary. Don’t act like you’re being neglected here.”
“Oh, I’m not.”
“What the fuck?” I barked, stopping at the edge of the patio. “I understand that it’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for me too. None of this shit is normal.”
Rosemary spun to face me, backlit by the porch light.
“You know, I’ve never been the woman who follows her partner around begging for scraps. It’s just not my personality. It’s like, you want to do your own thing? Cool. Me too. But when you told me that I was your mate, I thought we’d be in this shit together.” She shook her head. “It is physically painful, to the point of losing all logic, when we’re apart. Them’s the breaks. I knew it would happen, and I was prepared for it because I know that mating bonds happen for a reason. What I didn’t know is that you would ignore the fucking bond unless it suited you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but didn’t even get a word out before she continued.
“Yes, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Your mate is a highly trained operator. Whether or not you acknowledge that fact isyourissue. It doesn’t change the truth. Instead of keeping me with you the way nature fucking intended, you’ve basically forbidden me from leaving this property while you go out hunting bad guys. Hell, you’re not even hunting them at this point. You’re trying to figure out who they are.”
“You know they’re looking for you,” I shot back.
“I know thatyou’reconvinced they’re looking for me,” Rosemary spat. “That’s what I know. I also know that you’re so afraid of your own fucking shadow that you’re ignoring the fact that you’re not the only one in this. Even if we ignored that you’ve been putting me through excruciating physical symptoms because youdidn’t think they’d be that bad, I was working on discovering who these assholes were before you were, you self-righteous asshole!”
She stormed into the house, letting the door slam before I could catch it. I nearly tore it off the hinges as I followed her inside.
“Afraid of my own fucking shadow?” I yelled, catching up to her before she’d left the kitchen. I ignored the spectators around the table. “Do you have any idea what they did to my baby brother?”
“Danny,” Chance said softly, rising from his seat.
“They tore him apart,” I barked, ignoring him. “They cut off his arms and legs in pieces before they took his head.”
The color drained out of Rosemary’s cheeks.
“Yeah, baby. That’s who we’re dealing with. That’s who had you tied up for a week in their little safe house.” I took a step forward, then stopped myself. “So if I’m careful with you, I apologize,” I said mockingly. “Sofuckingsorrythat I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that I don’t have to identify your mangled body piece by piece.”
“Trust me to take care of myself,” she replied tentatively, taking a step toward me.
“They managed to take down Zeke,” I argued. “A fully grown and fully trained Vampire, and you think you’d have a chance?”
“Your mom and sisters-in-law?—”
“Got lucky,” I roared. “That’s all it was! Pure fucking luck.”
“All right, Danny boy,” Chance said. I jerked when his palm rested between my shoulder blades. “Time to take a step back.”
“I’m a fucking horrible mate, right?” I asked the room. “I’m such a monster for leaving Rosemary behind for a few hours at a time. I better pull my head out of my ass, because I’m really fucking up!” I let out a laugh. “I’m a real motherfucker because I don’t want to find my mate inpieces.”
“And now is when we take a little walk before we say something we can’t take back,” Chance said, shoving me back toward the door.
“That’s rich coming from you,” I huffed.
“That’s right, take it out on me,” he crooned, still shoving at me. “Your brother, who loves you.”
“You’re such a fucking prick,” I replied, jerking my shoulder away from his hand as I stepped back outside.
I walked to the far edge of the barn and let the cool air roll over me. I fucking hated all of it. I hated that Zeke was dead. I hated that Rosemary was pissed at me, and everything was going sideways. I really hated that I’d found my mate in the middle of such a clusterfuck, and it was ruining the beginning of our story.
I hated that I had to leave her. I hated that she was in pain when I did. I hated that I had no other choice.
Of course I wanted to stay with Rosemary. For fuck’s sake, if it were up to me, we’d never leave her bed—no, we wouldn’t even be in her bed. If it were up to me, we’d be inmybed, where we had some room to move. If it were up to me, we’d be in ourown little bubble, talking and fucking and getting to know one another without all the rest of this shit hanging over our heads.
None of this was fair.
