Bonded.
The word bounces around in my head. The true meaning keeps on slipping through my fingers.
“It was the only way to stop my heat! He had to bite me!” She pleads.
Bite.
I understand that word.
I want to bite her. Make hermine.
My insides feel like they’re going to explode.
If Griffin has bitten her, does that make her not mine?
No.
No, no, no, no,no.
She ismine.
I throw myself against the door, the impact travelling through my body. But I barely feel it.
“You fuckers have done it now!” Ash snarls. “You’ve gone and made him lose it. Mirabelle is locked away for weeks, and then you two disappear and come back with this bullshit.”
I think Rowan says something. But I don’t hear him. All my attention is on Mirabelle.
She picks at her fingers, flinching at every noise.
Then her eyes lift to mine and I freeze.
She’s crying.
Tears stream down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she says, before covering her mouth with a sob.
Ash freezes too. We made her upset. We made her cry.
Imade her cry.
I slump against the door, keeping my face pressed against the bars.
I don’t want her to cry. She shouldn’t cry. Ever.
The whole barn remains silent, except for the sound of her soft sniffling.
The sight, the sound of her sobbing, makes everything in my mind still.
No more red. No more anything. Just her.
“Don’t... cry...” I croak out, swallowing past the baseball-sized lump in my throat.
If the room were any louder than silent, I don’t think they would’ve heard me.
But they do. They all do.
And now their attention is on me.
