1
EMBRY
Six Months Ago...
I’m losing my mind.
Everyone else had gone. I watched Mateo pace my room, anger seeping from him in hot waves, and all I could think of was how good his clenched fists would feel pressed against my chest as we fucked.
How hot his skin would be against mine.
How deep his groans would be.
Damn you, Alexei. He’d warned me that the drugs he’d injected into my veins would make me feel strange, but he’d said nothing about the charge they’d bring to my blood.
It made no sense that I could be in this much physical pain, and yet the forefront of my thoughts centred around a different ache entirely. One I’d carried every day since this surly, sweet, and savage man had entered my life.
Technically, you entered his. He was here first, remember?
Truth. But my head wasn’t screwed on enough for technicalities. And Mateo was moving too fast for me to keep up. Back and forth, up and down. I couldn’t take it. Motion sickness hit hard. Nausea rolled in my ruined stomach and I doubled over.
Then it evaporated so fast a sharp, surprised sound escaped me.
I think.
Or maybe it was him.
Mateo stopped moving, his tall frame blocking the light from the window, casting me in the shadow he believed himself to be. “What is it?”
I couldn’t give it a voice.
I won’t.
There were inches between us. Mateo closed them and gripped my elbows, easing me upright. “Lie down.”
No.
I mean, I wanted to, but I was sick of that bed. Sick of rotting in it alone and fucking wretched while the world kept turning without me. “I can’t.”
Mateo dug his fingers into my flesh, his emotions as brutal and bruising as they always were. “Why not? Because Rubi ain’t here to make you feel better?”
“Why... would you think that?”
The words slurred out and I gritted my teeth against the wave of—fuck, I didn’t even know what—that came with the effort. Found purchase in his bigger arms, using him like I had for days and days and days now to hold myself up.
I can’t do this without him.
How could he not know?
Because you haven’t told him and he’s pig-headed enough to never figure it out on his own.
Or answer my question. I let go of his arm and braced my hand on the window. “I don’t want Rubi.”
A deep sound rumbled from Mateo’s chest. Disbelief or discontent, I couldn’t tell. All I knew for sure was that he was profoundly unhappy.
And that it was my fault.
Tell him the truth.
