nineteen
CALLUM
"Stop panicking,"Liv said, sitting on her ass and stretching her muscles on my porch at 9 AM the next day.
"If your soulmate had disappeared into the fucking forest, you'd be panicking too," I gritted out from the chair my best friend had dragged from the living room and onto the porch for me.
The invisible needles in my skin felt far worse after having my female's soft fingers on so much of my body. She'd nearly brought me to climax even without touching my cock.
Stress always made the pain worse, too.
"If my soulmate was a wolf who had disappeared into the forest, I'd be riding his back like he was a fucking horse. And if he had told me he'd see me in the morning, after I was a total dick, I would expect him to show up late just to piss me off."
"I wasn't a total dick."
The deadpanned look she shot me told me we both knew that was bullshit.
Which we did.
"She said I'm treating her like an object," I growled. "What was I supposed to do? Share sob stories and bond over shared pain?"
"Yeah, kinda."
I glared at her.
She deepened her stretches, going into the full splits as I went back to glaring at the forest.
She'd bugged me until I told her the full story of what had happened between me and Kat, which I had deeply regretted since the first time she told me I'd fucked up.
"Look, you know I love you, and I get why you're being difficult about this, but you're doing it all wrong."
"I'm not doing it wrong."
"Are you getting the results you want?" She lowered her head toward the floor. The woman was alarmingly flexible."Is this your ideal? Spending all night hoping your mate hasn’t left you for good this time?
I didn't answer.
She knew what I would've said.
"Then you're doing it wrong. Plain and simple. Like every other immortal in this city, she never intended to seal a mate bond with someone just because of their magic. You stole her from her home. You lied to her. You won't acknowledge the feelings you very clearly have for her. You won't even fuck her. She's right—you are literally using her as an object to relieve your pain."
"I am doing everything I fucking can to protect her from me."
"Everything you can, Callum? Really? Did you let her go, instead of abducting her? Did you even ask her if shewantedto be protected from you?"
Of course I hadn't.
Liv knew that too.
"If you keep doing this shit, she's going to check out completely. A few years from now, you're going to be mated to a woman who holds your hand and shares your bed but loves and fucks someone else every chance she gets," Liv said matter-of-factly. "You need to stop pretending this doesn't mean anything to you."
"How do I do that?"I didn't even know how to admit that to myself.
"What do you want from her?"
Everything.
I wanted everything from her.
