It feels like a dagger in my chest. I back away to the door, the hurt and the anger warring with one another.
She doesn’t want me here. Of course she doesn’t. But I simply couldn’t control myself when I heard Shathar moan that way.
“I’m sorry.” It hurts even more to say it, because I am not very sorry. “I just… I cannot…” My eyes squeeze closed because I feel as if I might simply explode. “I can’t do this.”
The words are painful, but it’s true. I can’t live my life wondering what Fiona and Shathar are doing behind a closed door while I am alone in my room.
“What do you mean?” asks Fiona, worry in her voice. The sight of her in only her bra and underwear is arresting, so I try to focus on her face.
I wish I knew what I meant, too. But I can’t think straight.
“I don’t know.” I turn my head, wishing I could expel all the emotion boiling up inside me. “But it is too painful.”
Fiona, too, gets out of the bed and approaches me. For a moment, Shathar looks like he may get between us, until he looks at my face. Then he steps aside.
My beloved mate holds her hand up to my cheek.
“I’m sorry it hurts you, Khesan,” she says in a quiet, soothing voice. “But I want to explore this, with both of you. If it is too much for you, then perhaps…” She trails off, lowering her head. “Perhaps it will not work between us.”
The words hit me with blunt force. I turn away from them, unable to control myself any longer. I thought my military training had taught me better than this, but it’s too much. I storm out and down to my own room, then slam the door closed. I’m panting as panic races through me.
Perhaps she is right. But how could I possibly give her up, when she means everything to me? When my whole life led to this, to finding her, to being with her?
I slide down the door until I am sitting on the floor, shaking all over.
Surely there is some solution. Surely this can’t be the end. I couldn’t stand living the rest of my life knowing I gave her up.
Eventually, I drag myself off the floor and get into my bed, though sleep never comes for me.
The next morning, I am loath to go downstairs and confront Fiona and Shathar again. But eventually I have to eat, so I make my way down into the kitchen. Luckily, no one is around. Fiona must have gone to her office to work, and who knows where Shathar is.
I make myself breakfast robotically, then drink some cold coffee. The beverage has grown on me. After a time, I hear the door to the basement open. Shathar steps out, and I wish I could simply evaporate. I don’t want to speak to him again.
He must feel so victorious.
When he comes into the kitchen and sees me, he freezes. We stare at one another, though I can’t read his expression. Eventually, I turn away and lower my fans, knowing that he has won.
“Khesan.”
I’m surprised to hear him say my name. His feet move across the floor until he sits down in the seat across from me.
“What do you want?” I ask, looking down into my coffee.
“I want to speak to you about last night.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” I slam a fist into the table, rattling it. “I have lost, and I accept that.”
Though I don’t. Not really. But I have no choice, because Fiona is right. It is unreasonable of me to demand she never be alone with Shathar, not when she has a mate bond with him, too.
“Ashango,” he says in a calm, soft voice. My head jerks up. This is a word that we reserve for very few on Arshur, typically only a close friend. “You should stay.”
“Why?” I demand. “I would rather spend my life alone than listen to what I listened to last night. To hear moans from behind a closed door.”
Shathar furrows his brow. “I don’t want to win this way. It’s not fair.”
I snort. “There is no fair. None of this has been fair. The gods were not fair in bringing me here, or scenting Fiona.”
His eyes search mine, and I don’t like how it feels like they are seeing inside me.
