It was obvious in every word he said, in every decision. All of his actions had nothing to do with me as a person and everything to do with the fact that we were mates. If I weren’this mate, he wouldn’t give two shits about me. The word “mate” replaced anything else. It could have been anyone. It just happened to be me. And that was the only reason he cared.
Drake’s hand slid away from me as his brow wrinkled in confusion. It might have been funny how clueless he looked if I weren’t so fucking angry at him. He had only started caring about me when the Oracle had forced us together. I was more than a mate, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. He just saw me as an obligation.
“That’s not true—”
“Of course it is,” I interrupted, giving a harsh, frustrated laugh. “Of course it is. Because if you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have treated me the way you did for years.”
This time, he took a slight step back as if he’d been slapped. A flash of savage triumph washed over me as I took in his bewildered expression and confusion.
“I was nice to you,” he protested.
I laughed. “In private. But the second we were in public, you treated me like dirt. Don’t pretend you didn’t. You know it’s true.”
He didn’t answer. He at least had the decency not to lie about it, then. Giving an exasperated, frustrated shake of my head, I took a step back. I was tired of hiding all my emotions behind positivity. I might be a sunny, happy person, but I still had feelings, and I wasn’t going to let Drake walk all over me.
“You know, if you actually cared about me, if you actually wanted a say in what I did now, then maybe you should have done something before you were forced into a mating bond,” I snarled. “Because it sure as hell seems like any of your actionsright now are perpetuated by that, instead of genuine care for me.”
He flinched like I had just reached out and slapped him. I didn’t particularly care.
“Liv, you’re being unreasonable,” he said. He reached out and grabbed me by the arm, squeezing tight. “I’m trying to help you here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to control me.” I gave a hollow laugh as I ran my fingers through my hair, taking a deep breath. “I thought you had a gentle side. Hell, I know you do. I’ve seen it. But trying to draw it out of you is like pulling teeth, and I’m not going to wait around for you to start showing it on your own.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he stared at me, as if he couldn’t fully process what I was saying, as if he couldn’t believe it. I waited for an apology, for something that would show me he had some understanding of what he had done, that he felt some sort of guilt. Hell, I would have accepted an acknowledgment that my feelings were valid.
He simply stared, his mouth opened slightly, not saying anything.
My stomach plummeted, and an overwhelming emptiness and sadness washed over me. He still didn’t get it. I doubted he ever would.
Glowering, I scoffed and shook my head. “I’m going to go find Rachel and Emma,” I said. “Don’t try to stop me.”
Before he could react, I stepped around him and marched off, hands shaking slightly as I tried to get a grip.
I felt his eyes lingering on me even as I refused to turn and look back. I bit back my screams of frustration. All I wanted was for him to understand, but it seemed impossible.
I found Rachel and Emma standing at the edge of the water, muttering to one another as they took in the sight. I moved to stand next to them and sucked in a breath of horror as I looked at what had transpired.
For the first time since I’d arrived at the oasis, I could fully take in the travesty. The lack of running water filled the pavilion with a silence that I hadn’t noticed before, because of all the people. Now, the quiet was almost deafening. The rocks, normally dark and slick from the waterfall, were baked dry. There was not so much as a trickle coming from the mountain where the water cascaded down from.
Seeing it up close sent a chill through me, making it real in a way I wouldn’t have expected. My stomach churned as rage boiled up in my throat like bile.
The wraith had done this. The wraith and Azaret together. Somehow, they had managed to take the purest, most peaceful places in the entire town and corrupt them, turning them into desolate places full of misery and despair. Rage bristled through me as my wolf snarled. A calm certainty washed over me, a lull in the tempest of anger. Somehow, we were going to get our oasis back. We were going to make Azaret and the sand wraith pay for this.
“Hey,” Rachel said as I came to stand next to her. Emma didn’t take her eyes away from the oasis as she gave me a short nod. “Not a pretty sight, is it?”
I shook my head, words unable to articulate exactly how I felt. “Any idea how it happened?”
“Magic of some sort,” Rachel said. She scowled as she gestured at it. “This is the type of thing that makes people hate witches, even if it wasn’t us. It happened to a normal stream the other week. Emma and I were able to get it restarted, but this is different. What we did then isn’t working. I think it’s because they did something to the spring itself.”
Rachel took a deep breath, frowning. I knew Rachel well enough to know what she was thinking.
“We’re going to have to go to the tunnels, aren’t we?” I said.
“Looks that way,” Rachel replied.
Emma hadn’t said anything. She just stared out at the oasis, her eyes narrowed, fury pulsating off her.
“You all right?” I asked Emma.
