It wasn't courage. It was the absence of anything worth staying for. There was a difference, but I wasn't about to explain it to the woman who'd taken my mate.
"Thank you," I said instead, because politeness was armour and I'd been wearing it for two years.
The silence that followed was unbearable. Three people standing in a hotel corridor, the air between us thick with everything unsaid. The bond scar throbbed in my chest like a wound freshly reopened, and I could feel the magic stirring beneath it, agitated, pressing against the walls of my well in a way it never had before.
"The briefing's at eight tomorrow," Nathan said, his tone cool and professional. "We'll go over team assignments then. Cover protocols."
Team assignments.
Right. Because of course we were on the same team. Clearly the universe had decided that breaking me once wasn't enough.
"Great," I said.
The silence stretched. Nathan's jaw tightened—that little muscle that twitched when he was uncomfortable. Megan shifted her weight. They were waiting for me to say something else. To ask how they'd been, to acknowledge the situation, to be normal.
I couldn't.
The pain in my chest was spreading now. Down my arms. Into my stomach. Like the bond scar was a wound that had never properly healed, and seeing Nathan had torn it open again.
"I should—" I gestured vaguely toward my room.
"Of course," Nathan said quickly. "We'll see you tomorrow." He turned and went into their bedroom. Megan hung back, watching me.
I turned around but could still feel her eyes on my back. I focused on keeping my spine straight, my pace even, mybreathing controlled as I fumbled with the key card. My hands were shaking so badly it took three tries.
The lock clicked. I pushed the door open.
"Ellie," Megan said quietly.
I stopped. Didn't turn around.
"I didn't know you'd be here," she said. "If I had—"
"It's fine," I said.
My voice was flat. Dead. I didn't care. I stepped into my room and closed the door, making it two steps before my legs gave out. I caught myself against the wall, hands flat against the plaster, breath coming in short gasps. The bond scar was on fire. Not metaphorically. It burned, sharp and insistent, like someone had pressed a brand against my sternum. I pressed my palm against it, but that just made it worse. Seeing him brought it all back. The certainty. The recognition. My mate. The rejection, the way he'd chosen Megan instead.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest. Grief and humiliation crashed over me like a wave, sharp and vicious and impossible to ignore, but I didn't cry. I'd stopped crying over Nathan a long time ago. Crying required hope. Required the belief that things could be different, better. I didn't have that anymore.
So I just sat there on the floor of my hotel room, feeling everything at once. I'd volunteered for this mission because I didn't care if I survived. Dying twenty five thousand years in the past seemed easier than living with this emptiness, but now Nathan was here. Now I'd have to see him every day, have to work with him and the woman he’d chosen over me and pretend I was fine. Pretend he hadn’t destroyed me.
And the worst part was that seeing him had woken something up. The numbness was gone. The careful distance I'd built between myself and the world had cracked wide open. I could feel again.
And god, I wished I couldn't.
I don't know how long I sat there, but it was long enough for my legs to go numb and the light outside to fade from grey to deep blue. Eventually, I stood. Unpacked mechanically. Hung up my clothes. Lined up my toiletries in the bathroom. Practical things that stopped me thinking about tomorrow and the briefing. About sitting in a room with Nathan and pretending I was whole.
I should eat something. I'd skipped lunch. Skipped breakfast too, probably. I couldn't remember. Instead, I lay down on the bed, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling. The hotel wasn't busy. Tourist season was months away and I could hear everything. Pipes creaking. Muffled voices through the walls.
And then—
A thump.
I went still.
Another thump. Rhythmic. Steady.
The headboard. Next door.
