“What?” she returns, sitting up in bed now. “Do you really want me to pretend I’m fine with all of this?”
“No, I don’t. I just want you to stop assuming the worst of me.”
She scoffs. “If you want a list of reasons why that’s not exactly easy, I can give you one.”
I clench my jaw and take a breath. “I know what I did.”
“Do you? Because you keep acting like we can just skip ahead to the part where everything is all good. Where any of this makes sense.”
Without thinking, I stand, feeling dragged over by the bond. She stiffens as I take a few steps closer, gripping the blanket. But I force myself to stop.
“I’m not asking for miracles, Lila. I’m asking for a chance.”
She looks at me like she doesn’t trust a word coming out of my mouth, and while I want her to, I know she has every right not to. Her gaze hardens slightly, as if trying not to show any other feelings.
“I didn’t want this bond.”
“Neither did I, but I chose it as much as you did,” I mumble, glancing at the empty side of the bed with subtle longing.
“You’re the one who made it happen regardless,” she retorts, not easing up. “And now you’re the Alpha because of it. You always seem to get everything you want.”
“Except the one thing that matters.”
The insinuation lingers like ice between us, and she scowls. “Don’t say things like that.”
While our eyes remain locked, the bond between us seems to hum, but as tempting as it is, her resistance stops me from acting on it.
As hard as I’m trying to keep it all in, I feel strung out and stretched thin all at the same time, all the while those urges claw at me from the inside.
I glance at the bed again, and when the thought of returning to the couch makes me internally recoil, I move closer.
Of course, Lila tenses, staring at me like she’s bracing herself for the harshest treatment imaginable. The second her breathing changes, my heart rams against my ribs.
“I’m not going to touch you,” I mutter, forcing the words out as I lower myself onto the bed and turn onto my back. A quiet breath escapes me, “… Not unless you want me to.”
“I don’t,” she bites back, almost too quickly.
I tried.
My inner wolf stirs at the faint tremble in her scent and the way her pulse flutters in her wrist closest to me. She’s fighting herself just as much as she’s fighting me.
I know I should leave it here, given how she’s already tense just from the proximity, but there’s something about that invisible tether that has me wanting to be honest. It’s a bad idea, but the words slip out before I can swallow them.
“I wanted you,” I say quietly, well aware of just how vulnerable the words are. “Back then, after that night. It wasn’t just because we were drunk.”
Lila freezes, but I continue before she can cut me off.
“I wanted you so badly that it scared the shit out of me, and I handled it like a coward.”
The words seem to hit her hard, but she still doesn’t say anything. I notice as her hands clench, though.
“You were right earlier,” I murmur, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I didn’t know what the rejection did to you, and at the time, I didn’t want to. I thought pushing you away and pursuing the military would make it fade, but it never did.”
After a moment of quiet, she swallows hard. “Don’t try to make it sound like a tragic accident. You made a decision, and you stuck by it for four years.”
“I know,” I say, trying so hard to contend with the guilt in silence. “But I’m trying to make a different one now.”
“It’s too late…”
