“So few of us are bequeathed such agift—”
“Gift?” I yelped, cutting off Frank. “The theft of our freewill isn’t a gift. If anything, it’s a curse! Clearly, neither August or I wantthis.”
August’s gaze zipped off the fridge and landed onme.
My pulse throbbed everywhere. “Right,August?”
After a beat, he said, “Right.”
Frank’s bushy white eyebrows knit on his forehead. “August hasn’t been back for a day. Maybe if you give yourselves sometime.”
I shook my head, and my long blonde hair unraveled from the knot I’d wound it in and slipped over my bare arms. “Frank, with all due respect, August and I know each other, but it’s not like that between us. It can never be like that betweenus.”
“Why not?” the elderasked.
I startled. Why was Frank being so pigheaded about this? Because pack traditions were sacred to him? Well, they weren’t sacred tome.
“What if I left long enough? Will it fade?” Augustasked.
“Distance dims the strength of the tether, but it won’t make it magically snap. This isn’t like an Alpha bond,children.”
“So only death will stop it?” I mused. “I’m not contemplating dying or killing August,” I added, so they wouldn’t lock me up. I couldn’t lose all my freewill in onenight.
“Good to know.” August shot me a rueful smile that dimmed the insistent pounding inside mybelly.
Great.My stomach was now endowed with an emotional barometer that broadcast August’s mood. My gaze drifted to his stomach. He’d never once clutched it. Did my emotions not register the same way withhim?
His smile waned, and his jaw hardened again. “Is there a way, besides death, to break this bond,Frank?”
“Yes.” Frank leaned back in his chair and shook his head like a teacher facing two petulantchildren.
“How?” Iasked.
“You shouldn’t wantto—”
“How?” August asked, voicefirm.
“If mating bonds aren’tconsummated—”
“Consummated?” Iasked.
“The bond snaps into place through sexualrelations.”
My cheeks lit up like brake lights.Oh. . .
“As I was saying, if they aren’t consummated by the next solstice, the bonddisintegrates.”
Rolling the hem of my sky-blue camisole between my cold fingers, I said, “You’d just have to stay away for six months, August. You were planning on deploying for that long,right?”
Slow seconds passed before he answered, “Right.”
Frank’s features were scrunched in disapproval. “You’d be destroying somethingsacred.”
Pounding on the door made mejump.
“Frank?”Liam.
Oh, crap.I wanted Liam to come in as much as I wanted to share another meal with the vile hunter who’d killed my father, AidanMichaels.
