But he takes another step back.
We lose contact, the charged energy between us fades slightly, the passion pulling away.
My mind takes advantage of it, snapping back into focus as I blink in disbelief at what just happened.
"I hate you," I throw at him, overwhelmed by emotions so intense I feel like I might collapse under their weight.
"Liar," he says dryly.
Then Eliano takes another step back. That step hurts almost as much as my own words.
"I don’t want you anymore! I won’t change my mind. No matter what you do. You could even beg!" I scream.
His lips press together, a dark grimace flashes across his face. Then he answers firmly.
"I never beg."
He turns away, goes over to the photo album with our pictures lying on the windowsill, and tears out a page, then grabs his phone and key card, walks to the door, opens it, and leaves without looking back.
What the fuck just happened?
I sink to my knees as my body starts to shake, darkness closing in on me again.
Something in my chest feels like it’s tearing, pulling, splitting apart. I’m losing everything, something slipping away, something that’s an integral part of me…
What did I do?
My anger filled my entire body, my entire life. It swallowed everything, devoured me, and in the process, it devoured Eliano too.
ELIANO
The few hundred feet I cover as I step out of Unit 71 feel like walking barefoot over shards of glass.
The infamous True Mate Rejection.
So it happened to me.
I am hollow inside. Ripped apart. The pain is unbearable. There is nothing left. The life I had just started building with Salt is collapsing right now, piece by piece.
My mind, acting on pure self-preservation, twists back toward its base alpha nature: action. Focus on doing. Cut out the noise. Absolute concentration, sharp as a thin blade. It slices through my pain-filled existence and helps me line up everything that needs to be handled.
I turn into a machine, a human robot. Task. Execute. Don’t think.
The first thing I do is head toward Unit 4. I approach quietly, but before I knock, I instinctively glance through the window and see it.
Bashir and Fred are having sex.
But it is not just fucking. They are making love. I should not be watching, but I do, my throat tightening painfully with longing and grief that hit me before I brutally turn it off. I have not even left the island yet, and already I am gone from it.
Bashir holds Fred’s face in his hands, kissing him now and then with a depth of tenderness I have completely lost my chance at.
Fred’s arms are wrapped around him in a tight, intimate embrace filled with deep devotion.
A brief, tiny wave of happiness washes over me as I realize that things are working out for them, that despite the trauma they went through, healing is finding its way between them.
And me? Will that be my reality one day?
If we’re fated mates, it will be. But when? How long? Will we ever regain the innocence of first ignition between us?
