Ambrose shook his head.
It wasn’t ano. Just anot yet.
I understood that instinct all too well. He would tell me eventually. But like me, he needed time. Time to sift through the fragments. To decide which memories could be spoken aloud and which still needed to stay buried.
For now, the details didn’t matter.
He was here. He was safe.
And he was starving.
My grip on his hand tightened almost imperceptibly as that reality settled fully in my chest. He didn’t have the strength to wait. Not days. Not even hours.
I glanced at Caitlyn, trying to project what I couldn’t yet say aloud.
She’d only just met Ambrose. Mate or not, starving or not, it wasn’t her responsibility to give him anything—not comfort, not understanding, not her body.
But I could.
And I wanted to.
I needed her to know that I didn’t love him more. That I wasn’t choosing him over her. That feeding him didn’t mean I was stepping away from her.
That—
Fuck. This was a fucking mess.
We needed time. Time for Caitlyn to get to know her second mate. Time for her to decide how and when her bond with Ambrose became physical, at a pace that suited both of them. Time for her to come to terms with the fact that there were two of us, and that the love between Ambrose and me had always existed too. Time for her to accept that Ambrose and I would be intimate with each other.
Time for her to decide whether she wanted to share that intimacy with us together or apart.
But right now, all I wanted was enough time to keep him alive.
Chapter 23. Ambrose
“Do you want to tell us what she did to you?” he asked.
Yes, I wanted to say.
I wanted to curl up on the couch and let him hold me while I told him what I remembered. I wanted his fingers twisting my locs, his lips pressed to my temple as he murmured that everything was going to be okay.
Shame coiled in my gut. Because I still wanted that from Blaise, even though my newly discovered mate was sitting across the table from me.
I needed time to digest the last few weeks on my own before letting anyone else in—even if that someone was Blaise. So when I shook my head, I knew he would understand that it wasn’t anever. Just anot now.
His shadows licked gently up my leg.
Gods, how I’d missed his shadows. How I’d missedhim.
His gaze flicked to Caitlyn.
Caitlyn.
My mate.
Ourmate.
And wasn’t it a cruel twist of fate that I was in love with my fated mate’s other mate too?
