“Elodie!” I called out as I scrambled from the bed, unsure where the sound had come from.
Then I heard it.
Crying.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I flung the bathroom door open to find her hunched over in front of the sink, eyes streaming with tears.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” My hands went to her shoulders with new familiarity. I studied her distraught face in the mirror, worried she’d had another round of heat pains, though… she still felt cool to the touch.
She sobbed, curling inward as if trying to disappear as she wordlessly shook her head. I just held her, bracketing her smaller body with my own, waiting for her to regain her words. Eventually, she turned and burrowed into me, and that’s when I noticed them in the mirror.
Mate marks.
The most gorgeous sight I’d ever seen, sprawling in lazy curlicues over her entire back, not an inch of skin left unchanged. My mouth dropped open as I traced each line with hungry eyes. She was mine. Forever. The proof was there in stunning forest green, a delicately all-encompassing tattoo, which meant my own had to be somewhere.
I was so awestruck by the sight, it took my brain several moments to catch up to theutterly distraught woman in my arms.
The realization was a bucket of ice water over my head, and I tried not to stiffen when I realized she was upset because of the marks.
She didn’t want this.
We’d spent nearly six days fucking each other senseless, sharing every intimate act a couple could, andshe didn’t want this.
Bitter acid burned on my tongue as I let her cry her eyes dry on my shoulder, desperately trying to convince myself otherwise.
But I was hollow inside.
Even my wolf was painfully silent as we consoled our mate for the sheer fact of her being ours. Somehow, over the last week, I’d let myself hope—no,believe—that she wanted thisrelationship as much as I did. That I wasn’t alone in my feelings, that they were shared, even if she was scared.
But while I’d seen her marks and taken an elated trip around the moon, she’d broken into a million tiny pieces.
And the longer I stood there, my own insides hollowed out with pain at her pain, I realized… I couldfeel itin my chest.
Her sorrow. Her sense of loss at what this meant.
I was feeling her emotions, and I needed to shut that shit down right now. Because I couldn’t stand it for another second. I thought… I thought I’d understood what it meant to have a mate, to feel that intimate, soul-deep connection before. I thought I was ready.
Goddess, I’dcravedit with Elodie.
But this?
Knowing in my soul that she wanted nothing to do with this bond, even after all we’d shared, how our relationship had grown… It was crushing me from the inside out.
I closed my eyes, and with every bit of strength I possessed, I forced the bond shut.
Chapter 51
Elodie
Ihated myself in that moment. I was letting him comfort me, and it was so fucking unfair, I could barely breathe. But I clung to him anyway, letting him anchor me in the storm that was my own thoughts.
I hated myself for it, but I held him tighter as I mourned my career, my calling, my sisterhood. I mourned a chapter of my life that I hadn’t been ready to let go of yet.
The thing was, I thought I was ready. I thought I knew, had prepared, had mentally accepted the likelihood that by the time my heat ended, I could have been marked.
I thought I knew. But I didn’t know shit.
