“Don’t do that. Don’t look sad, okay? I can’t bear it.”
She lifted a hand, tilting her head back as if sheer force of will could suck the tears back into her tear ducts. Knowing Lyna, she probably could. “Sorry. Dust in my eye.”
“Uh-huh. Admit it, you’re going to miss me,” I teased, falling back on my usual coping mechanisms, though they didn’t seem to fit me anymore. The joke was the same, but I had changed somewhere along the past weeks.
“No, I’m not going to miss you.”
What the fuck, bitch? Just like that, I’m dead to you?
“Because I’m not going anywhere, and you’re still my best friend. You’re still dragging your mated ass out of bed to train with me before the sun.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling silly for jumping to conclusions.
“What did you expect me to say? Good on you, go ride off into the sunset? Ha. We’re lifers.” She stretched both arms overhead, then leaned back, idly bumping her heels against the edge of the mattress. “So, how was the big guy in the sack?”
I nearly choked on my own tongue, it was so out of character a question for my stoic partner.
For my best friend.
“That bad, eh? Pity. I’m sure you can teach him what you like over the centuries.”
“No, you psycho, it wasn’t bad at all, at least…”
All the laughter disappeared from her expression as she leaned forward intently now, not missing the play of sadness on my face that I’d tried to hide. “What happened?”
“He treated me like a queen. No, like his own personal goddess. But the second I realized I had marks, I kind of had a breakdown. It was like that one moment when my whole life was permanently altered. I cried. A lot. And he held me until I let it all out, then he just left. Like nothing. Like all of it was nothing. I don’t know where he is, or if he’s even coming back.” I couldn’t shrug, couldn’t make light of the real fear he wasn’t going to come back.
It hadn’t even occurred to me before when deciding to spend my heat with him that I could bond him, lose my sisterhood, andend up completely alone.
Well, not completely. A ghost of a smile found me at the memory of Fiona and Olivia riding to the rescue earlier.
“Fucking alphas, I swear to Goddess.” She rolled her eyes. “He’ll be back. Gael used to pull that shit when he was a pup. They don’t know how to process emotion, and it’s not your jobto teach him. Once he runs it out of his system, he’ll be back and beating your door down, that’s a fact. He’s not dumb enough to let you get away, no matter how you reacted.”
“I wish I was so sure. I always thought it was my choice whether we’d be together. It kind of… Well, it sounds bad, but it didn’t really occur to me that my choice would be taken away.”
She paused, considering.
“Elodie, I love you to death, but you are so stuck on the idea that everything is in our control all the time. And I don’t see how, because that’s the opposite of our entire lives. Nothing about being a maiden is under our control. Hell, we don’t get to choose where we eat or sleep or who we’re partnered with. What missions we get to take… Literally nothing. How did you make it through all that and think that you’d get to choose whether your heart got involved?”
“I do have a say in whether or not we complete the bond.”
“Of course you do. No decent alpha is going to force you to accept his bite if your wolf deems him unworthy or unsuitable. So, yeah, you get to decide if you’re with him. But loving him? You already do. I’ve known you most of your life, and I can see it plain as day. Can’t you?”
I chewed my bottom lip as I considered what she said. It was all true; we didn’t have much control in our lives as maidens, almost none. Hell, I wasn’t even going to get this assignment originally, because Galyna and I weren’t the senior team next on the roster to go out. Ifshehadn’t had a familial connection with Gael, we wouldn’t even have left the enclave yet. I’d never have met Valens.
If that wasn’t fate, what was?
Looking back, I could see the ways I’d been moved around without my consent all my life, and my fighting against it was a defense mechanism. If I pretended I was in charge, it madeit easier to say, “This was my choice,” when really, I was just making the best of shitty hand after shitty hand.
Orphaned? Look at me, I got adopted. I even got a sister in the bargain.
Shitty adoptive parents who don’t actually want or love you? I got to leave to go off on a grand adventure to the enclave.
No control over my life or decisions? I decided I’d be the most excellent maiden ever to live. I’d go down in history as the best.
It was all just one big, childish lie I’d constructed to make myself feel better about being powerless my entire life. If I could personally muscle my way through it all with a smile, it didn’t count. It didn’t bruise me, didn’t leave scars.
Maybe it was time to be honest about it all.
