“Yes...no, wait. I need to know, you need to know, if what we’re feeling is real. I’ve saved you, helped you, and you can’t tell me that that doesn’t impact the way you feel for me. You don’t need me anymore. You never really needed me in the first place. Feelings change now that you don’t need me anymore.” Dylan tried to explain, but nothing came out right, leaving his fingertips resting above hers. He still couldn’t let her go all the way. If only things were different. If only he wasn’t her bodyguard.
“It won’t.” Her confidence almost made him completely change his mind and take back everything he’d said.
“You don’t know that. You could have, like, Stockholm syndrome or something. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Seen what happen, Dylan?”
“The people we save…fall in love with us and,” Dylan said, clenching his jaw, “it's not love. It was never love.”
“Dylan, don't ruin this.” She was begging now, and that broke the last string that connected his heart together.
“I’m not. If it’s meant to be, it will be. You’ve had doubts and concerns about me working for you and if that's impacted my emotions towards you...if we separate, leave it to fate, then we will both know if what we have isn’t —”
“Dylan, I may not need you anymore. But I want you. Don’t you know that?” she tried persuading him. She ran her hands over his shoulders, trying to calm him down, but it wouldn’t work. He had to let her live. To have the chance to choose.
“Okay,” Flora whispered. “I can’t convince you. Your mind’s made up.”
She yanked her clothes out of the closet without any care she’d shown her clothes before.
She turned on him, “Who put you up to this? Jackson? Felix? Wouldn’t want a big, bad scary panther in your ranks anyways, right?” Her fake smile was punishing. The hurt glazed across her face was another blow to his already torn heart.
“You know that’s not what this is about. No, this was my decision. You know I’m right. We need time.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m gone, outta your hair."
He had weeks to accept this outcome, but he still hadn’t truly. To expect her to within minutes wasn’t realistic. “I thought we —we’d survive. I was wrong.”
She stormed out, the door slamming behind her. Leaving him in his room filled with her scent. He couldn’t help the tears that streamed freely down his face. He gripped his chest where his heart was and let out a silent scream. Fuck, that hurt. That hurt so damn bad. What if's played hopscotch in his mind as he got up to lock his bedroom door. He didn’t want to see anyone. He couldn’t stop the hurt spewing from his heart.
“Dylan?” Felix called out on the opposite side of the door. Dylan wanted to be mean, nasty, and tell him to fuck off for his terrible advice on letting Flora go and having true love bring her back. But Felix was right, and Felix didn’t deserve to feel the pain he was feeling.
“I can’t.”
“Okay,” Felix replied, walking away from the door. Hopefully, the rest of his Pack would let him wallow in his sadness for as long as he needed.
34
DYLAN
Dylan hadn’t felt this kind of heartbreak before. The soul-wrenching-deteriorating-from-the-inside-out type. He could hardly breathe through the pain at this point. It’d only been three days since Flora left. He cried like a damn baby. His heart was truly broken.
“Dylan!” A voice came from the other side of the door, which was swiftly opened by River. “What the hell, Dylan?” he asked, shutting the door behind him. A door he might have well kept open because his ass was leaving.
“No, River.”
“No, Dylan, it’s been three days and you actually smell like pure ass,” he said, taking a step back from the stench.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dylan mumbled, turning his back. The anger and confusion steaming off the younger wolf was a mix Dylan couldn’t quite figure out.
“Why did she leave?”
“I asked her to.”
“You love her, though. Why would you let someone go when you love them, and they love you?” River asked.
“It’s not that simple.”
Of course, it wasn’t. If it were, he wouldn’t be on the verge of a depressive episode, would he?
