What I amfeelingisn’t the effects of fate or a divine being. No, it’s the side effects of a broken psyche drowning beneath a decade of failures.
We aren’tmates.
I’m not here to question the existence of the concept or the will of who decides pairings. I know deep in my heart that my reaction to him isn’t the result of fate, but of desperation. Ordus is attractive, strong, and has been gentle with me in a way I forgot was possible.
Whether he’s lying to me or he genuinely believes it to be true, whatever it is, it’s not because we’re mates. He’s got it wrong.
Ordus winces like I’ve struck him. I almost feel guilty for it. The reaction is more extreme than the times I really did stab him, and those cracks widen. His guilt and self-loathing aren’t oozing out anymore—it’s pouring, spilling down my paling skin to pool at my torn feet.
“I’m sorry.” His shoulders fall, dejection thick in his voice. “There is nothing I can do.”
“Let me go,” I whisper, frowning at the building pain in my elbow and fingers. I massage my shoulder and tricep muscles. “Return me to the house.”
He tips his head to the side to study me. “You’re like that bird that repeats the same words.”
“A parrot?”
“Yes, yes.” He sighs, eyes brightening at my amusement. “Let go of me. Take me home. Don’t touch me.”
Is he…teasing me? What the fuck? “Probably because that’s what I want,” I snap.
I gasp when a tentacle wraps around my bad arm and does a weird, warming, puckering thing that distracts me from the pain,
“Then I suggest you find new desires, mate.” The creases around his eyes soften.
“No, Ordus.” I shake my head slowly. If there’s one thing he’s said I believe to be true, it’s that he’ll never let me go—the jury’s still out about my safety. He needs to understand staying here will kill me. “You care about me, right?”
“Of course.” He nods, brow wrinkling in annoyance that I’m even suggesting he doesn’t. “More than anything.”
His answer tips my axis. I believe him at the same time I reel at the blatant manipulation.
I’d rather be a cynic than be made a fool of again.
“Then you can’t keep me down here. I’ll grow crazy. I need food and water,” I insist.
A piercing pain shoots through my stomach at the reminder. The last time I was deprived of food and water, it was because Tommy thought I embarrassed him at dinner because I reached over someone to get something. It was so mundane, I can’t remember who or what was involved.
Ordus tenses like he’s about to get up.
“Humanfood,” I correct before he can catch fish again.
He falters, lips pursed, hesitating as he glances between me and the cavern. Slowly, like he’s scared I might bolt if he moves too quickly, he offers me his hand. “Come.”
The tentacle caresses my leg. I swallow. “Where are you taking me?”
“Land.”
14
Ordus
“We’re not gonna fit.”
“We’ll fit,” I assure her.
It’ll be a tight squeeze—it already is without my mate clinging to me, a fact that has my purr doubling in volume.
Cindi, my mate, the human who despises every part of me, is holding me like her life depends on it.
