“What's wrong with you?” he asks, still whispering.
“She isn't angry.”
He scoffs. “That's a good thing.”
“She should be angry. She should care. She should want to –“
“To what, Cross? Come to you? Talk to you? Get your shit together. You're an alpha. An important one. People need to see you strong, not having a tantrum because you don't like how a girl looks at you.”
“She's not just a girl,” I grit through clenched teeth.
“You're right,” Parker says quietly. “She's the girl you rejected. I don't know what you expected, but do whateverthisis later.”
Eugenia blinks at me and looks away, a clear dismissal that causes rage that I have no right to feel to crawl through me. I pull away from Parker and cross the courtyard. People move out of my way, parting and giving me a wide path. The superficial welcome speech dyes out, or I just can't hear it over the rush ofblood in my ears. Within seconds I'm standing in front of her, breathing heavily, demanding her attention. Her first words to me do not improve the situation.
“What do you want?”
What do I want?What do I want?I don't know. For her to look at me? For her to see me? To see something other than a blank stare when I look into her eyes. She's my mate, for fuck sake. MyGoddess-blessed mate.She should feel something.
But why? My shoulders slump when it occurs to me that she has no reason to look at me, much less feel anything when she does it. I banished any reason she would have.
What is wrong with me?
“I...” I falter.
“You what?”
I take a very long, very deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent and making the turmoil inside me sizzle. “I don't know.”
“Well,” she sighs, “Go do whatever this is somewhere else.” She looks past me to raise her brows again at someone behind me.
“Come on, Cross,” Parker says. “Don't make it worse.”
Don't make it worse. How could I make this any worse? I let him pull me away from her, but every inch of distance feels like miles of dissonance.
Parker drags me back to my room. Part of the arrangements for my stay here is that Parker and I maintain separate rooms. It doesn't matter. I'll sleep where I want, and so will he.
He shuts the door behind us and flops back onto my bed. “What is wrong with you?”
He can keep asking, but I don't think I'll have an answer.
“She dismissed me.”
“So what?” he asks. “Why does that matter?”
“Because she's...” I trail off. I can't finish the sentence. She's not mine. I have no right to her. Her dismissal is even more valid than it would have already been.
“Look, Cross. It doesn't matter that she's here. You're not here to fix things with her, right? You're here to fix things with you. You're here to heal the path to your wolf because your pack depends on it. Don't make this about anything else. She dismissed you. You earned that. Move on.”
I lean against the back of the door and slide down it. “Why is she here?”
Parker sighs. “Probably the same reason you are.”
Guilt slams into me. She's here because of me.
“You can't help that she's here. Ignore her and do the work you came here to do. That's what she's going to do. She isn't here to mend things with you. Whatever the reason is that she's here, it isn't you.”
I close my eyes against the truth. “I can't.”
