I stare at him for a moment longer before I finally understand.
He does not want to do this himself. As much as I long for him to use his cock on me, to get on top of me and fill me up, that’s not what he wants.
Instead, he has brought me this facsimile. A tool to help dispel my heat.
Instinctively, I shrink back into my nest. I don’t want a cold piece of glass inside me. No, I wanthim, and this is nothing but an ugly reminder of what I can’t have.
“Selene?” Harry asks, stepping closer with the phallus in his hand. “What’s wrong?”
I’m crying again, as hard as I try to make it stop. But now any hope I had is shattered.
Harry doesn’t want me the way I want him. Not at all. He’s willing to go out and buy a stand-in so he doesn’t have to do it.
“Please take it away,” I manage to say between hiccuping sobs, waving a hand at it.
Harry glances down at the glass phallus in his hand, then back at me, brows furrowed in confusion. He tucks it behind him again, hiding it from sight.
“What is it?” he asks, coming closer. I shrink back even more because the last thing I want is his pity on top of it all. “I’m not going to hurt you with it. I’m trying to help.”
I don’t even have words to describe how I feel—the disappointment, the rejection. I know it was entitled of me, foolish of me, to hope. To want. To crave.
Harry will never reciprocate my feelings for him. I know that now, but the reality of it is crushing.
“Please,” I finally manage to say, and point at the door. His eyebrows fly high on his forehead. “I need to be alone. I don’t…”
I can’t even say the rest.I don’t want to see it. I want to pretend this never happened. Let me live in the false world where you want me like I want you.
Harry searches my face until I turn it away. Then, he shakes his head and retreats from the room, and I know I am a worthless, ungrateful beast. He is trying to help the only way he knows how.
It’s not his fault that he doesn’t desire me, and I shouldn’t punish him, but I can’t stand to see his wonderful face right now. So I get up and close the door behind him.
HAROLD
I still don’t know what went wrong.
I thought the dildo would be the perfect thing to help Selene through this. She needs an alpha’s knot, which I can’t provide for her. Even if I could… it would be wrong to take advantage of her in such a precarious position. She can’t help her body’s needs.
But somehow, this was all a phenomenally poor choice on my part. Selene pushes the door shut behind me, and then on the other side, I hear her crying begin anew.
What have I done?
I sit outside with Sadie, studying the dildo before I decide to toss it with the trash. I don’t think the glassmaker will want it back.
At least the blanket was well-received. That was the one good thing I did before, somehow, I ruined everything.
Selene doesn’t emerge from the bedroom for many more hours, so I begin cooking dinner. Of course, I prepare it with lots of butter, but still, she doesn’t come out.
“Selene, would you like to eat?” I say at the door.
“Yes. Sorry.” I hear her pad across the room to the knob, which she turns as she opens it. Her face is pink, her eyes spiderwebbed with red. She walks past me to the dining room table, where I serve beef stew with fresh bread.
Selene eats in silence, so I do too, unsure of what to say. When she’s finished, she gathers up the dishes and takes everything to the tub out back to be cleaned. I sit at the table, ruminating.
I wish I could fix what I’ve done.
In the middleof the night, I awaken to the sound of Selene keening. I hurry getting out of bed, then come to the door of the bedroom. She’s in her nest, curled up in a ball, touching herself with what I can only describe as desperation.
I get into the nest with her, and she opens her eyes. There’s fear there, despair.
