“Like a museum collection? You curated my things?”
“Um... ” I see the trap, I refuse to step in it.
The bond changes into fresh anger. “Skylor.”
“I did not discard your life.” My voice roughens because I need her to understand this more than my next breath. “I relocated it." The word sounds colder once it leaves my mouth. "On Layn, when a mate is claimed, her place is with her alpha. Her belongings become part of his household–”
She snaps. “You bought out my lease and moved my entire apartment without asking me.”
“Of course. Most of your things are here. The rest will be replaced with better things.”
The silence after my sentence does not behave like silence. It morphs. Changes from soundless vibrations into the density of pain. Finally, she whispers, “I am your mate. I chose you. I am not denying that.”
My breath stops.
“But being your mate does not mean you can relocate me like office furniture.”
“I did not—” I stop. Because I did exactly that. Not in my mind. Not in my intent. “You are not furniture,” I say.
“Then you shouldn’t have moved me like I was.”
The reason rears its ugly head, I am afraid. Unthinkable. Unfathomable. But true. I am afraid of distance. Of space between my body and hers. Of every door, I cannot break through fast enough if she calls. Of every second in which she might need me, and I do not know. Because for three days she has slept under my hands, taken my knot, laughed into my throat, cursed my nest-building, and made this sterile residence breathe. Because before her, I thought duty had consumed everything in me that could panic. I was wrong.
“I do not know how to keep you safe without holding you close,” I say. The words leave raw. Vulnerable. I dislike both sensations. “Every instinct in me says your apartment was vulnerable, isolated, inadequate. Because the thought of you sleeping there alone, behind locks any competent human could breach, on a mattress unworthy of your spine, with neighbors who would not hear danger until too late—” I stop.
“No, keep going. I want to know what else my apartment was guilty of.”
I close my eyes. “Distance.” She says nothing. “The distance was the worst offense. You were across the city from me. Marked. Newly bonded. My body read that distance as negligence.”
There. The truth. Unadorned. Possibly damning.
Her anger does not vanish. I feel that. But it shifts, catching on the fear beneath my arrogance. “You cannot decide my life for me,” she says.
“I know.”
The admission feels like removing armor in enemy territory.
“Do you?”
I look at her mug. The crack. The wrapped chip. The small broken piece she kept because it mattered. “I am learning.”
“Learn faster.”
A laugh almost escapes me. It does not. “I will try.”
“I need to stay here for a little while.”
I sit up. “That is not acceptable. The apartment is empty. There is nowhere to sit.”
“I am capable of sitting on the floor.”
“I’m coming.” I’m already walking to the door.
“No.” I don’t stop.
She can sense my distress as easily as I can hers. Our rings don’t lie. It’s the best and worst thing about mating.
“Skylor.” I don’t respond. “Give me this.”
