Rage flares inside me and forces my magic up again, pushing against hers to try and break through. For a second, it works enough to make her falter, but she refocuses, and her magic slams back down harder.
Pain spikes through me, sharp and disorienting as I taste blood on my tongue. My vision blurs as my limbs go heavy. Little by little, my body stops responding. No. No, no—
I grit my teeth as my strength slips, and my gaze locks onto hers with fury and defiance. I won’t. I can’t.
But darkness borders my vision faster than I can stop it.
Zane.
The thought barely forms before everything drops out from under me, and the last thing I see is her standing there, waiting with a flicker of fear in her eyes.
Chapter 25 - Zane
I’m giving her space, and it feels like the hardest thing I’ve done in a long time.
Every instinct in me tries to fight it, pushing and demanding that I go after her, drag her back, and fix whatever just broke between us. It would be an easy urge to give in to, but I don’t.
I’ve already tried forcing it, and all it did was make things worse.
So I stay alone in the house, pacing several times before forcing myself to stop. I drag a hand down my face and exhale hard.
“She’s not leaving,” I mutter under my breath, hoping that if I say it long enough, I might actually believe it.
She said it through the bond, clear enough that even I couldn’t twist it into something else. That doesn’t mean I’m not on edge, and it doesn’t mean I don’t feel the distance and the tension still lingering between us like something unresolved.
I eventually drop onto the edge of the chair and lean forward, forearms bracing against my knees.
Think…that’s what I need to do instead of rushing and pushing.
I already know she’s not wrong, and the realization has been making it harder for me to breathe.
Naia isn’t just being stubborn for the sake of it, and she’s not fighting me because she enjoys it.
She’s fighting because she has to, because everything she’s ever been taught and has ever known is wrapped up inproving herself. In surviving, and being more than what they reduced her to.
And at the same time, I’ve been standing here, telling her to just let it go as if it were that easy. As if I didn’t spend years doing the same damn thing in my own way.
With a huffed breath, I shake my head in utter disbelief at myself.
I left. That’s how I dealt with it.
I walked away from Wraith Peak, from the expectations and the weight of it all, to build something new instead. Rather than force myself into a version of myself I never wanted to be just to fit into the pack hierarchy, I found others like me, and I did it myself.
But Naia never got that chance. She stayed and endured it, and now I’m asking her to drop it like it doesn’t still have its hooks in her.
Of course she’s pushing back…of course she doesn’t trust it.
Instead of guiding her through it, I’ve been pushing change on her and expecting her to simply get it. I’ve been telling her to trust me without giving her any credible reason to do so.
Leaning back, I stare up at the ceiling and take another deep breath. “I’m an idiot.”
I’ve been projecting and assuming that what worked for me is what she should want too, but it’s not. Not entirely, anyway.
Naia has her own wounds, her own reasons, and a fight only she understands. If I keep trying to force her to abandon it all, I’m going to lose her.
The thought alone is enough to make my inner wolf recoil in disgust and anger, prepared to do anything just to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Clenching my jaw, I know for certain that’s not an option. Not after the bond, or after the way she looks at me when she drops her guard for half a second. Not after I know how it feels to have her close.
