Page 19 of Bonded By Tea and Tarot

“You knew and…” Her eyebrows pinch and she looks down at her hands, fingering the splint on her injured wrist.

My heart plummets. It’s as I feared. She feels that I abandoned her when she needed me most. She might not have been able to scent me, but she sensed our connection somehow.

“I’m so sorry, Siobhan. I would have stayed if I could. I’ll forever regret not at least trying to stay with you, even if you didn’t know who I was to you then.” Her pupils are slightly dilated, and her breathing is picking up. Am I scaring her? “I can go if you’re not comfortable.” Saying those words is like tearing my heart out, but I force myself to anyways.

She shakes her head no, but her scent is turning bitter. Aury turns from the stove, flicking the burners off and setting down the spatula. Then he’s tucking himself in between our bodies, his back to me, cradling the uninjured side of her jaw in his hand.

I stand and take a couple steps back, intending to give them some room, but a whine tears from her throat as I put distance between us. I freeze, and Aury holds up one hand, which I take as further indication to not move. Her fingers are clutching his biceps, creating little indents where they dig into his skin.

“What’s going on in your head, Moonbeam?” he whispers. “Please, talk to me.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers in reply. “It feels like too much, too fast. And I can’t think right, my head…”

Aury nods slowly and strokes one hand down her long hair. “You’re overwhelmed?”

She nods, then winces, and I clench my hands into fists to prevent myself from tearing her from his hold and cradling her in my arms. That’s not what she wants or needs right now.

I’m not what she needs right now, much as that hurts to admit.

“Why don’t we all exchange numbers?” Aury says, still facing her. “You can take some space, sort out your thoughts, then decide if you want to meet up or not.”

She’s nodding, slowly this time, before he’s done speaking. I pull out my phone and pass it to the beta when he steps out from between us, allowing me to see her clearly again. My alpha instincts are bristling at the fact that he’s doing my job instead of me, but I force the impulses down. She’s not my omega, not yet, and I need to respect her autonomy if I have any hope of that changing.

Aury puts his number in, then offers it to Siobhan to do the same. I sigh in relief when she accepts it; I wasn’t sure she would.

“I’ve been staying with her while she recovers,” Aury says, handing my phone back to me. “Feel free to reach out if you’d like.”

My chin jerks in confirmation, my jaw clenched too tight with nerves to reply beyond that. I suck in one last breath of her scent, regretting my part in souring it, then I turn to leave.

“Wait,” Siobhans husky voice stops me, and I angle my shoulders back to look at her. “What’s your name?” Her blue eyes sink into me, guileless, unaware of the way I’m raging against myself right now.

“Hayden,” I manage to rasp out. “Hayden Rivera, they/he.”

“Thank you, Hayden,” she says, but I can’t reply to that.

She has nothing to thank me for, not yet. Walking away from her is like tearing my soul in half. I wonder for a moment if I’m having a heart attack as I drop into my car, but no. It’s the pull of a scent matched alpha and omega. It goes against our natures to put distance between us like this.

I hope she’s not feeling the same pain I am.

When I get home, Jayce is there waiting for me. Through the window on the front door I can see his burly form and blond head pacing up and down the hallway.

“Where were you?” he says the moment I step inside. But then he freezes, nostrils flaring, and I cringe. I should have texted him. “You went to see her?”

I nod with a resigned sigh. “Yeah.”

“And? What happened? Is she okay?” He fires questions at me, and I hold up a hand to slow him down.

“She’s recovering. The same beta that was with her when we arrived at the accident is staying with her now. His name is Aury,” I say, my brows pinching when my heart flutters thinking about him. It’s not a spike of jealousy or anger, like I would have expected.

Jayce’s eyes dart between mine, and he immediately reads me for filth. “You like him.”

I shake my head and turn away, walking into the kitchen to get our own dinner started. “I don’t know either of them, but yeah. The way he was with her… it was good. It was—” I clench my jaw, teeth grinding together, but I force the words out, “I think it’s what she needs right now. And… I’m drawn to him, too. Not as much as her, but still.”

“Do you think he’s a scent match, too?” Jayce asks, crossing his arms so his biceps bulge as he leans against the counter across from me.

I shrug. “Not sure. I couldn’t get a whiff of him with her scent covering the place.”

Jayce nods, emotions flickering across his face. Guilt twists in my stomach, and I try to assuage it by sharing more with him.