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“I’m not the love of your life, Damian!”

“You think Opal was? Because trust me, she was not.”

“You said you loved her.”

“I grew to love her. I value what we had together. But the kind of love that you and I had, Leona? What I had with her, it doesn’t compare.”

“You pick a funny time to say these things to me,” I said. “You had time to win me back, you know, but you… it’s like Vincent said, you take me for granted. You always have.”

“Win you back?” he said. “I was supposed to be winning you back while I was burying my wife and the mother of my children?”

“She was cremated.”

“You know what I mean,” he said. “That was supposed to be my focus, right then? Because what I tried to say was that we should take time, and we both agreed, and if you hadn’t fucked my goddamned brother, now would be the time I’d be ready to start trying to… kindle things between us. If I have to make up for the past, then now is when I’d finally have the ability to even think of doing that. But when I look at you, I think of you with him, and I can’t.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Damian.”

“So, that’s that? You’re just going to throw this away? We’ve been waiting over a decade for each other, and you’re just done because I was preoccupied after my wife died?”

“You think that’s what you did wrong?” I put my hands on my hips. “Where do I even start? You’ve treated me like hell for a long, long time, Damian. If you can’t see that… there’s nothing here.” This time, when I turned away, I wasn’t angry. I was resigned. He was too blind to understand this, and maybe he always had been. Maybe, to Damian, I was just another of his many responsibilities, just one more thing to take care of.

Opal was right.

He did not know how to prioritize the people he loved.

Damian called my name, but I didn’t turn around.

He came to catch up with me, and I said there was no point in talking anymore.

“If you’d just apologize for Vincent,” he said, walking next to me as I went to the parking lot, “maybe I could start trying to get past it.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m sorry,” I snapped.

“But you know how much it hurt me,” he said.

“I didn’t do it because I wanted to hurt you.”

“Fine,” he said. “I didn’t bite Opal because I wanted to hurt you either, but I still apologized.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” I said. “I don’t enjoy your pain or anything.”

“Oh, come on, that’s not an apology,” he growled. His scent suddenly exploded into the air, and I felt it tugging at me, but it didn’t quite affect me the same way. My wolf surged within me, indignant at this man who wanted us to submit to him.

I stopped and searched his gaze. “Have you noticed, Damian?”

“What?” he said.

“Our scent match, it’s not behaving like it used to.”

He leaned in, running his nose up and down my neck. He backed away, eyes wide. “Okay, uh, will you come with me to see the shaman in the morning?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, this is broken,” he said. “We need to fix it.”

“Maybe this is the fix, Damian,” I said. “Please don’t follow me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX