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His words strike somewhere deep inside me.

I’ve barely had time to register what Matthias did to me. Haven’t even thought about it until now. But it explains the dread. Why I feel like I can’t breathe. And it also explains this immense feeling of guilt and disgust.

“Like who?” I whisper. Because how could he possibly know? How could he even guess it?

“Whoever took from you without asking.”

Tears blur my vision, but I blink them away. I refuse to cry over it. It happened, and there’s no point dwelling on it.

“I might be a sonofabitch, but I’m not them.”

“Then don’t look at me.”

“Kind of unavoidable,” he murmurs.

I face him, confused.

Instead of explaining further, he returns to rummaging.

***

We started a fire a few hours ago with some homemade matches and put a pot of lake water on to boil so we could safely drink it and use it. I spent far longer scrubbing my teeth with my finger than I needed to. Ryx did the same. His wounds are already scabbing over, about five in total. Neither one of us has mentioned the earlier conversation.

Now that we’re warm and safe for the moment, I’m fighting back exhaustion. Ryx pokes at the embers every so often, and I draw little figures in the dust on the floor.

I’ve thought a lot about what he said earlier and how I reacted to the whole embarrassment. To an extent, there is a residual fear, but it’s never been the focus of my thoughts. Matthias has a unique control over me, something that’s repeatedly been my norm ever since I was sixteen. One incident in six more years is hardly enough to justify an outward fear towards any alpha.

And I’ve never once thought Ryx would do what Matthias has done.

What it boils down to is much more pathetic. If it were just as simple as my body rejecting the idea of forced pleasure, I could accept it. But it’s not that. I didn’t want Ryx to see me because I know I look nothing like what he’s used to. Levi, even as deranged as he is, carries an ethereal beauty omegas are known for. I don’t have that. Alphas are drawn to omegas because of our bodies as a whole, and mine hasn’t been that way since I was a little boy.

Without a womb, I don’t know if I’ll ever have a heat. Without a womb, I lack the proper pheromones to trigger a rut or entice an alpha to stake their claim on me. That’s why he didn’t scent mark me. That’s why even after seeing most of my naked body, he’s able to resist me—refuse me. And the shame of knowing I’ll never be what Ryx desires is what drives this dread.

I stupidly thought that if bodies weren’t in the equation, if lust and sex and all those foreign experiences weren’t a factor, that maybe he’d want me just how I am. I’ve gone my whole life without those things. Up until Matthias forced my body into compliance, I’ve never had an orgasm.

I don’t need to have it.

But I want to.

And now that Ryx has seen everything I’m not, I know it will never happen. Every romanticized moment my stupid brain has ever conjured will never come to fruition. There’s also the dark cloud of hatred bathing it all in rejection. That’s why I snapped back at Levi’s camp, and why, now that I’m no longer weakened, I’m angry again. That’s Ryx’s fault too.

All he would have had to do was say a single sentence back when it mattered most. A single fucking string of words to reassure me that even though I failed, he knew I tried.

“I hate you,” I whisper into the silent space.

Ryx halts his ministrations with the fire and whips his head toward me. Tucking my knees up to my chest, I meet his steel-colored eyes and repeat it. Louder. Deliberate. “I. Hate. You.”

He lets the declaration seep into his skin, his mind and heart, and waits.

I don’t know what he’s waiting for. I’ve said everything I needed to days ago. I’ve given him all that I have left, and he’s refused my efforts. But his silence makes me squirm, makes my stomach quiver on the inside. Like vomit, more words purge from my heart. “I would have waited for you. I did wait for you. Even if Matthias had let me have someone who was just for me, I would’ve refused. Because I only ever wanted you.”

It takes everything in me not to look away, to face his cold-hearted stare head-on.

“When I escaped New Grove, I found Patryn’s secret lab. Found a letter that said I needed to find you. But that was already the plan. If anyone could help me—could save me—it was you. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I didn’t know anything at all, but I still left. Still went out into the Barrens with nothing but the clothes on my back.”

“Saren—”

“No. You will listen to me.” I lower my legs and slash my hand through the air. “Not only were you alive, but you tried to kill me. Multiple times. I begged and pleaded for you to just listen to me!”