Snarling, I shove him in the chest. I’m much shorter than he is, but I’m still strong, and I take him by surprise. The flats of my palms connect with his wall of muscle and he stumbles back a step or two before recovering.
“You know exactly what you’re doing, Kieran.”
“Then enlighten me, Spitfire.” Now he’s angry too, and his anger fuels me. “Tell me what the fuck I’m doing that has you like this.”
“You’re—you’re being a fucking caveman!” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Pissing on me like I’m some kind of damned fire hydrant. Throwing the bond around any time another man so much as looks at me.”
Kieran stiffens, staring me down. “Is that what this is about? You don’t know Fahad like I do. He’s an asshole, he sleeps around and?—”
“And I would figure that out for myself if you didn’t step in!” He looks over his shoulder as my voice rises, and I realize how close we are to the dining room still, so I lower my volume. “Besides, what business is it of yours if I want to sleep with a player? I can do whatever I want, you know.”
His ice blue eyes are unreadable. I hate how much this affects me, and how little it affects him. “You’re still a member of my pack, Aurora. It’s my job to protect you.”
I feel a whine building in my throat. “No. No, that’s not fair. You’ve never protected me.”
“That’s not true.” He actually lookshurt,damn him. “I know we have our issues, but you can’t actually believe that?—”
“You can’t keep doing this,” I hiss, my voice low but intense with anger. “You don’t get to reject me and then act like you have any claim over me. The mate bond doesn’t make you my mate, not really. Not when you haven’t given a damn about me for years.”
Silence falls between us. My chest rises and falls with short, emotional breaths of air. I wipe tears from my eyes, insisting to myself that they’re from anger. Kieran watches the motion, his thoughts well-hidden from me.
I can’t even feel his emotions through the broken bond. It feels like mine are spilling out everywhere, like my guts are unspooling onto the floor in front of me, and he’s just… cold. Ice cold, just like his eyes.
He’ll say something soon.
Any minute now, he’ll break the silence.
Please. He has to. Otherwise… otherwise…
“Good! I caught you guys before you headed to bed.” Footsteps down the hallway catch my attention. Pulling myself together, I peer over Kieran’s shoulder to see one of the young warriors, a woman named Kayla, headed our way.
“We just got news from a messenger on the eastern border—another pack has been affected by the madness. They’ve imposed a quarantine and need someone to help them make sure it’s not spreading. Think you two will be ready to head out in the morning?”
Kieran doesn’t even sound like anything has happened as he says, “We’ll make it.”
“Great. Glad we have you two around to help us figure this thing out.”
I barely managed to give her a tight smile as she leaves, and the silence between us presses down again. Clearing my throat, I tell Kieran, “I guess that’s it, right?”
“Aurora… I don’t know what to say.”
“You said plenty five years ago.” Stepping back from him, I shake my head and push all the emotions inside me down again. “See you in the morning.”
It’s a relief to step into my bedroom and shut the door so I don’t have to look at him anymore.
Some mate I’m stuck with.
Fate should’ve left me the hell alone.
Chapter 12
Kieran
The pain of last night’s argument hangs in the air as Aurora and I head toward Pack Quartz, the pack under quarantine for madness that sent word to Pack Sapphire last night. Her bitter words echo in my head, a reminder of everything I’ve done to hurt her.“The mate bond doesn’t make you my mate, not really. Not when you haven’t given a damn about me for years.”
There are so many things I want to say that I can’t. Even if I could, it wouldn’t really matter to her. I know that. So I bite it all back and swallow it down, reminding myself that this will be over with soon enough. Then we’ll head home, and things will go back to normal—our version of it, at least.
She lives on the outskirts with Dana, safe and sound, protected from the pack’s politics despite her inherent weakness. And I live with this pain in my chest that will never go away, a curse I never asked for that is mine alone to bear.
