His eyes flick up to meet mine, then away, landing somewhere near the hearth where flames consume a split log. “I’ve been trying to find another way.”
“Another way to what?”
“To keep this from happening.” His hand gestures between us, a short, choppy motion that encompasses everything we’ve built. “But I should have never started anything with you.”
Pain twists inside me, but I lock it down, the way I do when assessing structural damage that might be worse than it appears. “Why can’t this happen?”
Leif shakes his head as the fire pops, sending sparks up the chimney. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just sorry I let this thing between us drag on for so long. I can’t be the reason you get hurt.”
“Then stop hurting me,” I say, trying to catch the periwinkle eyes that avoid mine. “If you would just tell me?—”
“I can’t, Em. This is something I have to figure out on my own.” His hand rises as if to touch me before it drops back to his side. “These past months have been... You can’t know what they’ve meant to me.”
“You’re right,” I say, while outside, snow continues to fall, blanketing the world in silence. “I can’t know because you’ve kept me at arm’s length the entire time. But if you would just let me help you fight this?—”
“No,” he says again, sharper this time. “This isn’t your battle.”
“It became my battle the moment you walked into my life.” The anger I’ve been suppressing rises to the surface, not hot but cold as the winter outside. “You made it my battle when you sat at my table, when you slept in my bed, when you let me believe we were building something real.”
He flinches as if struck. “We were. We are. That’s why I have to go.”
His conviction chills me. He believes leaving will spare me pain, even as he’s cutting out my heart. But his fear is real, solid as the floor beneath our feet. Whatever pressure he’s under, whatever danger he perceives, he’s convinced that distance equals protection.
“Leaving isn’t protection, Leif.” My hands open at my sides, palms up in frustration. “It’s surrender.”
“Maybe.” His mouth twists into a bitter line. “But it’s the only option I have right now.”
I study the man before me, noting the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl into half-fists at his sides. Pain twists beneath my ribs, stealing my breath. The bond, once bright with possibility, now hums like a string pulled too tight for too long, each vibration sending splinters of pain through my sternum.
“You’ve made your choice,” I say, an empty ache spreading through me like frost across a windowpane. “But I need you to understand what your distance has already cost me.”
Leif’s eyes skitter away, unable to hold mine for more than a breath, and each millimeter of that retreat carves another wound.
“When you started pulling away, canceling plans, disappearing without explanation, I told myself to be patient.” My hand rises to my sternum, where the bond pulses weakly. “I believed we were building toward a future. That whatever kept taking you away was temporary.”
A whine rises from him before he swallows it. Snowmelt drips from his coat onto my floor, each drop a tiny beat counting down our final moments.
“I trusted what we were building,” I continue, each word measured. “Not because I needed it to be true, but because I thought you had chosen it, too.”
Tears threaten, but I won’t cry. Not now. Not when clarity matters more than comfort.
“Do you know what the worst part of this is?” The bond flickers, so fragile now that a single wrong move might snap it. “It’s knowing how good we could be together, if you’d just set aside your pride in handling everything alone instead of keeping us at arm’s length.”
“I never meant to hurt you.” Leif takes a half-step forward, then stops himself. “What I feel for you, for what you and Jared offer here?—”
“Don’t.” My hand rises between us. “Don’t tell me it’s real when you’ve already decided to walk away from it.”
His voice cracks, desperation splintering his usual calm. “You don’t understand.”
Frustrated, I cry out, “That’s because you won’t let us understand. You won’t give us a chance.”
The air between us floods with the scent of rain-soaked pine, his distress pheromones breaking through whatever control he’s been holding on to. My body responds, my nostrils flaring as I catch the underlying notes of longing and fear in his Omega scent.
“I want to be part of your pack. This isn’t about lack of feeling but too much of it.” His scent speaks what his words can’t, revealing the bone-deep terror of an Omega who believes he’s bringing danger to his potential packmates. “I love you.”
The confession catches me unprepared. It’s the first time those words have crossed his lips, and I take a half step forward before his next words stop me in my tracks.
“But I can’t.” His scent shifts, the rain-soaked pine receding like a tide pulling away from shore. “Staying would break everything irreparably.”