“You hurt me. You hurt my heart and you hurt my pride repeatedly, humiliating me, dismissing me callously. You weren’t trying to spare my feelings. You wanted me out of the way when you met your dream girl. So I wouldn’t annoy you. So you wouldn’t have to feel bad. And I’m mad as hell aboutall of this. I’m sick of this bullshit around here where the alpha gets what the alpha wants, fuck what everyone else wants or doesn’t want. Tyson got away with rutting Ivy in front of the pack and she had to suck it up because they’re mates, because she’s bonded to him. I saw how badly he devastated her. If she wasn’t biologically tied to him, do you think she’d be here? Your own sister is mourning an asshole who treated her horribly. Would she be grieving him without the stupid mate bond? You treat me like shit for weeks and suddenly now I’m just supposed to be like… oh! Jason wants me now because of how I smell. Yay! I’ll just open my legs and my feelings don’t have to matter because I’m so, so lucky to land a super-alpha. Which issuchbullshit. And that’s why I want the laws changed, so biology doesn’t have to mean forever. Love shouldn’t be unconditional. It should come with conditions, including respect.”
He looks at me for a long minute and I’m immensely uncomfortable. None of this feels good. Not what I’ve said. Not what he’s said.
“I’ve been stewing in the fact that I fucked up,” he says quietly, looking ahead now. “I hurt you and I meant it when I apologized. It’s been eating at me. Not only because it means you’re keeping me away, punishing me. Because I hate that I hurt you. Hate seeing it written all over you so much. But if you’re the sort of person who has zero capability for forgiveness… none at all?” He swallows, shaking his head, looking really disappointed before he lands a blow that manages to hit hard. “Maybe Fate fucked up. Maybe wedon’tbelong together.”
He opens the door, gets out of my car, and walks away.
And my heart twists into a big, fat knot while I watch him do it.
Yeah, this is the only knot I’m letting myself have.
I sit with my feelings, with my emotions, and I do it for a long time. Because there’s no more escaping them. I think I’m finally fully processing all of this. And it doesn’t feel good. It feels the farthest from good that I can imagine. I have no doubt in my mind that requesting this law change is the right thing. But if I’m totally honest, I am wrestling with whether or not to request a severance. Maybe he’ll be the one to do it now, so he can get rid of the urge to claim me and make this all go away.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a yipping pup. It sounds like that same pup I heard yesterday inside the library and again later at the cookout.
I get out of the car and draw the air into my senses slowly, analyzing what I smell. Trees, grass, earth, other nature scents. No wolf shifters, wolves, or dogs.
After what feels like an eternity sitting in the woods against a tree trunk, I get into my car and drive back home, doing it slowly for the first few minutes so I can scan the terrain for my phone, which I don’t find.
***
I’m thirty minutes late for the meeting in my parents’ sunroom. And it wasn’t entirely on purpose. It also wasn’t entirely an accident.
I’m broken. Sad. Beyond sad.
The only ones here are Erica, Vivi, and Dani.
“Sorry I’m late,” I fib. “Everyone left?”
“Yeah,” Erica says. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I whisper.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Vivi asks.
I shake my head. “What was decided?”
“Jase didn’t show,” Dani tells me.
“What does that mean?” I ask, blindly reaching around me for a chair, because now I’ve got a touch of vertigo.
“We’ve rescheduled it for tomorrow,” Erica says. “Same time, same place.”
“What about the spell?” I ask.
Am I fair game? Does he even care?
“I’ve extended,” Dani says. “I can’t go much farther based on the spell I cast and the contingencies that were made. If he’s not around by the day after tomorrow, we’ll have to assess.” She gives me an apologetic smile.
“Do you think he’s just waiting it out?” Erica asks Vivi.
Vivi shrugs. “This generation’s council has had very little exposure to witches. I’m not sure he’d know that might be an option.”
“Shit. That’s an option? He did consider waiting it out when he kidnapped me, but we had words and I no longer think he’s doing that,” I say.
“Kidnapped you?” Dani asks.
And now all three of them are waiting for me to elaborate.