He looks utterly devastated, but my hurt and anger have burned away any sympathy that I might have felt for him. Why can’t he just choose me? If he truly cared for me, he should be able to choose me. “Just say you don’t want me. Admit it. I want to hear you say the words.I don’t want you, Zenevieve. I’ve never wanted you, and I would rather wait for someone else I’ve never met.Say it, and maybe this time my heart will listen. Say you don’t want me because you’d rather pine for a woman who doesn’t exist.”
Stesha has been so slow and careful about choosing his words, but now his retort bursts angrily from his lips. “She does exist.”
There’s a flinty glare in his icy blue eyes. All the breath is stolen from my lungs. Stesha believes with every bone in his body and every drop of blood in his veins that he has a mate, and I’m not her. He’s furious that I’ve denied she exists. He’s jealously protecting a woman he’s never even met.
I should walk away while I have a tiny shred of my dignity intact, but I can’t make myself move. There’s too much hurt and anger swirling in my heart. This man was holding me in his arms just a short while ago, and my insides still ache from the thrusts of his cock. I bear his teeth marks in my flesh. I want to punish myself some more for believing I could have him, and my humiliation is not yet complete.
“So where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some theories,” I seethe.
The wind is blowing tendrils of hair into his face. “I believe she’s so far away that I’ll never find her.”
There’s an ominous ringing in the back of my mind. My stomach heaves again as though I’m going to throw up. “Youthink she’s dead, don’t you? You’re torturing us both over a dead woman.”
How can I compete with a dead woman who will always be perfect in his mind?
Stesha reaches for my hands, his expression pleading. “My heart is filled with sorrow that I have hurt you. Give me a chance to make this right.”
Sorrow. There’s nothing in Stesha’s heart for me but sorrow. The last flutter of hope that I will ever be his whole world as he is mine dies. I turn and walk blindly away from him.
“Zen.”
I hear him following me. I turn and put my hands on his chest and try to shove him away, but he is a solid wall of muscle that doesn’t move. “Leave me alone.”
Minta, I call in my mind. She catches hold of Stesha’s cloak in her teeth. I turn and run, and I don’t hear him following me.
As soon as I’m over the dragon bridge and out of his sight, my stomach and chest heave painfully, but instead of throwing up, I start to cough. Racking coughs that cause my throat to burn and my eyes to stream.
I manage to make it back to the barracks and crawl into bed. With the blanket over my head, my body spasms and shakes. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop myself from coughing. My insides feel like they’re on fire.
“Zenevieve, are you unwell?” Someone places a cool hand on my brow. I open my eyes and see Tish bending over me, her face etched with concern.
I open my mouth to tell her that I was caught in an avalanche, and now I am sick with a fever. As soon as I try to speak, I cough harder than ever into my hand, and I feel wetness suddenly coat my palm.
My eyes widen as I stare at my hand. It’s covered in blood.
Scarlet red blood.
It bubbles up my throat and drips from my lips.
Tish gasps, and calls over her shoulder, “One of you, fetch a Temple Mother for Zenevieve.”
A few minutes later, I see a familiar, matronly woman in scarlet robes leaning over me. Mother Linnea checks my pulse and my eyes and lays a hand on my forehead. Then she peels back the shoulder of my shirt to examine my neck and shoulders and mutters a curse.
“What’s happ-happening to me?” I choke out. I feel like I’m dying. My mouth is filled with the tang of blood.
Mother Linnea calls over her shoulder, “Can one of the Alphas please carry Zenevieve to the Flame Temple? I need to treat her there.”
“I’ll take her.” I recognize Sundra’s voice, and a moment later I feel myself lifted up in her strong arms.
I cough the whole way to the temple, struggling to breathe, panicking because I feel like I’m drowning. I’m laid down on a pallet somewhere away from the main room. Mother Linnea calls orders to the maids, who undress my outer clothing, wipe the blood from my face and hands and give me something strange-tasting to drink.
“Just a sip,” Mother Linnea cautions me, frowning at my neckline where my collar is loose. “Too much could be dangerous.”
The medicine coats my throat and soothes a little of the burn in my chest, but my breath rattles in my lungs. She takes the cup away and gives me a cloth to cough into.
