She tries to look away. I don’t let her, my hands gentle on her face.
She meets my eyes and lets out a long sigh, something in her yielding.
“Okay, Aaron.”
I lean in and kiss her, relief making me clumsy, and the headache flashes white behind my eyes and I wince hard against her mouth.
She pulls back, concern replacing the wariness. “Now let me help you.”
I nod. She slides off the bed first and walks around to my side and helps me up like I’m an old man, and she doesn’t tease me about it, which is its own kind of kindness. Her tail wraps around my forearm to steady me as I get my balance.
I study her face, trying to memorize every detail in case she’s taken from me again.
“Mara.”
“Hm?”
“This week. When you were home. Did you feel it?”
She doesn’t pretend not to know what I mean. Her tail tightens around my wrist and she looks up at me and her amber eyes do a small thing I have not seen before, a flicker of something that is not quite guilt but is in the same neighborhood.
“Of course I felt something. The mate bond pulled at me the whole time.” She pauses. “I was about one more day from coming back.”
One more day.That doesn’t feel right.
I have been ricocheting around an empty suite for days with every object in the room floating because I couldn’t hold them down.
And she hadone more dayin her.
She has gottenusedto being away from me.
Fifteen years apart trained her. Built her some kind of tolerance I don’t have.
I keep my face still.
“Aaron?” she calls out, breaking my thoughts.
“I need a shower,” I tell her, trying to hide the hurt that’s threatening to swallow me whole. “Help me to the bathroom.”
She grins, oblivious to what just opened up inside me, and pulls me toward the bathroom door.
I won’t lose her again. Not even to the truth.
By the time I make my way down the stairs the smell of coffee has reached me. My head is still throbbing but the shower helped a little.
She’s in the kitchen, holding a small mug. She turns to me and smiles.
I’m genuinely impressed. Mara is taking my unhinged moment better than I thought she would. Which makes me think about how she got me back here. As much as I hate to admit it, I owe Eric for this one.Big time.
Because my mother and Jacob’s plan for fixing this was to wait out a few months for the cabin build and then approach the pride properly. A few months without Mara. Hell no. That was never going to happen.
The thought sits sour in my stomach. Using Eric’s advice, relying on him in any way, feels like a betrayal of everything I believe about myself. But Mara is here. She’s home. And I’d make the same choice again in a heartbeat.
I shake the thought off. I’ll deal with Eric later.
“Mara. What are you doing?”
She sets the mug in front of me. As much as I don’t want her serving me anything right now, the coffee is steaming exactly the way I like it, and I am not about to lose this fight. I pick it up and take a sip, the familiar bitter warmth grounding me.
