I drag her toward the dwelling path, maintaining the harsh grip despite how my wrist screams protest. She's not actually being hurt—the binding ensures that. But it looks brutal. Looks like exactly the kind of dominance display everyone expects from an orc controlling his difficult mate.
Behind us, I hear approval in the watching warriors' voices. Satisfaction that I'm finally handling this properly.
I also hear Kaelen's sharp intake of breath.
We're barely out of the plaza when I have to release her. My wrist won't support the grip anymore. Something is definitely broken.
Serah stumbles away from me, breathing hard. She stares at where I held her, already checking for bruises that won't be there. Then her eyes lift to mine.
"Are you satisfied?" Her voice shakes. "Did that prove whatever you needed to prove?"
I can't speak past the pain radiating up my arm. Can't form words when my vision is starting to blur at the edges.
She turns and walks away. Leaves me standing alone on the path with a shattered wrist hidden beneath leather wraps and the certain knowledge that I just broke something irreparable between us.
I makeit back to the training yards before my legs give out. Lean heavily against the weapon rack while nausea rolls through me in waves. The wrist is bad. Worse than anything the binding has inflicted so far.
"What in the frozen hells was that?"
Kaelen's voice cuts through the haze. I force myself upright. "Clan business."
"Clan business?" He stalks closer, fury written across every line of his body. "That's what you call brutalizing your mate in front of?—"
"I didn't brutalize?—"
"I saw you! Everyone saw you!" He's shouting now, drawing attention from nearby warriors. "You dragged her through the plaza like she was?—"
"Like she needed to be controlled." The words taste like ash. "Like the clan expects me to?—"
His fist catches me across the jaw before I can react.
I crash backward into the weapon rack. Training blades clatter to the ground around me. Blood fills my mouth.
"Get up." Kaelen's hands are already forming fists again. "Get up so I can beat some sense into you."
"Kaelen, stop?—"
"You don't get to treat her that way!" Another punch, this one to my ribs. Right where yesterday's bruises haven't healed. Something cracks. "I don't care what the clan expects. I don't care about your father's approval. You wanted her! You told me you loved her!"
I try to defend myself, but my broken wrist makes blocking impossible. His next strike sends me sprawling.
"You were happy with her!" He follows me down, landing blow after blow. "You smiled for the first time in years! And now you're destroying her and destroying yourself and for what? Pride?"
"You don't understand?—"
"Then make me understand!" He hauls me up by my armor straps and slams me against the canyon wall hard enough to crack stone. "Tell me why my best friend has become exactly the kind of male we swore we'd never be!"
Blood runs down my face. My vision swims. The broken wrist hangs useless at my side.
And something inside me finally shatters.
"Because it's killing me!" The words rip out of my throat. "Every time I touch her. Every time I have to grab her or pull her or make it look like dominance. The binding transfers it all to me and it's destroying me and I can't stop because if I do, someone else will hurt her worse!"
Kaelen freezes. His grip on my armor loosens. "What binding?"
"Soul-binding." I sag against the wall. "During the ceremony. I bound myself to her. She takes nothing she doesn't choose. All pain. All suffering. It flows to me instead."
"That's not possible. No one has successfully?—"
