Page 115 of Wilder

“Actually…” Wilder’s voice was tight when he spoke. His gaze darted away from mine—goddamn it—dropping instead to the harness clutched in my hand. “I came to look for you.”

I hated the sound of that.

“I—” My voice caught, forcing me to swallow again. “Something happen?”

He drew a slow, almost pained breath. Deep enough that I could see the strain in the rise of his chest, how his shoulders tensed as he held it. When he finally exhaled, it came out in one sharp release, sounding more like surrender than relief.

His hand at his side flexed once, then curled into a fist so tight I could see the tendons shifting beneath the skin. “I wanted to tell you myself instead of you finding out from someone else. I’ve... I’m going to be sending you home, Asher.”

For a second, the words refused to register.

“Home?” I asked, dumbly.

He nodded stiffly, still refusing to look at me. “I’ve already got a rideshare coming by in an hour to take you to the airport. I went ahead and purchased you a ticket home, you just need to go up to the desk to claim it. It’ll be under your name.”

I shook my head, disbelief rocketing through me.

For a heartbeat, the entire world around me blurred at the edges. The light filtering in through the barn doors felt too bright, the warm spring air outside suddenly cold against my skin.

There was no way this was happening.

This couldn’t be real. This had to be some nightmare—one of those stress dreams that I’d fallen into after crashing from a day’s worth of heavy labor, twisting everything I feared into something cruel and vivid. A dream I’d wake up from with a jolt the second the morning sun finally peeked through my open window.

Wilder wouldn’t do this.

Wilder wouldn’t send me home.

Not without talking to me about it first.

He...

“No.” The word slipped out before I even realized I was speaking. Quiet and hoarse like it had to crawl its way up from the pit forming in my stomach.

Wilder’s throat bobbed with the effort it took to swallow, but his gaze stayed stubbornly pinned to the space between us. “If you need, I can pull Laken from the arena. Have him head up and help you pack.”

It wasn’t the words themselves that broke me, it was in the way he said them—detached and measured. Cold. Almost like he was doing me some kind of favor. Like this was nothing more than a business transaction and he was trying to offer polite, logistical solutions to soften the blow while shoving me out the door.

What the fuck?

What the fuck.

Before I could stop myself, I crossed the distance between us in two steps and grabbed a fistful of the front of his shirt, yanking him toward me. The fabric bunched in my hands, creased so tightly I knew I’d feel the imprint on my skin long after this moment was over.

His head snapped up at the sudden movement. The second our gazes collided, something in his expression crumbled just for a moment. So brief I almost missed it. His eyes softened just enough for my heart to thud hard against my ribs.

“Asher—” he breathed out, almost pleading.

I didn’t let him finish.

“You’re not doing this,” I ground out. “I don’t care what Sully said. He’s not sending me anywhere.”

Wilder’s expression pinched. “Asher...”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to shake him until he got it through his thick skull. “You’re the one in charge here. You own this place. You decide what happens. Don’t let him bully you into making a decision like this.”

Something flickered across his face—an emotion I couldn’t name, too tangled and messy to pin down before he smothered it. He sighed softly, his shoulders slumping again. “He’s not the one sending you home. I am.”

My grip faltered. “What?”