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I have so many things I ache to know, but there’s a large part of me that just wants to sit with her. Hold her and feel the sun on our faces and watch the wind play in her hair.

I don’t want to push her. I don’t want to make her relive whatever bullshit she’s dealing with at HQ. I just want to hold her and wrap her in my love.

But I can’t. There’s only one way I can think of to make this better for her. I don’t want to do it. It’s not the way I’d choose for my Mate or my pack to find out, but if I don’t tell her and help her devise a plan to prove it to them, it’s going to get so much worse.

“Idril, I have to tell you⁠—”

Idril jolts in my arms. Pain washes over her features. Her hand flies to her upper arm where she grips the flesh, and the blood drains from her face.

“What’s happening?” I demand, tightening my arms in an instinctive refusal to let her go.

“Lenora.” Her voice deflates, her eyes filling with resignation. “She’s injecting my suppressant, she⁠—”

Her voice cuts out. I can see her lips moving, but there’s no sound.

“Idril! You’re Scent Matches! You and Dax and Vae!”

But it’s too late. She’s no longer looking at me. I reach for her, but my hands pass through empty air. There’s no weight on my lap, no heat of her skin on my fingertips. She’s just… gone.

“No.” My voice cracks with fury as I shoot to my feet, fists clenched by my sides. “No, fuck no! Idril!”

I spin, searching wildly, like she might spring up from behind one of the trees or something.

Fatesdamnit…! Had I thought this place beautiful? Fuck this place, it’s nothing without her here. Nothing.

“IDRIL!” My shout is so loud it shakes the branches above me. The missing birds reappear and scatter. They fly out of the trees and into the sky, cawing and crying out like even they’re shocked by their own existence.

How could this happen? I just got her back!

She’s gone. Gone, and I can’t do anything to get back to her. I don’t know if she’ll be able to get back to me, or how long it’ll be until I wake up. I don’t even know how we found each other in the first place!

I didn’t get a chance to tell her anything.

I wasted all that godsdamned time. I should have told her right away about the Scent Match. I should have told her I love her! I should have figured out a way to get a message to Dax and Vae, so they know that she’s ours.

I scoff. Not that it matters. Mate or not, no one deserves to be treated the way she’s been treated.

I’ll have every one of their fucking heads when I wake up. I’m going to ruin their lives.

The sun dims. No clouds are rolling in, but it doesn’t matter. Silence stretches, ominous and weighty. All I hear are my own panting breaths, full of fury.

I’m cracking apart at the seams. Splintering into a thousand little pieces without her. Knowing she’s hurt and I just…

I just lost her.

Again!

Fuck! It’s too much.

I slam my fist into the closest tree, and a roar of grief tears through me, ripping straight from the pit of my stomach. The sound is full of anger and longing, so feral I hardly believe it came from my body.

The White Oak we were resting against becomes the target for my fury.

I slam my fists into the wood, again and again, screaming my rage for the whole world to hear, sure I must be roaring my displeasure in my physical body as well.

But despite hitting the damned tree as hard as I can, nothing happens. No bark goes flying. The trunk doesn’t crack. Not even my skin splits open.

With a final shout of pain, I drop to my knees, slamming my fists into the earth. The sound echoes around me, unchallenged and unanswered.