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“Weakness and exhaustion is a side effect of a heat fever,” Bishop said. “It doesn’t let you sleep or eat much until the fever is broken.”
“And my fever only broke when Knox and I sealed the bond.”
He’d say my heat had lasted eight days and I’d been unconscious or out of it for all of that. How many of those days had I been suffering with the fever? I doubt Knox would have jumped on the idea of sealing our bond right away. Hell, had they even known that was the only way to break the fever?
“Your fever went on longer than normal,” Bishop said, answering my unspoken question as he quickly picked his way over the uneven ground. “We didn’t know the mating bond was affecting the fever until it should have been over and wasn’t. But it’s done now and you’re safe. I’m sure you’ll be back to normal by the time we get to Stonehaven.”
Given how weak I felt, I wasn’t sure about that, especially since I didn’t heal like a regular shifter. But that wasn’t my greatest worry.
“So what now?” I asked, my voice frustratingly small.
Except that was how I felt. Small and weak and frustrated.
We’d suffered walking for ten days for nothing, and while I wanted to cry and yell at Knox and tell him how much he hurt me and how much it hurt that he didn’t really want me — even though we didn’t know each other — I was far too weak even at my strongest to make demands of an alpha. I was going to have to submit and accept whatever Knox decided.
A growl bubbled in my throat. I was tired of submitting, of trying to go unnoticed for fear of retribution.
“Now?” Bishop said. “I bond with you and we return home.”
“Just like that?” I asked unable to keep my disappointment from my voice. We weren’t going to bond because we were in love, but because we had to.
“Hey. I choose to bond with you because I want to, but if you aren’t ready—”
“We don’t really know each other and I—” My throat tightened. “I—” How could I say what I felt without sounding ungrateful?
“You wanted to be courted,” Bishop finished for me as if he could see into my heart and know how disappointed I was that he wasn’t going to court me like he’d promised.
“Yeah,” I confessed. “I never had a boyfriend. No one was ever interested in me and I never got… you know.” God, it felt so selfish to say it.
“You never got the courtship gifts? The fancy dinners? The romance?” Bishop asked. He set me on my feet and cupped my cheeks in his palms to make me meet his gaze.
“You’re allowed to ask for things,” he said, his voice tender, his soft expression making my heart flutter with a mix of hope and fear. “Which would you like?”
“Well… I…?” I tried to look at my feet, my cheeks heating with embarrassment, but Bishop kept a firm grip on my face.
“You can say it,” he urged. “You want all of it?”
“Yeah,” I forced out. “I want to know what those first magical days of being in love feel like. I want to feel…” Like I mattered, like someone loved me for me not because an accidental bond was making them. And I felt like Bishop did, but I also felt like if we rushed our mating I’d miss out on all those romantic dreams and jump straight into the real life of being mates. “I want to feel like you want to mate with me because of me, not because you have to.”
“I do, beautiful. I swear I do.” He brushed his lips against mine, a whisper of a kiss that sent teasing sensual warmth sliding through my body. The kiss wasn’t hungry with desire, not like his kisses when we’d first had sex or like the kisses floating around my foggy memory from my heat, but it still sent my heart soaring because it was a promise. A promise that Ididdeserve to be loved and that he’d prove it to me.
