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Chapter 16
Zephyr
Fortwodays,she’d been in a funk and avoided going to his office. But her stupid heart didn’t let her skip their dining ritual, knowing he’d started to enjoy their time eating together, especially when he’d never had a companion before. Eating alone sucked and she knew that, so even though she was grumpy, she didn’t bow out of their dinners. But she did stop dressing in lingerie for them. Instead, she’d begun wearing her usual pajamas, not intent on seducing him in her current mood. If he chalked her mood swing up to PMS or something else, she didn’t know, and he didn’t say.
But Amara had been right.
While her husband hadn't outright done anything, he'd begin to watch her more. He called Victor more to check up on her. He sat at the table even after finishing his food if she was eating. He'd even left the adjoining door between their rooms slightly ajar last night. But none of it felt like a victory. Instead, she got the sense that he was testing her. She just needed to see where it led. Now that she wasn’t easing the tension with her humor and chatter, now that she stayed silent and forced him to face what thickened the air when they were in the same room, something was building, activating, like a volcano dormant from the outside bubbling with lava, waiting for the right moment to erupt and cause destruction. She stood at the mouth of the volcano, watching the lava come forth from the mantle of the earth, knowing it could wreck her but waiting for it. She wanted to be the rain that fell upon the magma and sizzled, drenched it until it became rich. She wanted to seep down to his dried roots, nourish the soil of his heart, and fill him with life again.
Standing in his office for the first time in two days, married but without much progress for over a month, Zephyr watched the sun setting over the forest in the distance, mulling over her thoughts, her shoulders slumped. She'd come into Trident because staying away from him wasn't doing a thing except making her more miserable. While something had shifted, it still wasn't enough.
The sound of the office door locking shut echoed in the space, breaking her thoughts.
A presence at her back made her aware of him, his heat warming her freezing heart. She’d always loved that about him, how he could dwarf her but make her feel safe, how he could ignite and warm her at the same time. Before she’d met him, the idea of him had fascinated the little girl, but after, the reality of him had paled the thought. Whatever had or hadn’t happened over the weeks, Zephyr had begun to fall deeper for the reality of him now. She loved the man he had become, the way he was with his staff, the way was with his dogs, the way he just was. She loved that he carried his scars without shame, that he had survived whatever he had and come through the other side stronger. The perseverance he wore on his skin, the respect he commanded from his people, the kindness he showed the vulnerable, he was a man worth falling down the hell for. And sometimes, when he let his guard down a bit and looked at her with softness, it kindled the hope in her heart.
She still loved him. And he didn’t.
And she was both okay with that, and agonized by that knowledge.
She walked away from the window to get her bag from the desk, and his hand on her arm stopped her again. He’d been doing that a lot, just stopping her in her tracks and staring at her, trying to figure her out.
“What game are you playing?” he finally asked, breaking the tension that had been building for the last few days, his eye narrowing on her.
Nice.
She tried to pull her arm out. He held her steady, firm but not tight.
She wished she could shout the game she had been playing, but she couldn't. She couldn't do that to him, and now she was trapped in a situation of her own making with a husband she loved, one who didn't remember her, love her, or even trust her. And it made her mad. Her dying hope made her livid.
Zephyr shoved at his chest, glaring up at him. “Let me go.”
"Not until you tell me what your agenda has been, Zephyr."
He'd not called her rainbow in a while, just like she'd not called him anything but Alpha.
"My agenda," she hissed, "was to make you love me."
His grip tightened on her arm. "It didn't work, because I don't believe you."
Ouch. A little crack.
"Tell me the truth," he demanded, cool and collected, completely unaffected, unlike her insides. "I'm losing my patience now."
"Your impatience isn't my problem."
"But my anger is," he said dangerously. "You don't want me angry, Zephyr."
She looked at him, unable to understand what to do. Telling him anything meant risking his mental state, and he had healed enough to be okay. There was only one way to divert his attention. "What are you going to do, you beast?" she deliberately goaded him, pulling her arm out of his grip.
Something flared in his eye. He looked at her, his nostrils flaring, tension building as they stayed locked.
Before she could take another breath, he had her up against the window, her front pressed to the glass, his large form behind her, startling her with the suddenness as his familiar scent drifted through her nose.
What game was he playing?
“I'm going to give you what you've been begging me for. Yes or no?” he growled against her ear, fisting her hair and tugging her head back with one hand, touching her after so long she drowned in the sensations.
There was something dark about it, the way he questioned her, the way he pulled her head, the way he pressed her into the glass. Zephyr didn’t know what had happened to trigger him suddenly, and even though she’d wanted nothing more than their bodies to connect, she tried to turn her head to look at him to understand what was going on.
