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My beautiful mate tips her head up, and I notice her face, legs, and arms are covered in scrapes and bruises. I rush up to the bars, needing a closer look.
"What…?" I'm about to ask what happened when it hits me. She ran through the forest to escape me, and she must have tripped at some point. "Are you okay?"
I wrap my fingers around the bars to keep from reaching out. I want to soothe every cut, every faint bruise. I want to cover her body in twice as many kisses as there ever were scars. God, I’ll never forgive myself for bringing her harm.
“I’m fine.”
We stare at each other for the longest moment. I’m busy drinking in the sight of her and she’s busy sizing me up.
“I’m surprised you agreed to this,” she says, breaking the silence.
“I needed to see you.”
“Why?” she snaps. “I’m not going back to your castle.”
“I wanted to apologize. I’m… I’m sorry, Salem. Sorry doesn’t feel adequate. I shouldn’t have done anything that I’ve done in the last few days.”
My apology seems to catch her off guard too, and she glances away from me. When her eyes return to mine, they’re hard, filled with anger. I can work with anger. It’s her tears that terrify me.
“That’s not good enough,” she spits out, crossing her arms over her chest. “Besides treating me like a criminal for no good reason, you made me miss my flight. I never showed up or called my work, so I’m definitely fired. I also didn’t hear anything from my so-called friends, so it’s been a great ego boost to know no one cares about me. You’ve screwed up my whole life, Koda. For what?”
“You’re my mate,” I say weakly. She lets out a humorless laugh.
“No, I’m not. I’m not worthy, remember?”
Fuck, that hurts. All of this hurts, but I deserve so much worse.
“You are!” I insist. “I messed up, I know that. I’m so damn sorry. I just need a chance to make it right.”
“You can’t.”
“Let me try,” I beg.
“I don’t understand you,” she sighs exasperatedly. She’s more tired than angry at this point. “You don’t want me as your mate, so you kidnapped me instead of just letting me leave, which is what I was doing, by the way. Why? If you hate me so much, why not just let me go?”
“I could never hate–”
“And then when I finally do escape, you come after me. Again, you can just let me go. You don’t want me? Maybe someone else will. Did you ever think about that?”
She’s shaking with rage. I want to rip my own heart out and offer it up to her, but that won’t help anything. What’s she going to do with my useless, beaten-up old heart anyway?
“I want you,” I saw softly. “I’m so goddamn sorry. Please let me make it up to you. Please?”
She snorts, her round cheeks turning slightly pink. “I didn’t think you knew that word.”
I give her a tentative smile. She’s teasing me. That has to be a good sign, right?
Salem narrows her eyes, sizing me up, and I can see her mind working. When she gives me an evil grin, I know I’m not going to like what she has to say. As long as she’s not outright rejecting me though, then I still have hope that I can fix this.
“Maybe you can prove yourself and be mine,” she says, echoing those words that I said to her on the first night that we met.
It’s obvious she expects me to snap at her like she did to me that night, but what she’s offering is all that I want.
“I will,” I tell her solemnly and she blinks, trying not to let her surprise show.
“I doubt it,” she mumbles as she turns and heads back up the stairs.
I watch her until she’s gone and then I let my back slide down the cell wall, resting my head in my hands.
