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I know exactly how he got himself under control.
My lips tremble. Before I can let out a soft sob that he’ll undoubtedly hear through the wood, I cover my mouth with my hands.
He can’t see me, but he knows instantly that something’s wrong. “Helene? Are you okay?”
I swallow back the sob. After what he did to me, I shouldn’t care that he’s still suffering so much. Pummeling the unfamiliar trees until blood streams past his wrists, his knuckles torn open, his claws filed down to nubs… it shouldn’t hurt me as much as it hurts him.
It does, though. And it’s even harder that he’s right on the other side of the door, desperate for me, and he’s only hurting himself more by putting me somewhere where he can see me, scent me,loveme… but never, ever have me.
A glutton for punishment or half-feral? Right now, I’m terrified that he’sboth.
“Yeah,” I lie. “I’m okay.”
He lets me have the lie. “You were in the kitchen. You ate while I was out.”
Even if I didn’t leave the dishes in the sink, he would’ve known by my scent in the kitchen. “I was hungry.”
“I would’ve fed you. You know that.”
I do. And I also know how he would interpret it if I did.
“I can’t let you do that.”
I wait for him to tell me that I’m his bride again. Forget the fact that, for shifters, the closest thing we have to a wedding is the Luna Ceremony. Forget how I’m still promised to Rafael, and the longer West insists on keeping me here, the worse this is going to be for all of us. Some time after talking to Quinn’s feral mate, West decided I would be his mate—or no one’s.
Too bad it doesn’t work like that.
“You’d rather starve than stay with me?”
He would never let me starve. And I already proved that I have no problem going into the kitchen and feeding myself.
But whatever happened to the male I once knew—whether he’s turned feral or this a side of West I’ve never seen before—he refuses to accept that I can stand up for myself.
Of course not. I already proved that, in one thing at least, I have to rely on him. If West doesn’t lead me back to Hickory, I’m sunk.
“I’m not challenging you,” I say after a moment. “I’m asking you to stop this insanity. I want to go home.”
“You can leave anytime you want. I’m not holding you captive. I used the quicksilver, I admit it, but I won’t keep you in chains, Helene. If you want to leave me, go.” Anotherthud, louder than before. He didn’t quite punch the wall outside of my room, but he might have slapped it. “You know I’ll fucking follow you anywhere anyway.”
I do know that, just like I know for sure thatWestknows I would never do that. It’s not in me to abandon him, no matter how hard a time I’m having reconciling this dark, broken male with the handsome, sexy wolf who won my heart when I was nineteen. Especially since, when I close my eyes, all I see is the pleading Beta who, for the last three years, begged me to forget fate, forget the Luna, forget Rafael and choose him instead.
I did that to him. This, too.
Me.
I never meant to. I made myself clear. Just like West, my duty is to the Sylvan Pack until the day I join Gravetail when their Alpha makes me his.
“But you won’t bring me back?”
“When you agree to be my mateandmy bride, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
An ultimatum. After what he’s done to me, West has the nerve to give me an ultimatum.
“And what if I don’t?” I ask.
“I told you, you can leave on your own whenever you’d like. You’re not my captive, Helene. I love you too much… I would never hurt you. I did this for us—”
I glare at the door. He can’t see me, but it makes me feel better as I tell him, “You did this for yourself.”
