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“I can’t.”
I lean in closer, my breath mingling with his. Our noses graze and I realize this is the closest our faces have ever been. Despite our few intimate times together, he’s never once kissed me.
“Please,” I beg him. “What are you feeling right now?”
His intense stare bores into me. “I’m scared. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Bo,” I whisper. “Why?”
“For the first time in my life, I feel vulnerable, torn apart at the seams. I finally have something, someoneto lose that I cannot recover from.” His voice is the quietest he’s ever spoken. “I’m afraid that the only thing I’m good at is making you hate me, and I’d rather have you hate me than feel nothing at all. If you won’t love me, at least you could hate me. I could live with that.”
“Why would you ever think I couldn’t love you when that’s all I’ve been trying to do?”
“You don’t mean it, not really.” He reaches up to cup my face in his hand. “It’s just the mark.”
“I don’t believe that.” Tears fill my eyes. “This is why you keep pushing me away, because you think the only reason I like you is the mark connecting us?” I let out a laugh. “I was starting to think you actually hated me.”
"Oh, Birdie." Bo grazes my cheek. "I could never hate you, not in any lifetime."
“Remove the mark then, please. And then I can show you that it has nothing to do with my feelings for you. Let me at least try to prove it to you.”
Bo softly rocks his head back and forth. “The only way for me to rid you of that mark, is to…” His sullen gaze tugs at my heartstrings.
“What is it, Bo? What do we have to do? I’ll do anything. Just tell me what it is.”
“That’s the thing, Birdie. I know you would. And so would I, that’s why I can’t.”
“You have to help me understand, Bo. You’re killing me. Is that what you want? To hurt me?”
“Never.”
“Please, I need to know.”
“I have to replace it.”
“I don’t understand. Replace it with what?” I scan his features, desperate to find the answer he keeps hidden from me.
“With a fated mate mark.”
I blink and register his words. “I…”
“I won’t do that to you,” he tells me. “I won’t take away your right to choose.”
"My right to choose? Isn't that what you're doing now?" A single tear rolls down my cheek. "You dislike me so much that you refuse to be with me? You'd rather go be in hell with Balial than be stuck with me because of some mark?"
“That isn’t what I said.” Bo rises from his seat, his stature towering over me.
"Then explain it to me." I wipe my face and sniffle. "Why won't you do it?"
“Because Wren, don’t you get it? There’s no going back from a fated mate mark. Ask yourself this, could you walk away from Wes?”
“Well, no. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t, or couldn’t? There’s a difference there. It’s one thing to be with a person because youwantto, and it’s another to be forced to be with someone because of the mark. I don’t want you to be with me because you have no choice in the matter. How do you not realize that I can’t be selfish with you? As much as it fucking kills me. As much as I want nothing more than to give in to every fucking desire I have to make you mine, I withstand that urge because it’s not fair to you. Wes may not have had the willpower to withstand it, but I do. And I won’t do that to you.”
“You think…you think the only reason Wes and I are together is because of the mate bond?”
“Can you honestly tell me otherwise?”
