AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The walk back to our place took a bit longer in human form, but neither of us said a thing as we went. His grip was tight, and I didn’t need to feel his emotions to know he was battling frustration with himself, and probably guilt for attacking the other man without a real reason.
We were still silent as he climbed into his cave—our cave?
When his feet hit the ground, the door was shut, the room cool and silent.
Teris set me down on the bed, and then silently strode into the bathroom.
The door shut behind him, hard.
And I felt like there was a hell of a lot more distance between us than there had been before that fight. Honestly, it felt like we were back in that forest, with him following me from the trees without saying a damn word to me.
And I hated that.
My instincts told me to shut down. To stay silent, and ignore him, until the problems faded.
But my instincts had never gotten me anywhere worth going, so I ignored them and walked to the bathroom door.
My ear pressed to the wood, and I listened as the shower turned on.
He probably had some dried blood on his hands, and maybe the rest of him too. I hadn’t looked closely enough to know, after being caught off-guard earlier.
Though I itched to step into his shower and insist he needed to talk to me, I didn’t know him as well as I used to. I didn’t know if he was the kind of person who needed time to think through his emotions, or if he’d feel better after we talked.
I wasn’t going to shut down, or shut him out…
But I would let him take his shower in peace, and then we would talk about what had happened.
With that decided, I crossed back over to the bed and sat down on the mattress. I contemplated stripping, knowing that would change the mood from angry and stressful to something much hotter.
Sex wouldn’t get us through the conversation we needed to have, though. It would only be a distraction, and one we didn’t need.
Not yet, anyway.
So I slipped my legs under the blankets, propping my back up against the wall at the head of the bed.
I waited while Teris showered. He wasn’t in there too long—definitely less than ten minutes. Maybe only five.
When he stepped out, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. Though he was clean, he didn’t seem any more relaxed than he’d been a few minutes earlier.
He sat down on the edge of the bed without removing the towel. His hair was wet, and he ran a hand through it, sending it up in a bunch of messy spikes.
A long, silent moment passed before he finally spoke.
“I’m sorry, Nai. I fucked up, and I don’t even know why I did. You weren’t touching him, or flirting with him, or even really looking at him. It shouldn’t have set me off. I feel like absolute shit.”
My heart ached at the rawness in his voice.
I leaned over the edge of the bed and put a hand on top of his thigh. There was a towel between our skin, but I didn’t care. He didn’t take my hand, though.
“It was all instinct, Ter. I saw it in your eyes; the reaction was automatic. We’re mated, but there’s still a lot of shit in our pasts that we haven’t really settled. It’ll take time for us to get there. I don’t blame you for reacting, and neither does anyone else.”
“I blame me,” he growled back.
“You’re not perfect. No one is. If I saw you laughing with some random human girl, I’d probably get all defensive too.”
“You wouldn’tattackher.”
“No, but I’d hate her so intensely that it’d be pretty much the same thing.”
