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He laid her down on the rough pallet of the hut, remembering the night she'd torn his bed apart to make her nest. Remembering the glee in her eyes when he produced his ratty, threadbare sleeping bag. One of the only things he'd salvaged from his days in OT. It had taken a few washes to get it well and truly clean, but it was still a good piece of camping gear, and he wasn't about to get rid of it. But Zorah's face had shone like it was thousand-thread-count sheets at a five-star hotel. She touched it and sniffed it and arranged it and burrowed into it with near ecstatic fervor.
Jake squatted and tucked the blanket around the naked girl. His palm on her forehead showed her temperature was less scalding than the other times he'd checked over the past few days. If her temp was normalizing, maybe her Heat was ending. He wished that for her.
Heart heavy and bleeding, he stroked a fingertip over her cheek and down the tip of her nose, indulging in a last, long look.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said into the hazy light. "I'm sorry I'm not what you want me to be."
The golden bond vibrated displeasure, and he shoved it back, fighting to keep it from flowing through the connection and going into her. Bad enough to taint her with his flashbacks and his memories and his seed, now he'd sully her with the black hole of his emotions.
Fuck. Fuck!
He had to go. Maybe if he got farther away, it would hurt less. He could run back to his cabin. No, he'd stop by the lake and wash himself. Once again, scrub all the vestiges of their activities from his skin, rid himself of the evidence of everything they shared. The bond screeched again, louder this time, angry at him for even considering what he was about to do.
"I made a promise," he said out loud, not exactly sure who he was talking to. "I made a promise."
Hunt might kill him. That was a real possibility, but Jake cared less about that. If the Alpha wanted to kill him, then so be it, but what he absolutely could not stand was to see that disdain and disappointment reenter his friend's eyes. To see Hunter's assessment of him fall even lower than it had been that night in OT. The night he'd been captured, the night he and Ava had been discovered, the night he'd tried to abduct Kess, they all ran together in a shameful smear. He couldn't disappoint Hunt again, and not with this.
And then there were the long-term considerations. Beyond the precarious trading arrangement with River Bend, what would he do with a mate? How would he care for her, protect her, provide for her as the barely tolerated lowest member of this Pack? That's if he even got to stay in the Pack, a huge assumption. An ugly surge of frustration roared in his chest. Why had she done this? Why had she tethered not only her affection to his but herlife, too? He didn't deserve any of those things: her heart, her affection, her devotion. None of it. Eventually, she would come to understand that. She had to.
Jake scanned the bare-bones little shelter, hating the blandness of it, hating the new-cabin smell, hating the lack of soft, beautiful things to cradle his girl.
His mate.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, the bond stabbing into him with discontent and horror. Wrenching his eyelids open, he bent and brushed a kiss over her soft, perfect lips, breathing in her sweetly scented breath one final time. His heart thrashed in his chest. Unable to stop himself, he stole another kiss before he tore himself away, clenching his fists to keep from snatching her up and running her directly back to his cabin and his bed, where she belonged.
But that was the thing. Shedidn'tbelong. Zorah was young. And beautiful. And clever. And resourceful. She had a whole life ahead of her, a whole life to recover from what he was about to do. Forgiveness he could not wish for and knew he'd never deserve, but in time, she might forget him.
Breaths coming short, he went to the door, not allowing himself even a single last glance at the Omega he was leaving behind. It was part self-preservation and part self-punishment. He'd have to make do now. Make do with the memories of her that filled his head; he didn't deserve a single one more.
Outside, the screaming dawn sunlight blasted his face and seared his retinas like an avenging angel pointing a sword at him on judgment day. Tears leaked from his eyes, blurring his vision as he disappeared back into the cover and safety of the woods, leaving behind the most precious thing he'd ever had.
CHAPTER 31
Zorah
Zorah had been hovering on the doorstep of consciousness for a while, deliberately keeping her eyes closed to enjoy the lazy feeling of lying in bed with no reason to get up. Jake's smell surrounded her, in her hair and on her skin. Even if the bed lacked the heat of his warm body, it didn't alarm her. These past days, he'd often stolen out of bed while she'd slept, only to appear at her side with a glass of water or a snack when she finally opened her eyes. The thought of seeing him coaxed her all the way awake, the golden bond in her chest humming in anticipation.
But an unfamiliar room disoriented her. She sat up so fast it made her dizzy. No, she knew this place. She was back in the Heat Hut. As she scrambled to her knees, the blanket fell away from her body, and a bunched-up pile of her clothes fell with it. Clothes that she'd last seen in Jake's cabin. Confusion pelted her on all sides. What was she doing here? Why were these clothes here? And where was Jake? Where was her mate?
The bond smarted in her chest, the golden glow mutated into a swarm of angry, stinging bees, as if it knew something she didn't. As if to tell her that his absence was not an accident or a fluke but a message. Zorah dug the heel of her palm into her sternum, pressing hard against the discomfort. She'd gone to sleep with the bond, a neatly woven line connecting her heart to his, but now, that connection snarled and frayed and tangled. It howled its displeasure so loud she felt the echoes in the marrow of her bones. She'd given her claiming bite, and this is what he'd done.
He'd left her. While she'd slept, he'd brought her here and left her.
He doesn't want you.
Pain blistered her insides, and Zorah bent at the waist, her stomach heaving as she reached out a hand to steady herself on the wall. No. No, this couldn't be happening. Breaths short and gasping, she groped for the bond, snatched at all the shredded ends that slipped from her grasp, desperate to take hold of one, just one, that would lead her back to him. A distant wail shuddered down the connection, one that Zorah knew did not come from her. Jake, wherever he was, was hurting too, and that quelled her agitation to a very small degree.
Something must've driven him to do this. Some outside force. He couldn't have just discarded her like this, like a used dishrag.
Her disgusted, indignant inner Omega sneered, sounding just like all the condescending talking-tos she'd received from her family over the years.
Alpha left. He doesn't want you.
No. She refused to believe it. There must be an explanation. Was he mad at her because of the knot? Because of the bite? Had she gone too far? She could understand that; she wouldn't want an Alpha biting her without her permission, but she could've sworn — would've sworn on her life, on Nana's life! — that he'd felt the pureness of their connection, that all those joinings had been about far, far more than just sexual relief.
Chest burning, Zorah stumbled over to the basin of stale, tepid water and splashed a few handfuls on her face. It spilled over her naked chest, chilling instantly in the air. Without the internal fire of her Heat to warm her, goose bumps broke out over her skin.
Resolution stilled her spinning thoughts. She needed to find him. Needed to hear him explain this rejection. Every Alpha in this village wanted to mate her. Was he so different from them? Sure, she wasn't the most sexually experienced Omega, but she'd done okay, hadn't she? She'd learned a lot.
