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“If it’s not fixable?” I ask.
He gives me a pointed look. “Then it can be severed. You can cut her out of your system like my father did with the woman who gave birth to me. You’ve got a case to argue that the differences are irreconcilable like with my old man. I already asked Vivica about it, and she assures me it’ll be your choice. But take the week. That’s what I’m adding to this vote. Not only that I vote with Tyson to have you two in the same space to work things out, but also that you give it a week before you make your decision.”
“I’ll be the first to agree with that motion,” Mase says.
My eyes cut to him. I feel betrayal course through my insides at this shit. And that’s not right either. Nothing’s right. Nothing. Not how I’m acting, certainly not how I’m feeling. I’m not myself, I know it. I also don’t know how to articulate it so these guys will leave me alone, which is what I want most right now.
“We know there’s been magic involved,” Mase tells me. “I know what that does to your head. I lived it, Riley. I lived in hell while shit got sorted out. That’s gotta be what’s happening here with you. You’re pissed off. You’re hurt. You’re thrown for a loop since everything you thought you knew for years is wrong. You’re denying what’s yours and that’s fuckin’ with your senses. Not just your senses, it’s fucking with our connection, too. And then tonight she got taken.”
A growl involuntarily rumbles out of me. From somewhere dark inside me. The place that meant I ripped a shifter’s throat out tonight. I killed somebody. Because he took her. Put his hands on her.
But then I left her on the ground with tears in her eyes, her heart hammering in her chest so hard that it felt like it was in my chest. There was blood on her body, and fear in her soul. I can feel her soul. And every bit of me doesn’t want to feel it. But I do. And her soul has been shredded. It’s in tatters. I push the thoughts away, slamming the proverbial wall down again to try and block that connection that’s been forming since I pinned her to her back in her van the other night in the village.
Yeah, it’s trying to form, and as I’ve been struggling to block it, it’s taking everything I’ve got. Maybe that’s why I feel so screwed up. Why my senses are off. My connection with my pack. Fuck, the connection with myself, even.
Bile rises in my throat, hitting my back teeth.
“You’re angry. I understand angry, Riley Savage,” Ty says, squeezing the back of my neck. “I understand it better than most.”
“This is why you’re getting tough love from us right now, Rye.” Linc leans forward, adding his hand on my free shoulder. “’Cuz we know you. And you need it. I know nothing about the mating bond, but Tyson and Mase do and I’m with them. This is what you need. Time alone with your mate. It makes sense to me. Enough time to figure out what’s next. You’re not functioning. You’re not you right now. Leave the rest to us. We’ve got the business. We’ll handle shit with Grey’s mate’s brother. We’ve got shit here. Get things sorted, bro.”
“You’ve been carrying a heavy load,” Grey adds. “For a long time. Because you didn’t know how to go on otherwise after her. But now’s your chance to figure it out. We’re here to share the load. You’ve got a second chance here. You’re getting what you wanted most for seven years. You’re getting what you lay awake nights aching for. Most don’t get that, Riley.”
I shake my head. “I hear you guys. I do. I am fucked right now. Absolutely fubared, and I don’t know what the hell to do. You’re all pissing me off, but I’m not so far gone that I don’t get it. I know I’m not myself. I know you all give a shit.”
“This isn’t going away unless you deal with it,” Grey says. “If you don’t, you know what’ll happen. You know that’s why we’re sometimes called in to help with other packs and mating issues. When an alpha denies his mating bond and rejects it, things go very wrong in his head; it fucks with his wolf, and it often affects his entire pack.”
I know this. I just don’t know what to do about it.
“Trust the process,” Mase advises and gives me a look filled with wisdom from first-hand knowledge.
“Yeah,” Grey agrees. “If you decide you wanna move on, cut it off at the neck, we’ll make it happen. I’m getting to know the Young sisters and they’re open to me being an extended member of their coven. They could use me. I’ve got a lot to learn, and it feels right that I explore that, but I know in my gut that despite my father telling the truth when he says severing the connection with my biological mother was necessary, that doesn’t mean I think it’s automatically the answer here. We’re mated to who we identify for a reason. There’s a reason Stacy showed up in the diner and seemed like an enemy, but is now mine.”
