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“Will you just fucking listen to me?” I said, raising my voice.
Dannika groaned, pulling her legs over the side of the bed, and let them hang. She looked down, recognizing for the first time that she was naked. After a moment’s pause and the pinkening of her cheeks, she shrugged one shoulder, albeit stiffly, then stood up. “Where are my clothes?”
“You mean the ones you were wearing when you were shot?” I pointed to the fireplace. “I burned them. I couldn’t stand to see another reminder of what happened to you.”
She pursed her lips, twisting them to the side while grabbing a throw blanket and wrapping it around her body, tucking it in like a towel. Turning to me, she dropped her hands to her sides. “I don’t want to do this, Elias. I don’t have the mental energy anymore. We both know what this is”—she gestured between us—“it’s fake. Pretend.”
“We both know what this is?” I repeated. How could she blow this off? She’d said she’d loved me before the bond, but now it was so easy to just brush it aside and try to walk away? I couldn’t understand how. My heart burned with desire to be by her side. My tongue craved her taste. My body hungered to be entwined with hers. Everything I’d felt before the bond had just increased tenfold. I couldn’t be alone in that. “Danni, this is real. It doesn’t get more real than this.”
Her eyes filled with sadness, then she closed them. “‘I don’t want a mate that fate chooses for me.’ That is what you said to me the night we met.”
“We did choose each other. Fate just agreed with us.” Exasperation filled my tone. She was so closed off, she couldn’t hear the truth, and I didn’t know how to make her listen.
She smiled sadly, taking a step away from me. “You don’t believe that. I want you to, but you don’t. I want the words you’re saying to be real, but it’s the bond talking. I feel it. I know it’s there. If it’s this strong for me, I know it is for you. But these words? They’re not yours.” She huffed, smirking. “Trust me. I just went through it. If the bond can make my bully grovel for forgiveness, it can certainly make you see delusions of love.”
Delusions.
She wasn’t listening at all.
I had to make her understand. She needed to know. She needed to believe. But her heart was too broken, and what remained of it was shuttered, trying to protect what fragments were left.
I’d said I wouldn’t let fate dictate my life. She wouldn’t let it control hers, either. I knew that about her. I respected that, more than she could ever know.
My thoughts raced, and the bond pulsed, relentless and demanding, as what came next was against everything I felt at the core of my existence. The caged beast inside me clawed, doing what it could to tear me apart. It raged against the decision I’d come to, knowing it was inherently wrong.
But I had no choice.
“Dannika Kresley, I reject you.”
CHAPTER 29
Dannika
Icouldn’t believe the words he’d said.
The overwhelming sense of loss was consuming. My bones ached, feeling as though they were splintering apart inside me. A high-pitched pealing echoed, drowning out all sound. The fissures that had formed on my heart split further, threatening to shatter and leave me in a pile of nothingness on the floor as the ringing in my ears turned violent. This wasn’t what I wanted, and I knew it with every fiber of my being.
I loved Elias. I didn’t need the bond to know that. I didn’t need fate to tell me whom I belonged to. I belonged to him. I would always belong to him.
He said nothing.
I said nothing.
The tether I’d held on to wrapped around my neck like a noose, squeezing and pulling. I let out a strangled sob, gasping for air while I clutched my chest. I couldn’t find it in me to say the words back to him. I had to break what bound us together, but it refused to come out because my heart knew it wasn’t what I wanted.
His brows furrowed, and he took a step forward, but I held a hand out, backing up. Elias retreated, clenching his fists.
“I came to you, Danni. I swear to you I did,” he started, his nostrils flaring as he exhaled harshly. “Let me speak, please. I need you to hear me.”
Time stilled while he waited for me to respond. The muscles in his neck were tight with tension. His breathing labored. His body shook with the pain and exertion caused by the loosened chains that battled between us. The rejection was hurting him, commanding a reversal.
I nodded, holding back the tears that wanted to come out.
“I know what I said to you about not wanting a mate. About this being a business arrangement. I know I said we were nothing. All of that? I can’t take it back. I can’t. But it’s not true. None of it. Not a single word. From the moment I saw you, I was drawn to you. I wanted you. Every day that passed, I wanted you more. Not just in my bed. I wanted you. All of you. Every day I wanted you by my side.” He shook his head, pointing his finger toward the door. “I knew that before you left. Before I told you we were nothing. Before the bond.”
“Why?” I whispered.
He ran his fingers through his unkempt hair. “Because we have been communicating for shit. I was angry. You said something that hurt me, and I hurt you in return, and the moment those words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I regret hurting you. I regret not telling you what you meant to me as soon as I realized what this really was.”
