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The hammering stops, and Ryker is frozen in place, his back turned to me.
“And I think I’m your fated mate,” I continue, taking a step closer.
Ryker drops his arm from where he was repairing the wall, his back still facing me, though he’s stiff as a fucking board.
“Who told you?” comes his icy cold tone. Tears clog my throat at his response. What’s so wrong with me that he doesn’twant me as his mate? I’m clumsy, I know, but I thought I was making up for it by helping him out with the books.
“Is it true?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
RYKER
Shit.
“Yes,” I bark out, unable to turn around and look my mate in the eye. I can feel her flinching away from me, even if I can’t see her.
“Then why…” she takes a deep breath as if mustering up all of her courage. Jesus, I’m an asshole. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why haven’t you claimed me yet?”
“I’m not going to claim you. I can’t.”
Eden lets out a soft gasp, and I finally spin on my heel, getting my first look at her since she walked in. What I see nearly has me crumbling to my knees. Tears form and fall down her porcelain cheeks, the agony in her golden-brown eyes slicing through me like a knife.
"Is it… Is it because I'm so accident-prone?" she murmurs.
Fuck me, this woman is killing me. “No, it’s not you, it’s–”
“Really?” Eden surprises me by cutting me off. I’ll take her rage over her tears any day of the week, but I hate that I can’t have her love and smiles, too. I want all of Eden, so damn bad, but I won’t put her at risk. I can’t. “You’re going to give me the most cliche line in the book?It’s not you, it’s me?”
Her anger and sorrow mix as a heart-wrenching sob is pulled from her chest. My wolf lunges at my throat, wanting to break free, wanting to be near her, to comfort her and protect her, even from myself.
I feel helpless to do anything as images of my mother dying and the life draining from my father slowly take over my vision. I can’t let my mate be another casualty of my curse, even if it’s killing me to watch her fall apart. It’s for her own good.
“Do you have anything to say?” Eden chokes out. “You’re ruining my life and you’ve barely said ten words to me.”
I open my mouth, then close it a few times, floundering like a fish until Eden shakes her head at me and puts her hand up, palm out, effectively shutting me up. She stares at me, those brown eyes pleading with me to fight for her, to tell her it’s a misunderstanding, that I’ll love her the same way Griffin loves her best friend. I know that’s what she wants to hear. Fuck, that’s what I want to give her, but she doesn’t understand. Nothing I can say will change the fact that we can’t be together.
My mate slowly backs away, then spins on her heel, racing outside. I follow her to the door, making sure she doesn’t trip over the stairs or scraps of lumber in her yard. When I see her pounding on Griffin and Phoenix’s door, some of the tension relaxes from my shoulders. At least I know she’ll be safe there.
Closing the door of Eden’s cabin, I lean against it, rubbing the heels of my hands in my eyes to ease the pounding headache there.Fuck. I fucked everything up but I can’t go back now. The only thing I can do is move forward. Fix up the place. Make sure Eden is as safe as she can be in her new home.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been working on the bathroom sink, but when my phone rings, I jerk my head up and bang it against the metal pipe. “Fuckin’ perfect,” I grumble, my voice sounding hoarse, even to my own ears. “What?” I rasp into the phone. The only person who calls me is Griffin, and I’m notexactly in the mood to talk about what a colossal mistake I’ve just made.
“Your mate is over here in tears,” he states flatly.
My heart twists up painfully in my chest, but I swallow thickly, hoping to ease the tension there. “Better crying than dead,” comes my gruff response.
“You’re so full of shit,” Griffin says, making me pull the phone from my ear to look at it in surprise. I’ve been a grumpy ass most of our relationship, but he rarely gets snippy with me. Then again, the stakes have never been this high before.
“It’s for her own good,” I insist as I push to my feet and start pacing around the hallway.
“Has she gotten hurt once since you’ve been around her?”
I think back to the times I’ve caught her from tripping or steered her out of traffic; the times I subtly wrapped an arm around her hips and moved her slightly out of someone’s way. And then there was the time I left her to her own devices and she cut her hand. When I removed her from the danger and kept her with me at City Hall, she didn’t get hurt.
“Not until today,” I grumble. “I broke her heart.”
“That’s what I thought,” my obnoxiously self-satisfied friend says. “Because she’s your mate. The pain of not being together is greater than any bump or bruise she might get. Plus, it’s time you get over this curse nonsense once and for all. Yourmate, the one person created just for you, the only soul fated to be with yours, is sitting atmyhouse, crying about not being good enough.”
