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“No. No, he’s not.”
Mark took a step back, and for a moment we merged and I felt it all, his anguish, his horror, the devastation each of my words caused when they landed like goddamn grenades, blowing apart everything he’d ever hoped for. It hurt to breathe, and I choked as I pulled myself away from him.
“Think about it, Mark. You’re here. You can smell me. Underneath the spunk and sweat, I’m still dirt and leaves and rain. But that’s it. Maybe you’re too close, maybe you’re overwhelmed by the very sight of me, but I haven’t been pack for a long time. Those bonds are broken. I was left here. Because I was human. Because I was a liability—”
He said “it’s not like that” and “Gordo” and “I promise you, okay? I would never—”
“A little late, Bennett.”
He reached for me. He always reached for me.
And I just knocked his hand away as if it were nothing.
“You don’t understand,” and oh my Christ, he was begging me.
But I didn’t hear it. I didn’t want to hear it. “There’s a world of things I don’t understand, I’m sure. But I’m a witch without a pack, and you don’t get to tell me shit. Not anymore.”
“So—what. Poor you, huh? Poor Gordo, having to stay behind for the good of his pack. Doing what his Alpha told him. Protecting the territory and fucking anything that moves.” And even though his words were hot with anger, everything he (I) felt was blue and violet, emptiness and rage.
“You wouldn’t touch me. Remember? I kissed you. I touched you. I begged for it. I would have let you fuck me, Mark. I would have let you put your mouth on me, but you told me no. You told me I had to wait. That things weren’t right, that the timing wasn’t right. That you couldn’t be distracted. You had responsibilities. And then you disappeared. For months on end. No calls. No check-ins. No how you doin’, Gordo? How you been? Remember me? Your mate? I would have let you do so much to me.”
“Gordo,” he growled, sounding more wolf than man, and I wanted him to tear my skin from my bones. I wanted his teeth in my neck and my blood down his throat.
“You can, you know,” I told him quietly. “You can have me. Right now. Here. Choose me. Mark. Choose me. Stay here. Or don’t. We can go anywhere you want. We can leave right now. You and me. Fuck everything else. No packs, no Alphas. No wolves. Just… us.”
“You would have me be an Omega?”
“No. Because I can be your tether. You can still be mine. And we can be together. Mark, I’m asking you, for once in your life, to choose me.”
He said, “No,” even though it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
I saw the moment it hit me.
That single word.
My face stuttered… and then hardened. It was over even before it had begun.
He said, “Gordo. I can’t—you can’t expect me to—it’s not like that—”
I took a step back.
“Of course you can’t,” I said, voice hoarse. “What was I thinking?”
I turned and went back into the house, leaving the door wide open.
He didn’t follow.
“This isn’t how it ends,” I told him as he watched the empty doorway, the house filling with shadows as it shook on its foundation. “I know it feels like it, but this isn’t our ending. We find our way back to each other. No matter how long it takes, we find our way back again. It’s how we always are. It’s how we’ll always be.”
The younger version of myself came back into the doorway, a box in hand.
Mark said, “No.”
Mark said, “Gordo.”
Mark said, “Just wait. Please just wait.”
I said, “You take it. You take it now.”
