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She nodded, her cheeks still red. “Thanks.”
As much as it pained me to do so, I forced myself to stride out of the building as if I wasn’t worried about leaving her.
My female needed time and space. She needed to be certain that I didn’t want to control her the way Allen had—that her freedom meant as much to me as it did to her.
“Damn, he walked away much easier than I would’ve expected,” Ezra remarked.
“He knows it’s not going to work out between us if he can’t,” Aurora admitted, her voice growing fainter in my ears as the distance between us increased. “He doesn’t want to leave me, but I need him to, and he understands that.”
I walked a bit taller with her words in my mind, and forced myself to focus as much as possible while I was away from her.
She needed space—and I would give her what she needed, even if it killed me.
fourteen
RORY
I loved workingin the shop. It was fun chatting with the other girls, and they filled in the gaps between what I knew and didn’t know about Evare. For the most part, I understood everything, but there were a few things I hadn’t quite wrapped my mind around.
The eclipse was still one of those things. The grins they wore when they told me it was something I just had to experience for myself reassured me that I didn’t need to worry about it.
I ate dinner with the pack in the massive den after the suns went down that day, and it was surreal. I still leaned heavily against Amarok when the other werewolf guys were around—Ezra told me they didn’t care if we called them shifters or werewolves—but I couldn’t expect myself to adjust to the sheer size of them overnight.
My past was still my past, after all.
And I felt safe enough tucked against Amarok’s side that I didn’t worry about any of them, so it wasn’t a big deal.
He walked me back to my den afterward, and I was exhausted enough that I just gave him a quick hug before climbing back into my space and collapsing on my bed.
When the nextmorning came around, I showered and got dressed before climbing outside. I stared at a big, furry beast I found out there for a moment, before I realized Amarok had slept outside my den again, in his wolf form.
My guilt must’ve shown on my face, because he murmured into my mind,“I stayed here because I chose to, Aurora. Not because I had to. I want you to be comfortable in your own space, not to adapt for me because of guilt.”
His words didn’t wipe away my feelings, but they did ease them.
I satisfied them the rest of the way by letting him make me breakfast in his den, like he wanted to, then forcing him to take a shower before we left again. He acted grumbly about it, but I could tell he liked that I was making him take care of himself.
Nothing steamy happened, and we spent the day working peacefully with the pack before eating dinner with everyone, like we had the night before.
We fell into a pattern, and the days passed quickly. Breakfast in Amarok’s den, both of us ignoring the lust that literally glowed around us, a full day of work, and then a hug at the opening of my den before we spent the night separately.
It wasn’t everything I wanted, but it felt necessary. I had to give myself time to process and adjust, after all.
And honestly, I was happy with it.
So ridiculously happy, I could hardly believe it.
I woke up with a smile on my face in the mornings, and greeted Amarok with enough enthusiasm that it made him smile too. His smiles felt even better to me than my own, somehow.
Two and a halfweeks flew by quickly, and then we were finally walking back toward my den the night before the eclipse.
Our movements were slower than usual, and my hand was tucked in the crook of his elbow, our sides brushing with every few steps.
We hadn’t discussed the eclipse. As Amarok had promised, he hadn’t asked me for or pushed me on a single thing. I set the pace, and he followed my lead exactly.
“So…” I trailed off, as we neared my den.
He was quiet, but when I glanced at him, I didn’t see any concerning emotions on his face or in his posture. He still looked about as relaxed as I could’ve expected him to be.
