Sydney
I stayed out all day. I didn’t come home until the sun faded and the sky turned an inky, endless black dotted with stars.
Admittedly, I stayed at my office until nearly 10:00 PM just to piss Cosette off, thinking she’d be waiting by the door to cuff my ears even though she was the one who bullied me out of my own home this morning.
Being alone, thrust into a somewhat normal routine again, felt right. It felt good. I feel somewhat like myself again after a day working and several hours spent shifting and running through the woods.
But I also didn’t stop thinking about Sarah all day long. I replayed those memories she returned to me over and over again until the night we spent together after the ball was so clear I could taste the vanilla ChapStick she was wearing and smell the floral perfume scenting her skin.
Now I’m home, walking through the garage door, and the house is quiet and dark.
But the light to the sitting room off the foyer is on.
I drop my gym bag and turn into the room, expecting to find Cosette waiting for me, but it’s Sarah.
She’s sitting on the ground in front of the fireplace, wearing a silly pair of fuzzy socks and her favorite leggings. My faded Wellington University crew-neck sweatshirt hangs to her knees as she watches the fire crackle in the hearth, the reflection of the flames blazing in her eyes.
“Hey,” I say, edging into the room with my hands stuffed into the pockets of my sweatpants.
She turns to look at me over her shoulder, giving me a tight smile. “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
She sighs heavily and looks back at the fire. It’s a stupid question. Of course, she’s not okay. Hell, I’m not okay. We’re in one of the shittiest positions I can think of.
There’s so much left unsaid between us right now. So much we need to work through so we know where we stand–together–as mates and as parents to our son.
“I fucked up,” she says quietly, her eyes meeting mine again.
I arch my brow. “What do you mean?”
“Your mom.” She stretches out her legs, wiggling her toes. “She knows.”
* * *
“Tell me again,” I say, stepping out of the shower twenty minutes later.
Sarah paces back and forth in my room, her footsteps leaving indents in the carpet. “She just knew. I slipped up, but not that bad, I don’t think. I mentioned how alike you and Blake are, and she ran with it, like she brought me up to her office, alone, because she already knew something was up. I started to cry and that sealed the deal.”
I tie a towel around my waist and grab a fresh one off the rack next to the shower, running it over the top of my head. “But she doesn’t know you’re Sasha?”
“No, of course not! But she knows I’m the one you were looking for after the ball.”
I shrug, hanging the towel up and leaning on the doorway, the door open a crack so we could talk while I was in the shower. I watch her turn on her heel and pace back in the direction she came, following the trail she’s laid for the entirety of my shower. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail that falls down her back in a sheet of pure, pale golden silk. Her face is flushed a rosy pink, lightly dusted with makeup. She looks pretty. Young, and vibrant. It’s a nice change, honestly. Seeing some light in her eyes has some of the tension leaving my shoulders.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she snaps.
“Smiling at you?”
“This is serious. You told me–you told all of us who know–that this needs to remain a secret, and I messed it up already.”
“They were going to find out sooner or later that Blake is mine. He looks just like me.”
“I understand that, but we haven’t talked about what happens now, Sydney. This!” She motions between us. “We haven’t talked about this.”
“We’re mates, Sarah.”
“I know that, but we’ve–Sydney, I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t know what to do or how to act….” She finally stops pacing and wraps her arms around herself in a tight embrace.
There’s two ways to do this. We could sit down and hash out the details in a businesslike manner. Who are we to each other? Do we want to be with each other or simply play the roles I know will keep Sarah as safe as possible while giving her the rank she deserves as my mate and mother of my child?
Or I can be stupid and act on the desperation that’s been clouding my better judgment since the moment I found her in her old apartment.
I’m being reckless. I can feel it in my blood as I step forward, in nothing but a towel to top things off, and say, “Say it.”
She shakes her head.
“Say it,” I repeat, my heart thundering. “Do you want to leave?”
“No, that’s not–”
“Would you be more comfortable living in your cottage in the village rather than here, with me?” I ask.
She looks confused, shaking her head.
“Then say it,” I push, but she narrows her eyes at me.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Reject me.”
Her eyes go wide. “Sydney, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Reject me, Sarah. If you don’t want this–”
“I never said I didn’t want this!”
“Then talk to me,” I urge, taking a step toward her. Sarah is finicky. Like a doe being hunted, she freezes, but I can almost hear her heart beginning to thunder against her ribs. “I’ve been wondering why you didn’t reject me to begin with, all those months ago. You kept our bond intact. Why?”
“Because I–I wanted to.”
“Why, Sarah?”
She turns pinker than before, her eyes flaming that deep amethyst color that sets my skin prickling with both unease and heavy desire.
Reckless. Dumb, and rash. I’m egging her on despite the fact we have things to shell out, to explain, to decide.
Those things go beyond how we feel about each other.
They don’t matter right now. Seeing her awake, lucid, and… happy. It’s doing something to my body that I can’t ignore. I can feel her emotions through our bond. That despair that's been lingering there, plucking at the fine, golden threads between us, has waned, replaced by hope.
That’s enough for me. That’s all I need.
“Why didn’t you shatter our bond?” I step toward her. “You stole my memories of you but left the bond intact. I need to know why.”
“Because I love you,” she says rapidly then covers her face with her hands.
When she peeks through her fingers again, I’m closer, within a foot of her.
She turns on her heel and tries to beeline for the door, but I grab her arm, holding her in place. “Sydney, please, let me go.”
“Do you think I don’t feel the same way?”
She doesn’t move. She’s holding her breath, her body rattling with the effort. “You can never trust me again after what I did to you. Everyone is telling me how protective you are, how good you are, and I am grossly aware of how little affection I deserve from you, Sydney. We’re mates, but that doesn’t mean we have to be together.”
“Sarah, this goes beyond the mate bond for me.” I gently pull her toward me. “Did you look through my memories?” I ask. “Do you have the ability to peer inside each moment, to feel what I felt, to think what I thought?”
She shakes her head, silent, refusing to look at me and keeping her gaze toward the door.
I lick my lips and pull her closer, reaching up to move her hair away from her neck. I run my fingertips down to the base of her throat where her shoulders converge. “Do you want to know what was going through my head that night I spent with you? Not when we slept together but before? When we were in the temple?”
She lets out her breath in a hesitant moan like she’s trying to hold it back. I lean down, my lips brushing over the back of her neck in a featherlight kiss as I wrap my around her waist.
I shouldn’t be doing this. My need to touch her, to feel her warm and supple in my hands, is making everything else hazy. All the threats to our lives, all the uncertainty, the vow I made to her, my mate, at arm’s length… it doesn’t matter anymore. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I saw you,” I whisper against her skin, “and I told myself I’d marry you, the mate bond be damned. I didn’t care if you were my mate or not. You were made for me. You were mine, from that moment on, and that hasn’t changed.”
She relaxes–melts into my touch. I unwind my arms from around her waist and pull the sweatshirt up and over her shoulders. She’s not wearing anything underneath, thank the Goddess.
I reach for her breasts, my lips pressed against her shoulder. I can feel her heart racing as my teeth drag over her skin.
“I was too shy to tell you how badly I wanted you that night,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t have been. I should have carried you over my shoulder back to my house, my pack, the moment we left the temple.”
She leans her head back against the crook of my shoulder, her eyes closed as my hands slide down her belly to the waistband of her leggings.
“I loved you then,” I whisper against her temple. “I love you now. That’s why this is so fucking hard, Sarah, because if you leave me again… Gabriel wouldn’t be the only man tearing the world apart to find you.”
My hands travel upward, ghosting over her arms. The bandage on her arm from where Gabriel marked her draws me out the haze of desire in an instant, and then I’m spiraling into rage I can’t contain.
Someone else marked my mate.
She turns to me, pressing her hand against my cheek and drawing my head down to meet hers.
“Don’t think about it.”
“I can’t–” It’s not me funneling into rage, not entirely. It’s my wolf. That feral, instinct driven side of me that wants nothing more than to pin her down and leave marks on her skin so that everyone who sees her knows who she belongs to.
She can feel these things through our bond.
“Do you understand why I made that vow last summer?” I ask.
She wraps her arms around my neck, one of her hands cupping the back of my head while her fingers tangle through my damp hair. “For the same reasons I took your memories of me. We’re in this together.”
“Then let's be in this together.”
“How, Sydney?”
I don’t know the answer. Memories of being in Gabriel’s dungeon flash in my mind. He’ll find her one day. He’ll come here to take her, but he’ll have to face me first.
We have to have a life somehow, a life that’s not weighed down but fear, grief, and despair.
I want to be able to take her on a date–a real date, with dinner and a movie and walks along the lake–without feeling like I have to continually look over my shoulder.
I want to walk with her into the village while we drop Blake off at school without a worry in our minds about his safety.
I want to live.
Beside her.
My mouth crashes into hers. Her lips are warm, wet, and coaxing as she grips the back of my head and slides her tongue along my lower lip. I open for her, biting her lip, my tongue swirling over hers in a frantic, dizzying dance.
She jumps into my arms, her legs wrapped around my waist.
Nothing else matters. Not Gabriel, not the threat of us being separated.
Just this.
I fall onto the bed with Sarah in my arms. I pull her hair loose from the scrunchie holding it in place and let it fall over me as I roll so she’s straddling me.
Her breasts are soft and heavy, pressed against my chest. She’s all around me–the only thing I can sense and taste. She’s the very air I breathe.
I’m going to mark her.
Then, I’m going to hunt Gabriel down and make him beg for mercy.