Chapter 26 JEALOUSY BURNS LIKE FLAME
RAY’S POV
Darkness swallowed us.
Good. I didn't want to see the other mate marks on her skin. Didn't want to be reminded that I was sharing her.
I lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around my waist as I pressed her against the wall inside the storage room. She was breathing hard, her hands sliding under my shirt, nails digging into my back.
"This is crazy," she whispered.
"I don't care," I repeated, capturing her mouth again. The kiss was rough, demanding, nothing like the gentle way I used to touch her. But gentle had gotten us nowhere. Gentle had let other wolves walk into our bond and take pieces of her I'd never get back.
Her fingers found my face, cradling it with a tenderness that broke my heart. "Ray, we can't fix this by…"
"I know." I rested my forehead against hers, my chest heaving. "I know we can't fix it. But for five minutes, can we pretend? Can you just be mine again?"
She was quiet for so long I thought she'd say no. Thought she'd push me away and choose the others because at least their bonds weren't corrupted. At least they didn't come with the weight of shared blood and impossible choices.
Then she kissed me.
Not gentle. Not careful. She kissed me like she was drowning and I was air, her hands pulling at my shirt, her body arching against mine. I responded with everything I had, days of watching her share her attention and love fuel every touch, every kiss, every desperate attempt to prove I still mattered.
"You're mine," I growled against her throat. "Whatever happens with the others, you started as mine."
"Yes," she gasped.
I claimed her mouth again, my hands sliding up her sides, relearning the curves I'd memorized. She made a sound that went straight through me, half pleasure and half pain, and I knew she felt it too, the pain from our bond trying to repel.
The storage room was dusty and dark, filled with old training equipment and spare uniforms. Not romantic. Not special. But I didn't care. I just needed her to remember that I was her first. That before Logan's golden eyes and Kai's steady presence and Monty's quiet devotion, there was me.
Her legs tightened around my waist. Her breathing came in short gasps that matched mine. I kissed her like I could pour every word I couldn't say into her skin, I love you, I need you, I'm terrified of losing you, please don't forget me.
"Ray," she moaned, her head falling back.
Victory surged through me. My name. She said my name. Not Monty's. Not Logan's. Not…
"Kai."
The word was barely a whisper. So quiet I almost missed it. But it landed like a knife between my ribs.
I froze.
Alicia's eyes flew open, horror dawning in their green depths as she realized what she'd said. "Ray, I didn't…"
I stepped back so fast she nearly fell. She caught herself against the wall, her chest heaving, her lips swollen from my kisses.
"You said his name," I said flatly.
"It was an accident, I…"
"You said his name while I was…" I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't voice the humiliation burning through my chest.
Alicia reached for me. "Ray, please, it didn't mean anything"
"Don't." I backed toward the door, my hands shaking. "Don't tell me it didn't mean anything."
Tears streamed down her face now. "I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. The bonds are all tangled up and I can barely think straight and…"
"And Kai." I laughed, but it sounded broken. "The wolf you've known for one week. That's who you're thinking about."
"That's not fair!"
"Fair?" I shoved the door open, afternoon sunlight flooding the storage room and illuminating Alicia's devastated expression. "You want to talk about fair? I've loved you even when my whole pack is against you, and now, after everything we've been through, you say another man's name while I'm holding you."
"Ray…"
But I was already gone, storming across the training field with her broken apology echoing in my ears. My wolf howled inside my chest, a sound of pure anguish that had nowhere to go.
I made it to the tree line before I heard Monty's voice behind me.
"Ray, stop."
"Not now," I growled.
"She didn't mean it."
I spun around. Monty stood twenty feet away, his expression careful, his hands raised like he was approaching a wounded animal. Which wasn't far from the truth.
"You heard?" I asked.
"Everyone with wolf hearing heard," Monty said gently. "You weren't exactly quiet."
Shame burned through my rage. Perfect. Now the whole pack knew my mate was thinking about another man while I touched her.
"The bonds are confusing her," Monty continued, stepping closer. "Four connections pulling in different directions. She can barely…"
"I don't want excuses," I cut him off. "I want..." What? What did I want? Her love? I had that. Her loyalty? She'd given me that too, until Jake said those words. "I want what we had before."
"That's gone, Ray." Monty's voice held the kind of brutal honesty only a best friend could deliver. "You can't get it back. You can only decide what to do with what's left."
"What's left is a corrupted bond and a mate who says other men's names."
"What's left," Monty corrected, "is a woman who needs all four of us or she dies. That includes you. Even with a corrupted bond, you're still part of her survival."
I looked back toward the storage building. Alicia stood in the doorway, her body looking small and broken against the afternoon sun.
"She said his name," I whispered.
"I know."
"That means something, Monty. It means she's already choosing…"
"It means the bonds are tangled," Monty interrupted firmly. "It means she's overwhelmed and scared and trying to navigate four separate connections in twenty-two days. It doesn't mean she loves you less."
But that was the problem, wasn't it?
Even if Alicia still loved me, she loved three others now too. And the corrupted bond meant mine would always be the weakest. The most damaged. The easiest to forget.
I was being replaced.
Slowly. Inevitably.
And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.
"Give her time," Monty said.
But time was the one thing we didn't have. Twenty-two days until the full moon. Twenty-two days for Alicia to complete four mate bonds or explode and kill everyone within a mile radius.
Twenty-two days to watch her fall for the others while our bond withered and died.
I turned away from the storage building and walked into the forest, ignoring Monty's calls behind me. My wolf needed to run. Needed to feel something other than this crushing weight of loving someone who was slipping away one heartbeat at a time.
Behind me, I heard Alicia cry out my name.
But this time, I didn't stop.
This time, I just kept walking.