Chapter 59 59
AESON'S POV
My head was spinning with her proximity, a primal reaction to my unclaimed mate. The thought flashed, unbidden and vivid: I could have her pinned on that massive bed in a flash. One step, one grab, and she’d be under me, and maybe, just maybe, this burning, aching need would be sated.
The danger of that thought made me turn away abruptly, presenting her with my back as I fought the violent, possessive urge.
“Get out,” I ordered, the words clipped.
I could still feel her eyes on me, a physical challenge. Her hesitation was a silent challenge. My control frayed another inch.
“Leave,” I growled, the sound vibrating with a threat that was very real. “Now!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her flinch at the tone. She gave me one last, stunned look, then turned and walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. Too softly. It felt like a judgment.
The second the door shut, the last of my strength left me. I crossed the few steps to the bed and collapsed onto it, the soft doing nothing to cushion the fall of my spirit. My vision was blurry at the edges, swimming with gold and need. I was on a knife’s edge, my body a battlefield, trying desperately to fight the burning sensation that wanted to consume me.
‘Arrgh! You don’t yell at our mate like that!’ Tyson grunted, furious on her behalf.
“No way, Ty,” I muttered aloud into the empty room, my voice rough. “I’m not accepting this bond. I can’t. I won’t let myself go crazy again over a mate.” No. The word was a vow to my own shattered past.
‘Well, can you control it?’ he shot back, logic in his feral mind. ‘No. You can’t fight a mate pull and win, not forever. First, we need to know why I can’t connect with her wolf. We need to understand the barrier.’
“I don’t care!” I snarled, pushing myself up on my elbows. “I don’t want to be tied to her. I just want my… my due.” I almost said 'revenge,' but even in my head, it sounded petty and small next to the seismic shift happening inside me. “Nothing will get in my way.”
‘You can’t use our mate for your selfish gain, Aeson ,’ he said, his tone shifting to something quieter, more serious. It was the voice of my conscience, the tiny part of me that remembered what honor was. ‘She’s a gift. A second chance. Not a tool.’
“I don’t care what you think,” I huffed, but the fight was draining out of me, replaced by a weary, aching emptiness. I inhaled slowly, and as the minutes ticked by, the fiercest edge of the burning sensation began to wither, receding to a dull, persistent throb. The immediate, violent need passed, leaving behind a deep, unsettling knowledge.
I sat up. My phone was on the nightstand. I grabbed it and fired off a terse message to the Gamma at the gate.
{Is the girl still on the grounds?}
Immediately, the phone rang. I answered, my voice a low bark. “Well?”
“Alpha, I’m sorry,” His voice was strained. “I saw you... return earlier, jumping through the window. I thought you were expecting her, so I told her to wait inside. I didn’t know you were...”
“Shut up,” I cut him off. “Is she there now?”
“She just left. She looked upset.”
A fresh, irrational spike of panic—not fear, but something else—shot through me. “Go get her back!” I ordered, the command leaving no room for argument, hanging up before he could respond.
I stood and paced the length of the room with anticipation. After a couple of minutes, I stopped when my phone buzzed with a new message.
{Alpha, I was able to stop her before she boarded a taxi. She's in the courtyard now.}
I gripped the phone, the cool plastic was like an anchor. Then I headed out of the room, my steps determined. The burning need had reduced to a manageable hum, but Tyson was a jumping, restless presence in my chest, making me feel unsettled, off-balance.
Stop. It. Tyson, I warned him internally as I descended the stairs.
‘You should see her,’ he insisted, relentless. ‘Tell her she’s our mate. See what she says.’
I simply smirked, a cold, humorless twist of my lips. His over-excitement was a child’s compared to the centuries of cynical weight I carried. Tell her? And then what? Watch her run screaming? Or worse, see calculation enter those sea-colored eyes?
I pushed open the front door and stepped out into the late afternoon light. She was there, standing in the middle of the stone courtyard, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She looked up as I approached, and her expression was a tight coil—barely contained anger, frustration, and a wounded pride that called to something protective in me I immediately squashed.
I didn’t offer an apology. I didn’t explain my earlier behavior. I simply walked up to her, stopping a few feet away, and stated the business at hand, my voice flat and devoid of all the turmoil she’d just caused.
“Let’s go see the apartment.”
Then I turned and walked past her, not waiting for a response, heading toward one of the cars parked along the side of the house. The distance helped. The open air helped. But the thread was there, stretching between us, thin and strong, and I knew, with a sinking, furious certainty, that Tyson was right. I couldn’t fight this forever.