"Sorry." I whisper feeling a little uncomfortable now. He isn't angry with me though. He smiles shaking his head. "It's all right. I would want to know as well." The look on his face tells me that he's going to continue but he seems hesitant as if he thinks through ever word that he's going to say to me but all I really want from him is to be one hundred percent honest with me. "Our emotions are heightened along with everything else." He begins as he shifts to rest his chin on my hip bone. I'm a little uncomfortable with where his head is but he seems more preoccupied on his hand still moving against my hip. "We get angry easily, we get angry enough and we shift. It's why the other day I had to get away from you. To know that you were that scared of something pissed me off so much I was on the verge of shifting right there in front of you and possibly hurting you." Six words struck me in that sentence and I felt a jolt of pain in my chest. 'Had to get away from you'. It took all I had bottled up inside me to listen to the rest of the sentence without crying again. He didn't want to hurt me though and I visibly relax. "It's not only our emotions that are heightened. Speed, strength, agility and all our senses are heightened as well." He slows towards the end of his sentence and I expect him to tell me more but he just stops, his breath fanning lightly over the skin above the hem of my jeans. "What about love?" I question lightly my hand still on his arm. "Reynolds explained to me that you only ever truly are with one person. Is that why, because you have all these heightened emotions for each other?" Ryder meets my eyes and he freezes. His tongue comes back out over his teeth and I can hear his heartbeat pick up lightly. I realise how weak my ears may actually be to his and think that his heartbeat has picked up rather rapidly. "I know what Reynolds told you. He never told you the technical term but we have mates." Mates, I'm confused but I let him continue. "It's two halves of a whole meeting as one, soul mates. It's our wolves that recognize each other, it's an instant connection, and a mate bond is formed. Our wolves are part of us and without them or our mate we don't have a will to live." There's tightness in my throat that I gulp down. "You haven't found your mate have you?" There's something weird about how he describes this relationship. It doesn't sound as if they feel something other than the bond he describes, a connection between the two people. Even with the impression that they are emotionally dethatched form one another I still want him to say that I'm his mate, ending the confusion I feel. He hasn't answered yet. His hand is even making questioning movements against my hip. "No." he whispers. Once again I feel a jolt in my chest and it's like my heart stopped. Ryder's hand tightens around my hip and I try to ignore the warm feeling and the intensified shocks of is touch because they mean nothing to him. Ryder swallows something down, his Adam's apple moving prominently as he does. "I also know that you asked Reynolds if I had been with someone before." Bricks, there's a ton of them sitting heavily on my chest preventing me from breathing. His hands retreat from my body and he sits up abruptly. I notice that he's going for the oxygen again and I pull at both of his hands to stop him. It hurts but I want to know the truth. "Lottie, you're not breathing properly. There's a pressure against your lungs and we have to watch it." His voice is nervous and his eyes look between me and the oxygen cannula on one of the posters of the bed. Shaking my head I pull him back down close to me and he allows me too. "Tell me." His hands are locked in mine as he sits back down in the chair. His fingers twitch before they wrap back around mine. "Please." he begs. "Put the oxygen back on and I'll tell you." "I'm fine." He shakes his head but he doesn't fight me. My body's tense much like his as I wait for his answer. "Three." The weight from my chest moves up my throat and I think I'm going to vomit. "Let me explain." He rushes. "Women have been chasing me my entire life, hoping that they were mine. On my 18th birthday I felt my wolf clawing at my insides and all he wanted was to find yo-her." His jaw tightens and he closes his eyes. Something sharp presses against the edge of my hands. When I look down I see that there are claws where his fingernails should be. I gasp at the sudden shock and he quickly flattens his hand out to stop them from puncturing my skin but he doesn't pull them from my grip. "Sorry." He starts again. "I couldn't handle the feeling anymore. On every heir to the throne's 18th birthday if they haven't found their mate, there's a mating ball. All unmated shewolves for my case from across the world were invited. When I realised that she wasn't there I snapped. My wolf wanted release and I just took a girl that was draping herself all over me that night to prevent me from going on a slaughtering spree. It was weird. I knew she wasn't my mate and the entire time I was disgusted with what I was doing. She was faceless the whole time. All I carried about was having her beneath me and that's what I was seeing, but I had no idea what she looked like." "It only happened once with her. The two other girls were not only faceless but nameless and the idea that all that I did with them repulses me. But they were more consistent, the desire my wolf felt to find our mate growing the longer we couldn't find her. He hated me for putting her in such future heartbreak." His voice is soft and hurt as he flicks his eyes up to meet mine. "On my 21st birthday was when I stopped, my wolf finally realising that only she could satisfy our need. I was coroneted as King early, I was little older than 19 at the time and as much as my dad didn't want to pass me the throne I was stronger than him, he lost my challenge. I could have realised then and I wouldn't have drawn those girls along thinking that they were going to be my queen." His eyes glass over as he finishes. "If it hadn't all gone to their head and committed treason because of it, they would still be alive."