Chapter 40 Chapter 0040

Chapter 40 Chapter 0040
•DOMINIC•

I got inside the car in the driveway and couldn't get what Aveline said to me out of my mind. She wasn't entirely wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to sever our bond.

But then I remembered she said something about my father. It sounded like he had called her and threatened her if Kaila had said something about her to him.

"Please stop the car," I instructed the driver when he got outside the gate.

He didn't wait for me to say anything else. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and unlocked it.

I didn't waste time as I picked up my pace and rushed toward the dorm building. I hoped to find her in her room without her roommate.

The lobby was quiet when I pushed through the entrance. A few students lingered near the bulletin board by the front desk, and I moved past them without slowing down, heading straight for the elevator bank at the far end of the corridor.

I froze on my steps when the elevator doors opened on Aveline's dorm floor.

Aveline was kissing Matteo, with her arms wrapped around him as if she didn't care if anyone would see them.

The world narrowed to that single image and something inside me went numb. I felt the bond between us like a wire pulled too tight, vibrating at a frequency that hurt.

"Get off my mate!" I growled.

I walked toward them, grabbed Matteo's collar, and pulled him back with everything I had.

He hit the wall hard enough to rattle the framed notice board beside him, and the sound brought both of them out of whatever they had been in.

"Dominic." Aveline's voice was sharp with shock.

Matteo recovered fast. He shoved me back and came off the wall swinging, and I let him, because the part of me that was still rational understood I had no ground to stand on, and the part of me that wasn't rational didn't care.

His fist caught my jaw and I tasted copper and threw a punch back that connected with his ribs.

We went at each other properly then, neither of us willing to give ground, both of us fueled by something that had nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with the girl standing three feet away saying both our names.

Two male students came running from the stairwell. It took both of them pulling from behind to separate us, one pinning Matteo's arms back, the other getting between us with a forearm pressed hard against my chest.

"That's enough," the one holding me snapped. "Both of you, enough."

I stopped fighting. And it wasn't because of him, but because I finally looked at Aveline, and realized she was crying.

"I want you to stay away from me, Dominic," she murmured. "Do you hear me? Stay away from me!"

"Aveline—"

"No." She shook her head and something shifted in her expression. "I reject you, Dominic Frostbane. I am rejecting the mate bond between us. I don't want it anymore. You don't get to do this to me and then come back here and act like you have any right to be angry."

I stood there and felt my heart breaking more than the first time she had rejected me.

"I accept your rejection," I finally muttered after the two male students had pulled away. I felt the string between us snap.

My heart broke and I held myself back from crying out in pain. My knees almost buckled against each other.

But I told myself that it was the right decision. Aveline and I were never going to be able to make our relationship work. It was doomed from the beginning.

I watched her take Matteo's arm, and guide him down the corridor toward her room. He went without looking back at me, and the door closed behind them.

I turned back toward the elevator.

The bond that had hummed between Aveline and me since the first day I saw her was gone, and the silence it left behind was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

I pressed the button and waited and thought about the fact that I had just let go of the only person who had ever belonged to me entirely, and I had no one to blame for it except myself.

•••

The drive home took two hours. I spent most of it with my head against the window and my eyes closed, not sleeping, just existing in the particular numbness that follows something irreversible.

My father was in his study when I arrived. He looked up from his desk when I came in, took one brief inventory of my bruised jaw and split lip, and said nothing about it.

"You've arrived earlier than expected," he murmured.

"You wanted me home, so here I am."

He studied me for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on the desk.

"Good," he answered. "Then you'll have no objection to moving forward. We've waited long enough on the matter of the wedding date. I need to know that you're committed to this, Dominic. No more distractions."

"Set the date," I answered without hesitation.

My father nodded, satisfied. He reached for his pen and said something else about logistics and families and appearances, and I stood in the doorway of his study and heard none of it.

After talking with my father, I took a car and went to a bar to clear my head.

I needed the intoxication and distraction for a few hours before meeting Kaila and her parents the following morning.

I sat near the bar counter and drank two glasses of vodka. I then ordered the third glass, and somewhere between the second and the third a girl slid onto the stool beside me.

She was pretty in an uncomplicated way. She had dark hair, an easy smile, and there was no recognition in her eyes when she looked at me, which was the part I needed most right now.

We talked about something useless and I made her laugh.

I left a bill on the counter and tilted my head toward the door and she followed me out without hesitation, across the parking lot to my car.

I unlocked it and we got in.

I rolled up the tinted windows and kissed her. She didn't even hold back as she pushed down my seat and unbuttoned my pants.

I leaned my head against the seat and groaned as she took me inside her mouth.