Chapter 33 The Morning After

Chapter 33 The Morning After


I woke to emptiness.

The space beside me was cold. The blankets thrown back. The pillow still bearing the indent of his head but nothing else.

I sat up too fast, my heart slamming against my ribs. The room swam for a moment before settling. His room. His bed. His fire, banked to glowing embers that cast long shadows across the floor.

He was gone.

I pulled the blanket to my chest and looked around. His clothes were missing from the chair where he'd dropped them. His boots gone from beside the door. The only sign he'd ever been here was the lingering scent of him on the pillows and the dull ache between my thighs that reminded me exactly what had happened.

Last night came back in fragments. His hands. His mouth. The way he'd said my name like a prayer. The tears on his face afterward, the ones he'd tried to hide.

I pressed my palm to my chest, feeling my heartbeat. Trying to calm it. Trying to think.

He'd left. Of course he'd left. Alphas didn't do mornings after. Alphas didn't cuddle and whisper and pretend the world outside didn't exist. They rose before dawn and went back to being what they were supposed to be.

I should leave too. Should find my clothes, slip out before anyone noticed, return to my room and pretend this hadn't happened.

My dress lay in a heap by the door. I stared at it for a long moment, remembering how it had gotten there. Remembering his hands working the ties loose with that desperate patience.

I swung my legs out of bed and stood. My body protested. Every muscle ached in ways I hadn't expected. I wrapped the blanket around myself and crossed to the door, bending to retrieve my dress.

That's when I heard it.

Breathing. Slow and steady, coming from the other side of the door.

I froze.

Then, slowly, I pressed my eye to the crack between the door and the frame.

Garrick sat on the floor in the corridor, his back against the wall, his head in his hands. He was fully dressed. Had been for a while, by the look of it. His shoulders shook with each breath.

I opened the door.

He looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face haggard, his expression raw in a way I'd never seen. He looked at me wrapped in his blanket, and something shifted in his gaze. Fear. Hope. Want. All of them tangled together.

"You're still here." His voice was hoarse.

"I live here now?" I tried for humor, but it fell flat.

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he stood, slowly, like the movement cost him something.

"I couldn't go back in." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I woke up and you were there and you were so beautiful and I thought if I stayed, if I watched you wake up, I'd say something stupid and ruin everything."

"Like what?"

"Like I love you so much it terrifies me. Like I don't deserve you. Like last night was the best night of my life and I'm already waiting for you to realize you made a mistake." His voice cracked on the last word.

I stepped closer. The blanket dragged on the floor behind me.

"Garrick."

"I know." He finally looked at me. "I know I'm being ridiculous. I know I should have stayed. I just didn't know how."

I reached out and took his hand. His fingers closed around mine automatically, desperately.

"Come inside."

"I have a council meeting in an hour."

"Then you have an hour." I tugged him toward the door. "Come inside."

He followed.

I led him to the bed, sat him down, climbed into his lap. I wrapped the blanket around both of us and pressed my forehead to his.

"Breathe."

He laughed. It was a broken sound, more sob than amusement. "I'm supposed to be the strong one. The Alpha. The one who doesn't fall apart."

"You're also the man who spent seventeen years alone. The man who finally let someone in last night and woke up terrified she'd be gone." I cupped his face in my hands. "I'm still here."

"I know."

"Look at me."

He did. His eyes were dark and wet and full of everything he couldn't say.

"I'm not leaving. I'm not running. I'm not waking up tomorrow and pretending last night didn't happen." I held his gaze. "You're stuck with me, Garrick. Get used to it."

Something broke in his expression. The tension, the fear, the desperate hope. He pulled me against him and held on like I was the only solid thing in a world gone sideways.

"I love you." The words were muffled against my hair. "I love you so much it's destroying me."

"Good. Then we're even."

He laughed again, but this time it was real. I felt it vibrate through his chest, through mine.

"I don't know how to do this." He pulled back to look at me. "I don't know how to be with someone without pushing them away to protect them. I don't know how to trust that you'll stay."

"Then learn. One day at a time. One moment at a time." I kissed him softly. "Start with right now."

"Right now I have a council meeting."

"Then go to your council meeting. Be Alpha. Do what you have to do." I traced the line of his jaw. "And when you're done, come find me. We'll figure out the next moment together."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he kissed me. Deep and slow and full of everything he couldn't say.

"I can do that."

"Good."

We sat there for a while longer, wrapped in each other and the blanket. His hands traced lazy patterns on my back. My fingers played with the hair at his nape. The fire crackled. The world outside waited.

"Anika?"

"Mm?"

"There's something you need to know. About last night." He hesitated. "About what happened between us."

I pulled back to look at him. His expression was serious now, weighted with something I didn't understand.

"What is it?"

"You felt it, right? During, afterward. That connection. Like something clicked into place."

I thought about it. The way I'd felt complete in a way I never had before. The way his emotions had seemed closer, easier to read. The way I'd known, somehow, that he was sitting outside that door before I ever looked.

"Yes."

"That's the mate bond." His voice was quiet. "It happens sometimes. When two people are meant to be together. When the connection is strong enough. Sex can trigger it, especially if there's history, if there's love."

I stared at him. "Mate bond."

"It means we're connected now. Deeper than before. You might feel what I feel, especially strong emotions. You might know when I'm near, when I'm in danger, when I need you." He searched my face. "It's not something I expected. Not something I planned. But it's real."

I processed his words. Felt the truth of them in my chest, in the new awareness of him that hummed beneath my skin.

"Is this bad?"

"No." He pulled me closer. "It's not bad. It's just... a lot. It means you're mine in a way that goes beyond the bargain, beyond the pack, beyond anything either of us could control."

"Was that why you ran? Because you felt it and panicked?"

His silence was answer enough.

"Garrick." I made him look at me. "I'm not afraid of this. I'm not afraid of you. If we're mates, if we're connected, then that's just another reason to stay."

"You don't understand. The bond means if something happens to you, if you're hurt or taken or killed, I'll feel it. I'll know. And it will destroy me."

"Then don't let anything happen to me."

He stared at me. "It's not that simple."

"It is exactly that simple. You protect me. I protect you. We face whatever comes together." I kissed him. "That's what mates do, right?"

A long pause. Then, slowly, he nodded.

"That's what mates do."

"Good. Then stop panicking and start planning how you're going to get through that council meeting without thinking about me the whole time."

He laughed. Actually laughed, the tension finally breaking. "Impossible."

"Try anyway."

He kissed me one last time, then gently lifted me off his lap. He stood, straightened his clothes, ran his hands through his hair. For a moment, he looked almost like himself. The Alpha. The leader.

Then he looked at me, sitting in his bed wrapped in his blanket, and his expression softened into something private. Something just for me.

"I'll find you after."

"I'll be here."

He left. This time, I watched him go. Watched him pause at the door, look back, meet my eyes. Watched something pass between us that didn't need words.

Then the door closed, and I was alone.

I lay back in his bed and stared at the ceiling. The scent of him surrounded me. The memory of his touch lingered on my skin. The new awareness of him hummed in my chest, a constant reminder that nothing would ever be the same.

I should get up. Should dress, return to my room, face the day. Eira would need me in the healing house. Patients would need attention. The world would keep turning.

Instead, I pulled his pillow to my chest and breathed him in.

Just for a moment. Just for me.