Chapter 58 A Strain In The Bond

Chapter 58 A Strain In The Bond
Aurelia

I'd just stepped out of the bathroom of the hotel suite we were lodged in, three hours after the brutal fight, when Zhayad asked me to prepare for our departure tomorrow.

“I’m not going back to the pack.” I said firmly.

I stood near the foot of the bed, clutching my towel tighter around my body as if the thin white fabric could protect me from everything waiting beyond this room, his pack, his world, his promises. 

The hotel suite he'd booked for us to rest in was warm, but a chill still skated over my damp skin. 
“How can you even ask me to return to that place?” My laugh cracked. It sounded hollow and bitter. “I lost every shred of peace the moment you brought me into the Onyx Fang Packhouse. I can breathe here, Zhayad. Out here. In human territory, I can finally breathe, even though I have to hide.”

He didn’t answer immediately.

He remained by the floor-to-ceiling window, one broad hand braced against the glass, his back to me. 

The city lights spilled across his bare shoulders, catching on the droplets still clinging to his skin from the shower he'd taken minutes ago.

Even now, clean and changed, I could still see the ghost of battle on him. The memory of blood streaking down his chest. The brutal, terrifying image of him standing in the middle of carnage like some dark god dragged out of a nightmare.

My pulse tripped when he turned at last to face me. The movement alone made the air shift.

“I’ve told you,” he said quietly, but there was steel beneath the softness, “no one will hurt you again.”

He took a step toward me while I took one backwards.

“You need to trust me, Aurelia.”

A disbelieving sound left me. “Trust you?” I echoed, staring at him like he’d said something absurd. “You want me to trust you after you threw me away for a clone?”

His jaw flexed. The bond between us stirred, restless and hot, like it hated hearing the accusation aloud. Good. Let it squirm.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to keep going, even though every word scraped my chest raw.

“How am I supposed to trust you after everything your people did to me?” My voice dropped, but it shook anyway. “After the looks, the whispers, the poison in every smile? After being treated like something filthy they couldn’t wait to get rid of?”

A shadow crossed his face. Regret, maybe. Or anger. With him, the two often looked the same.

“It is not entirely their fault,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his damp hair. “Your father is threatening another attack. Your father has Irina as we speak, your father has committed atrocities. They’re on edge. They have reason to be.”

I stared at him in disbelief, heat flaring under my skin.

“That,” I snapped, “is not the same thing.”

He opened his mouth, but I cut him off before he could speak.

“No. Don’t.” I shook my head and backed away when he took another step, my heart pounding so loudly it felt violent. “Don’t stand there and make excuses for them. My father being a monster does not excuse what they did to me. It does not excuse what you did to me.”

The room seemed to shrink.

Outside, the city glimmered with indifferent beauty. Inside, everything was too charged, too close, and too full of things that hurt.

“I don’t even know why we’re still having this conversation,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. Then my voice rose again, steadier this time, fueled by the ache lodged beneath my ribs. “I’m not going back with you.”

I held his gaze, refusing to look away.

“I mean it.”

Something dark flickered in his eyes.

“The mate bond will not allow it.”

For a second, I couldn’t speak. How dare he play that card now? What about the time I spent alone with the humans, terrified and unsure of what the next hour held for me, where was the mate bond?

Then fury surged through me so fast it nearly scorched my tongue.

“The mate bond?” I repeated. “That’s what you have to offer me now? Not even an apology? Not even the decency to admit why I’m afraid? Just the bond?!”

He stalked closer, and this time I didn’t retreat because I was too angry to feel cautious.

Up close, he was devastating. His scent wrapped around me, clean soap over dark cedar, wild smoke, and something male and dangerous that made my stomach knot. 

His hair was still damp, his chest still bare, and the thin gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips did nothing to make him look less ruinous. He looked like temptation sharpened into a weapon.

I hated that my body noticed. I hated that my pulse betrayed me.

“You think this is easy for me?” he asked, his voice dropping into that rough, gravel-deep register that always seemed to scrape against my bones. “You think I do not know I failed you?”

My anger faltered, but only for a heartbeat.

“Knowing it and fixing it are two different things.”

His nostrils flared. “I came for you.”

I laughed then, really laughed, but it came out wounded.

“Yes. After the damage was done.” My eyes burned, and I blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall. “After I begged to be seen. After I told you the truth. After you looked at me and still chose her.”

Something savage twisted across his face. “That is not—”

“It is exactly what happened,” I cut in, my voice breaking now despite my effort. “Do you know what that did to me? Do you have any idea what it feels like to be rejected by the one person the Moon Goddess supposedly made for you?” I pressed a hand to my chest as if I could steady the pain there. “I was already drowning in that pack. Then you handed me the last stone and watched me sink.”

His throat moved as he swallowed. For once, Alpha Zhayad had no immediate command, no hard-edged retort, no threat to throw like a blade.

His gaze dropped briefly to my hand on my chest, and something in his expression shifted, softened in a way that was almost more dangerous than his anger. He reached for me, slow enough that I could’ve stepped away.

I didn’t. His fingers curled around my wrist instead, warm and impossibly gentle, and the contact sent a violent pulse through the bond. Heat flashed low in my belly, unwanted and humiliating. 

My breath caught, and he noticed. Of course he noticed. His eyes darkened, but his touch stayed careful.

“Aurelia,” he murmured, my name sounding less like a word and more like something he was dragging from somewhere deep inside himself. “Look at me.”

I shouldn’t have, but I did.

The rawness in his face hit me first. It was small, buried beneath all that brutal masculinity and control, but it was there. A crack in the ruthless Alpha's perfect composure. A glimpse of the man underneath.

“I was wrong,” he admitted, each word forced out like it cost him something. “About you. About the clone. About the danger surrounding you. I was wrong about everything, and I have hated myself for it every second since.”

The confession shook me more than shouting would have.

My lips parted, but no sound came.

He stepped even closer until the heat of him pressed into the cool air around my damp skin. 

“I cannot undo what happened,” he went on, his voice roughening. “If I could tear that moment apart with my bare hands and rebuild it, I would. If I could go back and choose you faster, believe you sooner, kill every doubt before it touched you, I would.”

My heart twisted painfully. Damn him. Damn the sincerity in that voice. Damn the yearning in his eyes. Dear Goddess, all my resolve was dissolving like chalk.

“You're trying to convince me to go back with you because of my newly manifested powers, isn't it?”

He said nothing, confirming it was true.