Chapter 17 CHAPTER 17

Chapter 17 CHAPTER 17
Rafael's POV

I slammed my eyes shut, fighting for control.

My wolf was clawing at the surface, trying to push through, and it took everything in me to shove him back down. The red was bleeding into my vision, my canines were lengthening, and if I did not get a grip right now, I was going to shift right here in front of her.

Not yet. Not like this.

I took a deep breath. Then another. Slowly and painfully, I felt my wolf retreat, snarling in protest the entire way.

When I finally opened my eyes again, they were blue. Normal.

But the damage was done.

Vivienne was staring at me like I was a monster. Her face had gone completely pale, her eyes wide with terror, and she was pressed so flat against the wall it looked as if she was trying to disappear into it.

Shit. Shit.

I had just shown her my wolf. My eyes had changed right in front of her, and she had seen it.

What was wrong with me? I never lost control like that. Never. Not since the curse.

Before the curse, my wolf was a problem. Aggressive, dominant, always pushing for control. After the curse, he went silent. Dormant. I could count on one hand the number of times he had surfaced in the past year.

And now he was practically fighting me for dominance every time Vivienne was near.

It was insane.

"What..." Her voice came out shaky. "What was that? Why did your eyes... Rafael, your eyes turned red."

I stepped back, giving her space, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "It is nothing."

"Nothing?" Her voice pitched higher. "Your eyes changed color. That is not nothing."

"It is just..." I ran a hand through my hair, scrambling for an explanation that would not sound completely insane. "Contacts."

She blinked. "What?"

"Colored contacts. They malfunction sometimes. The red bleeds through." Even as I said it, I knew how stupid it sounded.

"Contacts." Her tone was flat and disbelieving.

"Yes."

"You are wearing contacts right now."

"Yes."

"Blue contacts."

"Yes."

"And they just randomly turned red."

"It is a defect in the lens. Happens when I get..." I trailed off, realizing I was only making it worse.

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "You are lying."

"Vivienne..."

"You are lying to me right now." Tears welled in her eyes. "Everything today has been completely insane, and now you are lying to my face about something I just saw with my own eyes."

Guilt twisted in my chest. "I am not..."

"Stop." She held up a shaking hand. "Just stop. I cannot do this right now."

She pushed past me toward the door, and every instinct I had screamed at me to stop her. To grab her, to make her stay, to explain everything.

But I could not. Not yet. She was not ready.

"Vivienne, wait..."

"No." She spun around, and now I saw tears streaming down her face. "No, Rafael. This is too much. Everything is too much. I need to leave. I need to get out of here and get my head straight because I feel like I am losing my mind."

Something in her voice made me pause. It was not just fear or confusion. There was something else underneath it. Something heavier.

I studied her face more carefully. The dark circles under her eyes. The trembling in her hands. The exhaustion in every line of her body.

"What is wrong?" I asked quietly.

"What is wrong?" She let out a bitter laugh. "You mean besides you breaking up with your girlfriend and kissing me and telling me I am yours and then your eyes turning red?"

"Besides that."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked away.

"Vivienne." I took a careful step closer. "Something else is bothering you. I can see it."

"It is nothing."

"It is not nothing."

"It is none of your business." Her voice cracked.

"Maybe not. But I am asking anyway."

She was quiet for a long moment, her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.

"I just..." Her voice came out small. "I have a lot going on right now, and this... whatever this is between us... I cannot handle it on top of everything else."

"What is going on?"

She shook her head. "It does not matter."

"It matters to me."

"Why?" She looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen. "Why do you even care, Rafael? A week ago you could not stand to look at me. Now suddenly you are acting like... like..."

"Like you matter to me?"

"Yes."

I held her gaze. "Because you do."

"That does not make sense."

"I know."

"None of this makes sense."

"I know that too."

She let out a shaky breath and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I need to go."

Everything in me wanted to stop her. To demand she stay until I could make her understand. But she was so close to breaking that pushing her now would only make everything worse.

"Okay," I said quietly.

She blinked, surprised. "Okay?"

"Yes. You can go." I stepped aside, clearing her path to the door. "But Vivienne?"

She paused with her hand on the doorknob.

"Whatever is going on with you, whatever you are dealing with, you do not have to do it alone. Not anymore."

She looked back at me, something unreadable in her expression. "Why would you help me?"

"Because you are mine." The words slipped out before I could stop them. "And I take care of what is mine."

Her breath hitched. For a second, I thought she might say something. But instead she shook her head and pulled the door open.

"I will see you later, Rafael."

She slipped out into the hallway, and I let her go.

But as the door closed behind her, my wolf surged forward again, furious that I had let our mate walk away.

I stood in the empty practice room, staring at the closed door, my hands clenched into fists.

This was insane. Completely and utterly insane.

I started pacing, unable to stand still. My wolf was going crazy inside me, howling and snarling because I let her leave. Because our mate walked away and we just stood there and watched.

Shut up, I told him. This is already complicated enough.

But he would not shut up. He kept pushing at the edges of my control, demanding I go after her, demanding I bring her back.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and let out a frustrated breath.

The universe had to be laughing at me right now. It had to be.

Vivienne Chen. My mate. The one person in the entire world who could save me.

Except for one massive, catastrophic problem.

She was human.

I let out a harsh laugh and kicked one of the chairs. It skidded across the floor and slammed into the wall.

Human. Of course she was human. Because nothing about this situation could be simple.

The mate bond worked between wolves because both parties could handle it. The marking, the claiming, the intensity of the connection. It was overwhelming even for wolves. For a human?

It would kill her.

The first bite alone could do it. Completing the bond required a full marking in one night, and it was deeper and more powerful than anything a human body was built to withstand. The magic surged through every nerve and every organ, rewriting the body from the inside out. For wolves, it was painful but survivable. For humans?

It burned through them like acid. Too strong and too raw. Their organs would begin to shut down one by one until there was nothing left.

I had read about it happening before. Wolves who got desperate and tried to mark human mates anyway. It never ended well.

And even if by some miracle she survived the marking, there was no guarantee it would work. The bond needed to be strong, complete, and mutual. Both parties had to accept it fully.

How was I supposed to get Vivienne to accept a mate bond when she did not even know wolves existed?

I laughed again, the sound bitter in the empty room.

I had less than a year and a half. Maybe eighteen months if I was lucky.

The curse operated on a cycle. Every full moon it got worse. My wolf became weaker, more unstable, and harder to control. The elders said I had five or six cycles left before the curse completed its work.

Before I lost my wolf entirely.

A wolfless wolf. That was what I would become. Still alive, still technically a shifter, but empty. Hollow. The wolf that made me who I was would be gone, leaving behind nothing.

I would rather die.

So my options were painfully clear.

Option one. I could complete the mate bond with Vivienne and hope the magic would heal my cursed wolf before it killed her. Assuming I could even get her to understand and accept what I was in the first place.

Option two. I could reject the mate bond, walk away from her completely, and accept that I was going to lose my wolf in a year and a half. Become wolfless and spend the rest of my life as half a person.

Option three. I could die. I could let the curse finish its work and take me out. At least then I would die whole.

None of those options were good. None of them gave me what I actually wanted, which was to have my mate and keep my wolf without killing her in the process.

I sank down into one of the chairs and dropped my head into my hands.

This was impossible.

Even if I figured out how to tell Vivienne the truth about what I was, and that was a massive possibility considering she had just run away terrified because my eyes changed color, I would then have to tell her she was my mate. That we were meant to be together. That I needed to bite her before the next full moon.

And by the way, it might kill you, but it is the only way to save my life.

Yes. That would go over perfectly.

My wolf snarled, disagreeing. He did not care about the logistics or the danger. He only knew that Vivienne was ours, and we needed to claim her. Now. The curse did not matter to him. Her being human did not matter to him.

All that mattered was the bond.

You are going to get her killed, I told him.

He sent back an image. Vivienne pressed against the wall. Her scent filling my lungs. The sparks racing between us everywhere we touched.

Mine, he insisted.

"I know she is ours," I said into the empty room. "But that does not change the fact that marking her could kill her."

He did not care. Or maybe he cared, but his instincts were too strong to listen to logic.

That was the problem with wolves and mates. Logic meant nothing. The bond demanded to be completed, and everything else was just noise.