He loses it. He snarls. His fangs flash. Una startles. She lunges forward, ripping herself off my knot with a scream. Sharp pain shoots through the bond. She scrambles up the bed, turning to cower at the headboard, gaze darting wildly around the room, knees clamped tight and drawn to her chest.
My wolf fights for our skin. He needs to attack. Protect what’s ours.
She’s ours. There’s a threat. He can’t see where it’s coming from, and I can’t explain, so he snarls louder, rattling the window panes.
“Who?” The word comes out a jagged growl. My mouth is full of fangs.
“I—It’s n—not your business.” Her fear blooms, overpowering the scent of our mixed juices, driving my wolf and I crazier. “I—I d—don’t ask you about Haisley. Or the o—others.”
Our mate is scared, and that’s not right.
But is she ours?
She’s fucked other males. They need to die.
“How many?”
Her nostrils flare. “N-not your b-business.”
“Were you willing?”
“Yes,” she sobs.
My wolf goes nuts. He howls. The walls shake. She scrambles for the edge of the bed. Our vision flashes red.
She’s trying to leave us.
My wolf lunges for her neck. He needs to sink his fangs into his mark, bite down until he hits bone. Until she submits. I struggle to hold him back, and he tears at me, raging. She screams, burrowing into her nest, her cries muffled by the pillows.
Oh, Fate, this is wrong. She’s so scared. I fight for control, and it slips from my grasp. The wolf drags her back to the center of the bed. He wants to mount her. Needs to. Other males have touched her. Tasted her. They’ll take what’s ours.
We’ll die without her.
She doesn’t belong to us. She’s given herself away.
My wolf lifts his muzzle and bays his misery, straddling her so she can’t run to another male.
She whimpers and rolls to her side, tucking her knees to her belly.
She can’t leave. She’s ours. She wears our bite. How could she have allowed another male to touch her?
The wolf glares down at her, confused, heartbroken, and she trembles, curled like a shrimp.
This is wrong.
This is not how mates are supposed to work.
I know I have to take back our skin before the wolf hurts her, but the loss is so strong. So all-consuming. I grapple for the bond, and it ends in nothing. Empty space.
A heavy sadness falls on us both, dampening my wolf’s temper, giving me the space to haul him in, take back our skin.
Una is terrified. Her scent agitates us both, exacerbating the wrongness in the air. I reassume human form, and now my wolf is happy to fade back. He has lost, he has failed, and he doesn’t know how to fix what’s broken.
He can’t. There’s nothing either of us can do about the past.
I back away from the disheveled nest and our sobbing mate. Una struggles to sit upright, back and shoulders curved, huddling as small as she can. The tears pooled in her eyes reflect the moonlight.
I pace the room. Slam the wall. Dent the drywall.
I’m gonna puke.
All these years, when I have been waiting, even without hope, my mate has let herself be mounted by other males. And it’s nothing to her. She can say, as if it’s inconsequential, “It wasn’t my first time.”
I have no right to be angry, and the fury eats at my soul.
I didn’t recognize her as my mate. I rejected her. I cannot blame her for what she’s done in the past.
But I do.
I’m a hypocrite and an asshole and what can I do?
“Don’t you have anything to say?” I spit the words. It’s not what I mean, and not the tone I ever want to use with her, but I am powerless in this moment, and I can’t see my way forward.
I have to fight. It’s the only thing I know.
“F-fuck you.” Una buries her face in her knees.
I plunge my fingers into my hair, turn my back to her and her nest. I can’t be in the room anymore. I’ll make it even worse.
I snatch my jeans from the floor, tug them on, and walk out. Her wolf yips once as I go through the door.
It’s as clear a ‘yeah, fuck you’ as I’ve ever heard.
I deserve it.
I am to blame. I know nothing else—but I am confident of that. It is my fault, and I have no idea how to fix it.
I don’t go far past the porch. I can’t. And I wouldn’t, even if I could.
I just need to calm down.
My heart’s pounding, fur is prickling my back, itching like hell, and I’ve got too many teeth in my mouth. I pace up and down the path. I need a run. I need a fight.