Chapter 108
A
Just one night. The first of many nights where she wouldn’t be in the room next to mine, where 1 soudert be able to hear her stowag
around or know that she was safe.
I thought Orion would back me up, insist she come stay with him at least until the was more settled. But be Sidert.
“That’s probably a good idea,” he said, kissing her forehead. ‘Start making it feel like home
Another betrayal, even though I knew it wasn’t intentional. Orion was being supportive, encouraging her legaler ta
a good brother.
I was just being selfish.
The four of us walked outside together, and I caught myself automatically heading toward my motorcycle, waiting for the familiar
sound of Athena’s footsteps behind me.
When I reached my bike and turned around, she was still standing by the building entrance with Sarah and Leaf
That’s when it really hit me.
Athena had left me.
Not dramatically, not with tears or accusations or slamming doors. She’d just quietly, calmly created a life that didn’t include
the center of it.
I wouldn’t carry her on my bike anymore. She wouldn’t wrap her arms around my waist or rest her head against my back during long rides. She wouldn’t be there when I got home from work or when I woke up in the morning.
She’d moved on.
“See you tomorrow,” I said to everyone, my voice coming out rougher than I’d intended.
The ride home felt endless. Every mile that stretched between my bike and her new apartment felt like another piece of my chest being carved away, By the time I pulled into my driveway, I could barely breathe.
When I opened my front door, the silence hit me like a physical force.
My house had never felt this empty. Not even right after I’d lost Jess, when grief had made everything feel hollow and meaningless.
This was different. This was the emptiness of something that had been there and was now gone.
I walked through the rooms like a ghost, touching surfaces that still held traces of her presence. The kitchen counter where we’d
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Chapter 108
made breakfast together, where I’d lifted her up and kissed her and eaten her up until we both forgot everything else.
The dining room where she’d insisted we eat meals together, slowly breaking down the walls I’d built around myself.
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Her room was the last place I went. I sat on the edge of her bed, still unmade from her last night here, and let the faint scent of her
shampoo wash over me.
This was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? Space. Distance. A return to the carefully controlled life I’d built around my grief and guilt.
So why did it feel like I was dying inside?
“You pushed her away,” my wolf said, his voice cutting through my misery like a blade.
I didn’t want to hear this. Not tonight. Not when the house felt so empty I could hear my own heartbeat echoing off the walls.
“Five years ago too,” he continued, relentless.
“Now isn’t the time,” I growled internally, but he wasn’t finished.
“When is the time, Tristan? You let our mate go five years ago.”
The words I’d been dreading for years, the truth I’d buried so deep I’d almost convinced myself it wasn’t real.
“You felt it too, didn’t you?” my wolf pressed. “That night at her eighteenth birthday party, when she shifted for the first time. You
felt the bond snap into place.”
I had felt it. God help me, I had felt it. The moment her wolf had emerged, beautiful and fierce and unmistakably mine, something deep in my chest had recognized her. Had claimed her.
But I’d killed it immediately, told myself it was lust and she wasn’t and couldn’t be my mate. I needed someone safer, someone who wouldn’t complicate my life or make me feel things I shouldn’t feel.
Told myself she was my little sister, my little sister can’t be my mate.
“You knew,” my wolf said, his voice heavy with years of accumulated pain. “You knew she was ours, and you rejected her without a word. Then five years ago, you let her think she wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t worthy of being loved. And that was why she ended
in the harms of that good for nothing Alpha.”
“Stop,” I whispered aloud, but the words kept coming.
“You’ve broken her heart multiple times. And then you did it five night ago too.”
I buried my face in my hands, breathing in the lingering scent of Athena’s presence and feeling like I was suffocating.
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Chapter 108
‘She’s better off without me,” I said finally, the words scraping my throat raw.
“She deserves the truth,” my wolf shot back.
“There’s no truth. Jess was, and is my chosen mate.”
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
