Page 8

I do my very best to ignore that voice. It doesn’t change the fact that I was followed in the first place, or that some shady agent came into my workplace and got my information without me knowing.

“And you think that’s okay?” I ask, still not pulling any punches. “You think that’s an acceptable way to treat your supposed mate?”

“Youaremy mate, Lenora. Whether or not you accept it.”

Elias’s words are laced with enough possessive growl to have me retreating yet another step. It doesn’t scare me as much as it did the day at the Bureau, especially not when he still looks so guilty, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stick around and give him any more time to lay whatever claim he thinks he has on me.

“Well, I don’t. So I guess it’s settled.” With that, I finally turn and start walking away for real, leaving him behind on the sidewalk.

Or so I thought.

“Lenora,” he says, keeping pace with me. “Wait.”

“Nora.” I don’t know what makes me say it, don’t know why I’m entertaining him for a single second longer, but the word slips out. At his confused look, I clarify. “Everyone calls me Nora.”

I glance over at him, see something in his face shift and loosen, and it’s almost enough to distract me. He still looks like a damn pirate, but a pirate with a warm, satisfied smile blooming over his face? It’s not fair.

I look away.

“Nora,” he says, that soft accent of his curling around the word. “I like it.”

“I don’t care if you like it.”

I pick up my pace, making it clear enough that he can buzz right off. Still, a moment later, his hand touches my shoulder, halting me in my tracks.

Everything in me freezes. My blood, my breath, my bones. It all goes still as death. He must notice, because he draws his hand back immediately and takes a step away.

“Nora,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t touch me.” My voice is choked and barely audible. “Stop following me. Stay away from me.”

He doesn’t offer any further arguments, only nods and gives me more space as I turn and keep walking.

This time, he doesn’t follow.

4

Elias

For the second time in less than a week, my mate is fleeing from me. Only this time, no part of me is tempted to follow her.

Gods, I fucked up.

Touching her wasn’t even something I did consciously. All I wanted was a moment, just a moment to talk to her without her trying to flee, but the second I’d brushed her shoulder…

The look in Nora’s eyes… fear, accusation, distress. Just the memory of it puts a black pit in the bottom of my stomach.

I crossed a line. While I don’t know what made her react the way she did, it’s not hard to guess the boundary I violated was a pretty damn big one.

Morning commuters, however, don’t have a lot of time or patience for a kraken rooted to the sidewalk having a soul-consuming crisis, so the third time I’m jostled by a passerby I shake myself out of it and head toward the office.

It’s only a block to the front doors of Morgan-Blair Tower, in the opposite direction Nora left toward the bookstore. Each step closer to the building puts another couple feet of distance between us, and I swear I can feel it with every cursed beat of my two hearts.

I didn’t lie to Nora about any of it.

My role here. Blair’s role. The fact that seeing her last week and this morning had indeed been nothing more than timing and happenstance. I’d been hoping that honesty might help ease some of her fears, even if it was not perhaps what she would have liked to hear.

If I have any chance of winning her, I owe her that much and more. Honesty, transparency, trust.