Page 15

SKYE

I sat in the sunroom, with my favourite blanket around my shoulders, looking out at the beach barely a block away.

We were close enough to smell the sea, and hear the waves, but the beach-goers were just undefined blots against the summer-postcard backdrop.

Surfers navigated gently white-capped waves.

Children piled sand into buckets and turned them over to make turrets for their sand castles.

Young lovers on dates dipped their toes into the tide.

Inside my sunroom, I was safe. I was cooled from the deadly summer sun by an oscillating fan. I was sequestered from infection.

I had taken up a habit of stroking my fingers across my collarbone, my fingertips gliding across the top of my scar, caressing it almost. I didn’t want to resent my scar. Behind it was a precious, unique gift. A second chance at life. Someone was sacrificed so I could live.

This wasn’t living.

This was just existing.

Frustration boiled through my muscles and shot me to my feet. I left the sunroom and went to my nest to change my clothes. I took my hair out of the bun and fluffed it up so it fell down my back in a red-gold wave. Satisfied, I padded through the house.

It was our, my, dreamhouse, once upon a time, but after my event , I felt like a stranger in an unfamiliar place. It wasn’t that I felt unwelcomed, I just didn’t feel at home. I probably just had to try harder.

Severen was in his office, typing on his computer. I came up behind him and slid my hands over his shoulders and hugged him around the neck.

“Crux is still out getting new tires for the Jeep,” I murmured in his ear.

“Halo is at the gym. We have the house to ourselves.” I let the sentence melt into a purr, and gripped the front of Severen’s t-shirt.

“Let’s go to my nest.” I elongated the S , like a serpent, and nibbled my alpha’s earlobe.

Severen took both my hands in one of his and squeezed them, as if to reassure me of something. “I can’t right now.”

“We can do it here,” I suggested, more than willing to compromise and accommodate. I’d do whatever, just as long as Severen would acknowledge me.

“You know what today is?” I tried a different strategy. “It’s my two-month-homeiversary.”

I kissed his neck once, then pressed my face into that spot.

Into the soft, tender skin where his scent seemed the most concentrated.

I breathed deep his rich, dark roast coffee and decadent red wine smell.

The aroma caused my perfume to flair, blueberries and bluebells bursting into the room, letting Severen know just how much I wanted him.

“Don’t you think that’s something to celebrate? Just you and me.” My hands fisted his shirt tighter. In response, his own hand closed around mine more firmly.

“Please, Severen,” I hated the little whine in my voice. “I need you.”

Severen pulled my hands from his shirt and I was too weak to really put up a fight.

The chair turned and he faced me, then stood to his full height, dwarfing me.

My breath caught in my throat as I anticipated him picking me up and carrying me to the nest to ravish me for hours.

My hands went to the skirt of my sundress.

In a perfect world, it would have been my blue and white vintage bone china patterned dress, the one I wore when he bit me.

The one I wore when we broke in my nestroom when we first moved in.

But, it was also the one I wore when I fainted in the kitchen, that I wore to the hospital, and that the doctors had to cut off my unconscious body and throw away.

“You can do whatever you want to me.” I lifted the skirt a little.

Still, he said nothing.

“If you’re worried about hurting me, I’ve been intimate with Halo and Crux.”

“I know.”

I smiled and padded a step closer. “I know you do. You felt it through our pack bonds, didn’t you?

” I put my palms on his chest. “We took our time, but it was still amazing. If Crux can control himself and I trust him not to get too rough, then it should be no problem for you.” I hoped the smoky whisper I placed in my voice would lead Severen to arousal, or at the very least, reason.

Deep down, I knew that Severen had been growing steadily distant, even before I came home.

When he still didn’t say anything, I felt my chin start to quiver. “Please, Severen.” The smoulder was gone, and the whine now pathetically needy. Desperate and yearning. “I need to feel something from you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it silently. Even worse, I felt him pull back. Not physically, but he drew his part of the bond in toward himself, like reeling in a boat tether from a dock. He was shutting me out.

That was it. That was my breaking point. I turned away from Severen and walked out of his office.

“Skye, wait,” he said, following me. “Let me explain.”

I didn’t deny him but I didn’t reward him with my attention either. I went to my nest and pulled on a light but oversized knit sweater over my sundress. I felt exposed wearing only the dress, vulnerable, and stupid.

Severen was standing in the doorway.

I blinked the tears from my eyes. “Fine. Explain.” I wasn’t going to let this all be some quirk of miscommunication.

Severen stepped into the room and I let him touch my cheek. He looked down at me and I looked up into his eyes.

“I feel the bond between us just as strong as ever,” he began. “My love for you has never faltered.”

I wanted his words to take away my anxiety, my sense of being rejected, but they weren’t strong enough, even though he was saying all the right things.

“Then why did you pull back the connection?” I emphasized my point by stepping out of his touch.

“It… feels different,” Severen finally said. “You’re different. You’ve changed. Even your scent…”

Devastation wracked through me.

“Are you saying we’re no longer scent matches?” My voice was mousy and frail.

“I’m saying,” he hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “I need more time.”

“Time,” I repeated. “You need time.” I wrapped my arms around my body, the soft knit of my sweater soothing to my omega senses. “And I need air.”

I ducked past Severen, hurried out of my nest room, and rushed down the stairs.

I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals that were waiting next to the door, and walked out into the world for the first time in what felt like years.

As soon as the door shut behind me, the tears began to flow and my chest heaved with sobs.

I just started running. I needed to get away from there, needed space.

I knew Severen would follow me but hopefully he would give me a few minutes alone before he escorted me back to the house and tucked me into my nest like an overly tired, bratty child.

The quiet road opened up to the boardwalk shops and the pier just beyond. I slowed my run and merged my body with the foot traffic of tourists and locals just enjoying a summer day at the beach.

The initial burst of adrenaline brought on by sadness and disappointment had faded, and my body realized it hadn’t exerted so much in months.

I stumbled on my feet and all my senses rushed away.

I couldn’t focus on anything and I felt dizzy and light as air.

I stumbled again, my foot slipping off the curb and onto the road.

A ringing sound blared in my ears. I began to fall.

Arms wrapped me up and my world spun around. I clung to the warm, firm chest I was pressed to just in need of something to ground me, keep me stable. I was lifted off my feet and placed back onto the curb.

I looked up, expecting to see Severen, my ever-protective alpha. Instead I saw a figure with features I couldn’t make out, he was so back-lit by the brilliant sun that he was in shadow.

“Are you alright?” he asked me.

“I…”