Page 35

SKYE

“I’m going to take a bath,” Halo announced. She slid a finger across my shoulders, from one to the other. “You should join me.”

“Maybe next time.” Apology was audible in my voice. “I need to talk with Severen.”

“If you insist,” she said. “But don’t stress yourself.”

She kissed my cheek and I caught the venomous glance she cast at Severen in warning, before she sauntered to the master bathroom upstairs. I drifted over to the coffee machine, an expensive brick of a device that could make pretty much any coffee concoction one could want.

“Cappuccino?” I offered.

“Or something stronger,” Severen answered. “And you shouldn’t be having one,” he added.

“Cappuccino,” I stated, having finalized the decision. There were no other options. Well, there were, but if he wanted something else he’d have to get up and make it himself.

Once they were ready, I brought the two cups over.

My mug was smaller, shorter, just enough to hold a literal cup of liquid, and it tapered down at the base a little.

Severen’s mug was a hefty thing, and held a great deal more than mine.

I placed it in front of him, careful not to disturb any of the perfect, snowy foam floating on the top.

I also brought out some arrowroot cookies and placed the package between us. I sat at the table, in the chair across from my pack lead.

We stared at one another, the wooden table an expanse of no man’s land keeping us apart.

“Say what you want to say,” Severen said. “It’s not going to change my mind.”

I took a calm sip of my drink, and pulled a cookie from the waxy sleeve. I dunked, then bit, planning my words carefully. Or maybe I was just stalling.

“I blew up my entire life to be with you,” I began.

“I wanted to be with you and your pack so badly. I could have ignored the want, the biological signals that told me that I was meant to be with you. I could have done what my mother wanted and pretended to be a beta and live a simple, stagnant life. Instead, I fought and endured because it was the right thing to do.”

Primly, I lifted my cup and took a demure sip. I put my cup down and looked Severen directly in the eye.

“I am always going to do what I think is right.”

“You think it’s right to bring a stranger into our pack.”

“I’m not going to explain myself again,” I said with a waning sigh. “You know my logic.”

“So if you don’t get your way, then, what?” Severen snapped. “You’ll freeze me out?”

I sat up a little straighter. “You froze me out first. After you promised you’d still love me after all this.”

“I just…” Severen pressed his hand to his eyes, roughly swiping away any hint of moisture that might have collected in them.

His aura burned like fire, crackling against my own.

He pounded his fist on the table. Foam and warm, pale brown coffee spilled onto the table.

“You’re fighting so hard for him when you didn’t fight for yourself! ”

I jolted at the sudden aggression but didn’t back down. My eyes narrowed, mind racing in an effort to figure out what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember?” he demanded. “You don’t remember asking me to pull the plug? You were ready to leave us all behind. But now you have something worth fighting for?”

“That’s not the same thing at all, and you know it!”

“You put me in an impossible situation,” Severen yelled.

“You promised it wouldn’t come to that!” I countered. “And I believed you!” My vision ran scorched and blurry with tears. “You also said you’d still love me with a new heart, and I believed that, too.” Angrily, I wiped at my wet eyes. “Was that wrong of me?”

A challenge, naked and exposed. Everything was in Severen’s hands now. He was the one to decide how this discussion resolved, where we both stood moving forward, for better or worse.

“You’re going to do whatever you want anyway,” he finally stated. “With or without my advice, or my blessing.” He wrapped his big hands around his mug, tapping the pad of his thumb on the lip. “Thing is, I would never want to stifle you. Even if I don’t approve.”

He rose and took his untouched Cappuccino to the sink. He moved like that was the final word of the conversation. I watched his back, how the muscles rippled under his shirt. I heard him sniff. My gaze stalked him as he headed for the stairs.

“And I’m always going to love you,” I said. “Even when you run and hide.”

Severen’s hand on the railing gripped tight and strangled the wood. His broad shoulders heaved with a breath. The wine and coffee of his scent flooded out from his aura. He climbed the stairs. He shut his office door.

He left me alone.