CONNOR

“Are you warm enough?” I asked. She nodded and reached for the glass of water. Ash caught the blanket as it slipped from her shoulder and tucked it around her more securely. She leaned into his touch momentarily before her eyes found mine again.

“What happens now?” she asked.

I hesitated. “What do you want to happen?”

She studied me. “I want to understand. I want to know what this means.” Ash’s jaw tensed.

“You want the whole truth?” I pushed.

Luna nodded slowly.

I sighed. “Then we start with this: you’re Ash’s bonded partner. What you might call a mate.”

“Mate?” she echoed, eyes skimming past Ash.

“Or bonded partner,” I offered.

“Like... nature’s way of assigning someone to protect you. To be with you.”

“So just him?” Her gaze snapped to me.

“Yes,” I said gently. “Just Ash.”

She looked at me. “Do you…” Her brows drew together like she was reaching for something she couldn’t yet name. “Feel something?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I do. But there’s no bond.”

Her fingers pressed to her chest, just over her heart. “What do we do now?”

“You get better,” I said, leaving out the part where she needed to get to know Ash and complete the bond.

“What do I have to do about the bond?”

Ash looked at me. I gave a slight shrug.

“You don’t have to do anything right now,” Ash said, his voice calm.

“What about later?” Her eyes narrowed—a challenge.

“You accept it by accepting your mate—intimately,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

Her expression flickered from stunned to indignant. “Sex,” she said flatly.

The air around her crackled with tension. She looked like she was working her way from fear to fury. “This is so much.”

“I know,” I said.

“And it’s not fair.”

“No,” Ash agreed. “But I’ll walk with you, however long it takes.”

“As long as you can,” I added.

Ash’s eyes snapped toward me, a flash of warning in them.

“What does that mean?” Luna asked, rising and pacing around the table's edge, her movements tight with restrained energy.

“If the mate bond isn’t accepted… it starts to fray,” I said quietly. “It plays on your emotions. Mostly the males.”

Ash opened his mouth to respond, but Luna was already shaking her head.

“No,” she said. “No, this is insane.”

She moved to the far side of the room, arms wrapped around herself. “You keep saying I have choices, but it doesn’t feel like that. If I don’t—what? You fall apart? And if I do, I’m stuck in something I didn’t even ask for?”

Her voice cracked at the edges.

“We’re not trying to trap you,” Ash said gently.

“That’s what makes it worse,” she snapped. “You’re being so kind, and it still feels like I can’t breathe.”

She pressed her hand to her chest, like she could hold herself together through sheer force.

“I just wanted a shower,” she whispered. “A job. A normal week. And now I’m supposed to decide whether to have sex with a stranger so I don’t accidentally destroy him?”

“You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” I said quickly.

She looked at me, her expression hollow. “Don’t you see? That is a decision.”

The silence between us stretched, thick and painful.

Then she turned on her heel and strode toward her room.

“Luna,” Ash called after her.

She held her hand up, saying, “I just need a moment.” Then she went into her room and closed the door.

I stared at the door for a moment. That could have gone better. Ash blew out a breath and went upstairs. I went to make coffee because I had nothing else to do. Just days ago, I was moving through the motions: work, run, eat, repeat.

The jug clicked off, and I poured the hot water over the instant coffee grinds and then a dash of milk. I took my mug to the dining room window, and the steam curled over it.

I got how it looked to her as someone who didn’t know anything about being a wolf before the other day.

But my worry for Ash competed with my concerns for her.

There wasn’t usually much of a gap between the mate bond presenting and being consummated.

I sipped my coffee and hoped she’d found calm in her space.