Page 32

At her door, she fumbles with her keys until I gently take them from her and unlock it with steady hands.

Her apartment is sparsely furnished, impersonal.

A temporary stop, not a home. There is a television in the living room.

An armchair facing it and a small table to the side.

There is nothing else in the room. No pictures, no books, no shelves.

Just an unassuming living room with a place to sit, something to put her things on, and a TV that looks like it has seen better days.

The place looks so lonely.

I set her down carefully in the armchair. Her eyes track my movements as I fill a glass with water in her kitchen and bring it to her.

“Drink,” I say, pressing it into her hands.

She complies mechanically. When she finishes, she sets the glass down and immediately reaches for a half-empty bottle on the side table.

“No.” I move it out of reach. “You’ve had enough.”

Something flashes in her eyes—the first real emotion I’ve seen since our confrontation in the conference room. “Give it back.”

“No.”

“It’s mine.” Her voice rises slightly. “You have no right—”

“I have every right,” I counter, surprised by the firmness in my voice. “I am your—” I stop myself before the word “mate” can escape.

“You are nothing to me,” she says, but the words lack conviction. She’s too tired, too drunk to maintain the facade of indifference.

“Maya.” I crouch before her, bringing myself down to her eye level. “What are you doing to yourself?”

Her laugh is bitter, hollow. “Living. Supposedly.”

“This isn’t living.”

“What would you know about it?” She tries to stand up but teeters. I catch her again and steady her. “Let go of me,” she says.

I do so, reluctantly. She sways a bit more but remains upright.

“Why are you here?” she demands.

“Because I can’t leave,” I admit. The honesty surprises us both. “Not with you like this.”

“Like what? Happy? Free?”

“Miserable. Self-destructive.”

Her face crumples suddenly, the mask falling away completely. No tears come, but her body seems to fold in two as she sinks back down into the chair.

“Go away, Griffin,” she whispers. “Please. Just go.”

Instead, I sit on the arm of the chair, next to her. Not touching, but close enough that she can lean against me if she chooses to. “Your mother wouldn’t want this for you,” I say quietly.

The sound she makes is too raw to be called a sob. “Don’t. Don’t you dare talk about her.”

“She loved you more than anything. She was so proud of you, Maya.”

“Stop.” Her voice breaks. “Please stop.”

“She wouldn’t want you punishing yourself like this.”

“I’m not—” she begins, then stops, as if she can’t bring herself to voice the lie.

“You are.” I risk touching her then, just the lightest brush of fingers against her wrist. “And I need to know why. Is it because of what happened to her? Or because of what I said that night?”

Her eyes meet mine, bloodshot and weary. “Both,” she whispers. “Neither. I don’t know anymore.”

Something inside me cracks at the admission. “Maya, I—”

But she’s already curling in on herself, tears finally spilling over. I pull her against me, cradling her as she weeps, horrible, gut-wrenching sobs that shake her entire body.

“She’s gone,” she gasps between breaths. “She’s gone, and I’m all alone, and I just want it to stop hurting.”

“I know,” I murmur into her hair. “I know, Maya.”

She cries until there’s nothing left, until her body goes limp with exhaustion. I hold her through it all, stroking her hair, wishing I could absorb her pain.

Eventually, her breathing evens out, deepens. She has fallen asleep, tear tracks still damp on her cheeks. I move slightly, preparing to carry her to her bed, but she makes a small sound of protest in her sleep, and her fingers clutch at my shirt.

I carry her to the bedroom, and once again, it’s sparse.

A mattress on the floor in one corner and a wardrobe opposite it.

After laying her down, I look through her wardrobe.

She only has a handful of clothes, not even filling the space.

Her kitchen is similar. A small fridge with nothing in it.

But then, I already know she eats takeout. Even her freezer is empty.

I check in on Maya before slipping out to a grocery store near her building. I make a few purchases, enough to stock her kitchen. I also go into a furniture store that is about to close for the night and order a comfortable, two-seater couch and a nice coffee table, along with a proper bed.

I know she has the money. I also know she doesn’t care about these things. But I do. I care that she lives in a dump that isn’t worthy of her. I care that she’s slowly poisoning herself. Does she think that because no one is left in her life, she should treat herself like this?

I recall the look in her eyes when she was faced with the three men surrounding her. She wasn’t scared. If anything, she seemed relieved at the idea of her possible death. And that terrified me.

It terrifies me what she has been reduced to. She’s not the Maya I remember, not the brave and witty girl who rescued us from hell.

I return to her apartment and put away the groceries as I wait for the furniture. I booked the one-hour delivery, paying over the top for the late-night inconvenience to the shop owners.

As the furniture arrives, my mate sleeps, dead to the world. After I set it all up, I place her on the soft, new mattress, where she curls up into a ball.

I allow myself this one night, this stolen time with her. Tomorrow I’ll leave, as she asked. But tonight, I hold her as she sleeps, memorizing the feel of her weight against me, the rhythm of her breathing, the scent of her hair.

My mate. My heart.

Dawn finds me still awake, still holding her. Gently, I disentangle myself, pulling the blanket over her as the air conditioner drones on. In her kitchen, I make coffee, toast, eggs—a simple meal that won’t aggravate what will undoubtedly be a severe hangover when she wakes.

I leave the breakfast on her new coffee table beside a glass of water and painkillers. Then, forcing myself not to look back, I slip out the door and into the morning light.

Two days later, I’m back outside GenTherapeutics, watching the entrance.

A message from Erik waits on my phone for a reply—the investigation has been reopened, discreetly.

He has found inconsistencies already. The palace surveillance footage from that night is missing.

The guard who should have been stationed near the cottages claims he was reassigned at the last minute.

But none of that matters if Maya continues on this path. The alcohol, the aloneness, the carelessness with her own safety—she’s killing herself, and I don’t know how to stop her.

The building’s doors open, and she emerges. But instead of turning onto her usual path home, she walks directly toward me.

For a moment, I think I’ve been caught—that she has somehow sensed me watching her. But there’s no surprise in her expression as she approaches, just weary resignation.

“How long have you been following me?” she asks without preamble.

“Since the day we spoke,” I admit, seeing no point in lying.

She nods, as if confirming a suspicion. “I want you to stop.”

“Those men could have hurt you.”

“Maybe that would have been for the best.” The casualness with which she says it saddens me.

“You don’t mean that.”

She shrugs, indifferent. “What I mean doesn’t matter. I need you to leave me alone, Griffin. I meant what I said—I won’t help you or your kingdom.”

“This isn’t about the kingdom anymore.”

“What is it about, then?” she challenges.

“You.” I step closer, unable to help myself. “The way you’re living—the drinking, the isolation…You’re hurting yourself, Maya.”

Her laugh is bitter. “Is that what this is? You’re concerned for my health?”

“Yes,” I say simply.

“Well, don’t be. I don’t need or want your concern. I don’t need or want anything from you. Just leave me alone.”

She turns to walk away. I catch her wrist, unable to let her go like this.

“Do you know what happens to humans who drink the way you do?” I ask, desperate to make her understand. “Liver damage. Brain damage. Early death.”

“So?”

The casual dismissal of her own life infuriates me. “Is that what you want? To die slowly, painfully?”

“What I want,” she says, pulling her wrist from my grasp, “is for you to disappear from my life. Again.”

“And then what? You’ll keep drinking yourself to death?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“It matters!” I nearly shout, drawing stares from passersby. Lowering my voice, I continue, “What do you care about, Maya? What keeps you going?”

She stares at me, and for the first time I see the emptiness behind her eyes—not anger, not grief, but a hollowness that frightens me to my core.

“Nothing,” she says softly. “That’s the point.”

In this moment, I understand exactly what I’ve done to her. Not just broken her heart, not just pushed her away—I’ve extinguished the fire that made her who she was. The passionate, brilliant woman who defied captivity, who risked everything to help a wolf she barely knew.

I’ve destroyed her.

Or perhaps it was my actions paired with her mother’s brutal death that expunged her desire to live.

The realization nearly brings me to my knees.

“Maya,” I start, but she’s already shaking her head.

“Don’t. Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out the small photograph I’ve been carrying. “Here.”

She takes it reluctantly, then looks down at the image of Leanna and her children.

“I thought you might like to have it,” I say quietly. “Her name is Helen, named after your mother. She was born three months ago.”

Maya’s fingers tremble slightly as they trace over the faces in the picture. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because they miss you.” I pause. “Maya, even if you won’t come back, even if you hate me, I need to know you’re taking care of yourself.”