Page 132 of Burdened Bonds

“No choice?!” she says, shifting on the mattress to look round at me.

“Yes, no choice,” I say, my jaw setting. There was no choice. I had to keep her safe. “You want to be bonded to a werebeast? Do you know how fucking dangerous he can be? Do you know what he could do to you?”

“But you didn’t even tell me,” she says. “You didn’t even givemethat choice. You just assumed. You just made the decision on your own. And you left me … left me feeling …”

She swipes at a tear trailing down her face and I feel utterly wretched and so damn stupid.

“I never meant to hurt you,” I say softly. “I thought it was for the best.”

“But you did hurt me, Spencer. Over and over again.”

I screw up my eyes. “I had to make you hate me. I had to make you stay away from me. I was trying to protect you.”

She shakes her head. “You could have simply told me the truth.”

I open my eyes and look at her. “And what would you have said? What would you have done? We’ve always been hated, despised, outcasts. That hatred has always been there, bubbling beneath the surface. But now it’s out in the open. And now they’ve locked us all away to rot.”

“You don’t think I felt like an outcast the entire time we were at the academy? You don’t think you and Tristan and all your dumb friends made me feel that way all the time?”

I hold her gaze and then I nod.

“I had a lot of time to think about stuff in that cell.” I swallow. I don’t want to think about that cell. I don’t ever want to think about it again. “I had a lot of time to mull over everything that’s happened. There were a lot of things I regret, a lot of things I’ve done that I am ashamed of, a lot of stupid, fucking horrible things.” She chews on her lip. “The worst of it was the way I treated you. And I’m sorry, truly fucking sorry for it. If I could turn back time, if I could undomy choices and my actions … Because I know, believe me, I know, what it’s like to be on the receiving end now.”

Her eyes flicker back and forth over my face.

“What did they do to you, Spencer?”

I lean my head back against the cushions and take a deep inhale. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to relive it.

There’s something else I need to tell her.

“There were these moments when the abyss was calling to me, tempting me down, down into its depths. And I knew if I let myself just slip away, fall into its cold embrace, never wake up, all the pain would stop, it would all end. And fuck, when it was unbearable, when I could hardly endure it, it was so so fucking tempting.” My body shakes at the memory. Bile rises into my throat and I swallow it down. “But there was this one thing, this one thing, keeping me from that temptation. That kept me hanging on.”

Her eyes are fixed on me. “What was it?”

“You, Rhi,” I say, “you. The thought of you was the only thing keeping me alive.”

“You have so much to live for, Spencer Moreau.” She smiles at me. “Captain of the dueling team. Winner of the transatlantic cup. Son of council members.”

“No, the only thing that matters is you, Rhi.”

She considers me for one long, long minute. Then she shuffles up on the mattress and I wonder if she’s going to stand up and walk away. Whether my words are meaningless and empty in the face of all I’ve done to her.

She doesn’t. Instead, she presses her mouth to mine. This crazy, fearless girl, who risked her fucking neck to come save me, even though I’ve been a giant ass to her, kisses me.

I close my eyes. Sometimes in that cell, I dreamed aboutkissing her. It was like another kind of torture. I didn’t think I’d ever have the chance to kiss her again. And now I am, her lips soft and wet against mine.

Deep inside me the beast purrs with satisfaction. Satisfaction and relief.

I go to tug her closer, but she’s already pulling away, shuffling back down the mattress and resting her head against my shoulder.

And I know we’re not done here. I know there’s still so much to fix between us, so muchIneed to fix. But this is a start. A start at least.

I take her hand in mine and close my eyes.

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Rhi