Page 41 of Just One Bite

Chapter Thirty-Three

Olivia

“Please don’t leave me, baby,” Parker begs over and over. He’s sobbing, shaking me.

I’m so hot. My skin is burning.

I’m trying to stay.

Please, I don’t want to go.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Emma just finished giving me her fifth lecture on love for the day.

According to her, I’m calloused, out of practice, and totally ruining my own life.

We’re currently sitting in the Stelliea House garden while Eva does her afternoon duties of weeding and picking produce.

I’m helping. Emma is not. I’ve felt sick to my stomach all morning as the reminiscence of my dream lingers.

There are no shapes. Barely words remain, but the feeling of it stays in my gut like a heavy stone.

I’m sitting knees first in the dirt to stay off my tired feet. I snuck out early this morning to get my practice in before anyone else got into the studio.

I needed to clear my head. Just be Olivia, even while the entirety of Vviveren has imploded with the news.

The first linked pair in more than a century.

Emma showed me the feed on her phone that was flooded with pictures of me.

They’re pictures of Parker and me arguing while that asshole cameraman hid out of sight.

Then a few blurry ones of me putting my hand to the camera and Parker pushing him.

But clear as day, you can see the mark on my neck—an imprint of Parker’s teeth, dark like a tattoo.

I’m still too afraid to look at the ones of me at the party.

Some things are too embarrassing for me to swallow.

Octavia called me in a panic this morning to check on me, and then brought me a coffee. Which I barely drank while she rattled off a plethora of questions I couldn’t answer. It’s my fault for responding to all her calls with texts after the party.

“The mark is hot,” Emma says.

I spent nearly twenty minutes staring at it in the studio mirror.

I roll my eyes. Though, I’m thankful for their company.

Being Parker’s linked mate isn’t gaining me new friends; in fact, it’s the opposite.

A group of Were girls growled at me on the front lawn this morning.

Emma says it’s jealousy, but I know the true answer.

They don’t think I’m good enough for Parker.

They see me as Olivia Osborne, a difficult, stubborn girl they think parties too much and is stuck up.

I know because I’d read at least twenty comments saying that exact thing.

They hate my hair. My eyes. The way I breathe, probably.

I even overheard a rumor about how I’d ensnared Parker into some fake scheme that involves me using his notoriety and a fake linked mate bond to get a spot in the IBCE.

That one worries me the most. What if someone from the IBCE actually believes that? Would I get kicked out of the Doxlothia company? Never be let into the IBCE? Octavia told me it would be fine, but I don’t know her well enough yet to know if she’s just trying to cheer me up.

“I mean … did you really think this thing with Parker was casual? That you were just friends?” Eva doesn’t look up from her handful of weeds.

“I …” It sounds silly to say it aloud, but being with Parker is so easy I didn’t question it.

Sure, we were playing a role to the outside, but when we were alone, falling into that rhythm never felt like it.

It was real to me and like no one else existed.

I didn’t need to question it. Parker didn’t need a different label, and neither did I.

Plus, I was going to tell him how I felt … or show him that night.

I saw that elation in his eyes when I mentioned marking and the possibility of things for our time at school.

He wanted me. I never had to question the future because Parker never made me worry there would be a day he didn’t.

Maybe that was foolish … Surely, this hasn’t all been a Were thing.

The bond making him want me. But what if it was?

Maybe he did want to mark me … to touch me be cause of the bond.

Would he have stayed and helped me out without it?

I already know my answer. He would because that’s who he is.

“We never talked about exclusivity. He never seemed interested in anyone else. And you know I’m not.”

“So what about now, if you saw Parker with another girl, you’d be cool with it? Your linked mate,” Emma says.

I know what she’s trying to draw out of me.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Okay, but what if? What if you reject the bond and he chooses someone else?”

I swallow, scooping up a pile of weeds and shoving them into a wicker basket. I don’t think of it. I can’t. My stomach hollows.

“You need to talk to him. That’s all I’m saying,” she says.

Eva’s phone rings, thankfully saving me from more interrogation. She dusts her hands off on her apron and brings it to her ear.

“Hi Dad,” she says, and I shift my attention back to the weeds.

“He called me too,” Emma says. “You should talk to him.”

“No.”

“But he wants to talk about the linked mate thing.”

“That’s why I don’t want to talk to him. Of all the things going on right now, Dad is the last person I want to talk to about this. Please … tell him I’m fine.”

Eva and Emma share an exasperated look. They don’t get it. They think I’m being unreasonable, rude.

“I just think he’s trying, and it would be nice … to visit without that weird awkward silence between you two.”

Spoken like the youngest child.

“You can’t dictate my relationship with Dad.”

“I know. But he’s trying. And … it’s like, he lost her, and I guess I know what that feels like and why that might make him go a little crazy. I don’t think Mom would want us to fight.”

I glare. Emma pulls that card more than anyone, and it’s not fair.

“Emma.” Eva shakes her head.

Emma huffs. “Fine. I’ll shut up. Keep being closed off. I will stop trying to get the family to stick together, then. ”

Emma and Eva continue to bicker back and forth. Maybe Emma is right … I’m the only thing in the way of my family reuniting and being happy.

Suddenly, I have the urge to check my phone, but not to see if my dad called me. Which he did.

Parker hasn’t texted me. He’s giving me the distance I asked for so I can think. I try to be anything but miserable as I go back to picking weeds.

I decide to hide in the Noxx House library for the remainder of the day.

There’s a secret door that leads to a basement—Parker sat with me one afternoon while I figured out the puzzles to get the key—and there’s never anyone down here.

There’s cushion floors and low lighting, like everywhere else in Noxx House, which makes it the perfect place to search for information on linked mates in peace.

Except for today.

Darien is sitting in the stacks with his fingers holding up the cracked, crumbling spine of the book in his hand.

“Olivia.” He doesn’t look up. “How did I know I’d find you here?”

“You’re probably stalking me.”

“No. Not me. I did pluck this for you, though. Saved you the trouble of combing around for it.”

He holds up a book, and I reluctantly reach out to take it.

With all the areas of danger, somehow Darien seems the least scary right now.

I may not like him, but I’m picking up on his strategy.

He’s a sideline sitter; he holds his cards close to his chest. He won’t outright attack me now that I’m Parker’s mate.

Wow, that’s the first time I’ve let it sink in.

The silver spine reads: Linked Beyond Time .

“That’s the best book you’ll find on the subject here.”

“So you don’t believe it’s fake like the others?”

“Oh, I know it’s not. You know everyone talked about Parker when he first arrived too. You two are really quite similar. When he took to you so quickly, I had an idea shortly after you arrived to look in your files, and you know what I found?”

“You’re going to tell me.”

“You and Parker share the same birthdate and time, down to the minute. You both have deceased mothers who died when you were ten, and both happened in the spring. And your mothers were friends, well, at the very least, acquaintances.”

He hands me a picture of my mother. The blood drains from my face when I see those familiar violet eyes and dark hair.

It’s the dimpled smile I miss. One faint and the other clearly visible.

She’s laughing with another woman who’s taller and has a wider smile.

From her nose up, all I see is Parker. There’s a cauldron in front of them. They were lab partners.

I squeeze the book to my chest to put something between us. Anything so his words aren’t carving me open.

“Where did you find this?”

“Doxlothia yearbooks. You don’t know anything about linked mates, do you?”

I shrug. I hate answering rhetorical questions.

“Linked mates’ lives run parallel to each other until they diverge.

But no matter what, accepted bond or not, they will remain linked till death.

Perhaps beyond, who knows? So, say you do reject your bond with Parker, you find another man to marry you—very unlikely now, by the way—Parker would, too, marry.

Say you have a baby girl with those beautiful eyes of yours.

Parker will also have a girl. Then one day you decide to enroll that child in school, you might find they attend the same one.

Your children would probably end up friends.

Even if you traveled as far as you could away from him, you would always find your way back to each other somehow. It’s quite fascinating.”

“Again, I say you seem very interested in my life.”

I take a step back toward the door to get Darien out of my space and my head so I can think. But when I blink, he’s in front of me. This time, I’m not afraid of his teeth in my neck.

“Exactly, Olivia. Always remember that this is a game. And you of all people should know the way to win is to think a few steps ahead.”

“Is that why you showed up when Barrett took me alone into the woods?”

“Of course. Can you imagine what would have happened if he’d actually marked you then? Parker would be front page for murder.”

“And that would be bad for you.”

The edges of his smile curl insidiously.

“Why would I want to remove the most interesting players off the board?”

He brushes my shoulder as he passes for the stairs. “Read your books. Cuddle with your mate. But remember the game.”

I stop him when I hear the top step creak.

“Wait …”

He’s right. I should be focused on the game everyone here is apparently playing. But I’m still lingering on his words. My palms sweat as I grip the book close to my chest. The nagging question floats to my lips.

“Whose mother died first? His or mine?”

I know the answer. The knot of it grows in my throat. If we’re linked, one of us must be the trigger for the other.

“Yours,” he says before disappearing and leaving me in the study. “My condolences.”

I’m the thorn in Parker’s side. The thing that took and continues to take from him.

I’m left with the weight of it when I make my way back to my room.

I linger, with the half-turned knob of my door, and lay my head on the wood.

My head is full of the life Parker could’ve had if he wasn’t linked to me—loved in his mother’s arms, a father who was present …

another girl, someone better. Someone who could share in the bond with him.

A pack full of people who love him.

It’s not fair. Everything that’s happened to Parker is my fault.

I’m such a coward.

I let go of the knob and knock on Parker’s door while the picture burns a hole in my pocket. He opens it and lets me in without a single word.