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That tempting mouth of hers curved into a smile. “Believe me. Anyone I might have considered a friend turned their back on me the moment my family hit rock-bottom. Vampires I’d known for decades suddenly couldn’t remember my name. Not a single one showed an ounce of loyalty.”

“And your family?” I asked, hoping to reveal a little more about her, if only to solve this mystery.

“My parents didn’t want me to leave but understood my decision. I couldn’t remain there. Not after everything.” Doubt crept into her eyes, as though she was deciding how much to reveal to me.

I simply nodded encouragingly.

She turned back to the window and stared out over Eternity Falls. “You obviously know about Trystan.”

I hummed a response.

“No point in hiding it anymore then,” she said, sighing. “We were mates for a hundred years.”

Her fingers tightened around her glass. Fury colored her voice, and I found my anger rising in response to hers. I, of course, already knew how long they’d been together, but this was clearly something she needed to get off her chest.

“A hundred years,” she repeated. “Half my life. Mate bonds are sacred, we all know that. They bind two people together in a way that defies logic. It’s a commitment even stronger than marriage.

It tethers you to each other, joins your souls.

Cheating is literally unheard of between mates.

It just doesn’t happen. It’s not supposed to happen! ”

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, watching her crumple beneath the weight of heartbreak and grief.

“The money, the social ruin, the loss of status, I think I could have handled all that. I might have stuck by him. Maybe. But when I found out he was not only screwing his secretary—the damn cliché of it all—but also sharing blood with her, it broke me. That betrayal I would not abide by.”

I never showed physical affection, not even with my sisters. I’d always had this bubble that felt invaded upon whenever people touched me. So, I’d always kept my hands to myself—except for when it came to sex.

But Isadora?

I didn’t feel that bubble with her. That instinctive need to put distance between us.

Without a thought, I slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her gently against my chest. The motion was so strange and foreign to me, yet it came easily. And just as easily, my other arm closed around her and held her tightly.

She tensed briefly, then sagged against me, taking the comfort I offered like someone starved of it.

I, personally, had never mated. I’d never understood the purpose of tying yourself so intimately to someone. That kind of bond required the utmost trust and commitment. It also required a belief that your other half would stand by you through all else, and you by them.

But the part no one ever openly spoke of was what happened if a bond had to be severed.

Doing so wasn’t as simple as a separation or a divorce.

It was the literal tearing apart of two souls that had been fused together.

Such a thing happened so rarely, but from what I’d heard, the process was excruciating.

Brutal enough to make even the strongest beg for death.

I’d never met anyone I’d trusted enough to take such a risk.

But I did know mated pairs. My parents, for one. Their devotion to each other was ironclad. Neither would ever consider hurting the other like this. My father would rather die before causing my mother the pain Isadora was in.

And to publicly sever a mate bond? That was a declaration to the entire paranormal world that you had found your soulmate unworthy. That they had failed you so completely, so irreparably, that no one and nothing could fix it.

Honestly, killing Trystan might have been the kinder outcome.

If my father ever decided to cheat on my mother, she would serve his heart on a silver platter to her children. And we would applaud her for it—a fitting punishment, after all.

“I need to ask…” I said.

Isadora shifted position, resting the side of her face against my chest, then gazed up at me.

And gods help me, I nearly forgot how to breathe.

I’d never held someone like this before. My flings were all about fulfilling a sexual need and nothing more. But the way she looked at me now, her wide hazel eyes shimmering with unshed tears, almost brought me to my knees.

I cleared my throat. “Could it be Trystan? Is it possible he followed you here?”

A wan smile curved her lips. “No.”

Her succinct answer had me lifting a brow. “No?”

Sighing, she pulled away from me and smoothed her hands down her blouse as she collected herself. “Trystan would never do something like this. Not because he isn’t capable—he’s capable of anything really—but because he would never sully his hands with something so degrading. It’s beneath him.”

I mulled over her response. If I were in a situation like this, what would I do? The problem was, I had no idea. I would never do what Trystan had done. I wasn’t above terrifying or intimidating someone, but I would never stoop so low as to betray a loved one.

However, I’d also never had someone I loved publicly shame me—assuming he did, actually, love her. One would think if he loved her, he never would have stepped outside their relationship.

So, really, I had no idea what I would do in Trystan’s position.

Could her breaking the bond have broken him? Or motivated him to seek revenge?

“Would he hire someone?” I asked.

“With what money?” she replied, shaking her head. “My financial ruin is because of him. He’s just as bankrupt as I am. If he weren’t, I would have taken him for all he had left. He destroyed himself, he has no reason to come after me.”

I considered her last sentence, but it didn’t sit right with me.

While I had no experience in these types of situations, I’d seen what pride did to people—vampires especially. Wounded egos could drive even the most composed minds into madness.

Trystan might’ve lost everything, but Isadora had hurt him in a way most never recovered from. She’d exposed his betrayal, severed their bond, then walked away. That wasn’t the kind of thing someone just let go.

He didn’t need money. He just needed to hate her enough.

And from where I was standing, I’d wager he did.