Page 60 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

Not that the Great Spirit was listening.

Or maybe I was just too tired to hear properly anymore.

I let my eyelids grow heavy as the soothing stable sounds continued around me. My breathing grew rhythmic. Sleep crept in gradually; it didn’t force me.

I wasawoken by heavy footsteps hitting the stable floors.

Wyatt came into view moments later, filling the inner stall entrance with his large frame. The interior of the building was dimmer now. Long past afternoon. He stared me down, and those keen green eyes of his missed nothing, not even the blood stain.

"You look like shit," he commented.

"Missed you too," I replied, words gruff, voice still out of practice.

When I shifted to get up, Wyatt stopped me.

“Keep sitting. I’m joining you.” He moved into the stall and slid down the half wall opposite me, stretching both long legs out and crossing them at the ankles. The soles of his boots were crusted with mud and cow dung. Wyatt didn’t just sit down for casual conversation, so I waited.

For a long moment, we just sat in silence. The horses moved in their stalls. Dust particles played air hockey between us, moving back and forth when we breathed.

"Eros called yesterday," he finally said.

My heart gave a painful thump. "And?"

"And nothing." Wyatt's mouth thinned. “Just the same bullshit about their growing database and the enormous scientific feat it was to find a conclusive match.”

“Figured," I said, though seconds earlier my heart had leaped toward hope.

"It's been eleven months, Boone.” Wyatt sounded defeated, so unlike him.

"I can count.” I didn’t know what else to say.

We were all tallying up the days, the weeks, the months. Prisoners carving lines, counting down until release or execution.

Silence again, heavier this time. We'd had variations of this conversation before, but always in fragments, always with the others around. Never just the two of us, speaking plainly.

"You think it's getting worse?" I asked finally, though I already knew the answer.

Wyatt ran a hand through his dark hair, the short waves falling back into perfect place.

"Yeah," he admitted. "For all of us."

"The waiting?—"

"It's not just the waiting." Wyatt cut me off, his voice low but intense. "It's the hope. It’s the hunger I can’t fucking satisfy. It was easier before Eros, easier to ignore what we were missing. I don’t want to make Cooper feel guilty again, but I’m losing my goddamn mind.”

I nodded, relief washing through me at hearing someone else articulate what I'd been feeling. "The more we hope, the worse it gets."

"Exactly." Wyatt picked up a piece of straw, rolling it between his fingers. “I don’t even believe our Omega is out there. I can’t believe, or I’m finished.”

"She exists.” My voice was firm. He needed my comfort, not my commiseration.

But the words tasted bitter and false.

"You ever think about what happens if they can't match us? If this was all for nothing?" He said it through gritted teeth, jaw clenched. He was a raw nerve right now.

"I think about it every day," I said quietly.

It’s why I keep leaving. It’s why I can’t be here for too long.I thought.