Page 15 of Soulbound

It was only a matter of time.

And yet, putting off this conversation was cowardly. She deserved better.

Sebastian gritted his teeth and strode after her, his heart kicking in his chest like a mule.

Finding her wasn't difficult. Their soul-bond led him straight to her. Though unconsummated, it seemed to have strengthened even in the brief seconds since they'd come face-to-face.

And it had been fading. It had.

Or was he only fooling himself?

Cleo stared at the small duck pond in the gardens out back, her shoulders ramrod straight. She was much smaller than he. Light to his darkness. Hope to his bleakness.

And in that moment he could remember what she'd looked like the night of their marriage, when she'd tended to his bullet wound wearing only a flimsy nightgown, and asked him not to be cruel to her. She could tolerate disinterest or his lack of affection, but not cruelty, she'd claimed.

She'd lied.

A month of forcing himself to stay away from her had hurt her more than he'd imagined.

"Cleo," he began, his voice a stark whisper. Mother of night, a part of him wanted to linger in this moment, to drink her in. But everything else inside him withered and died. He would only destroy her.

"My apologies," she said, clearing her throat and glancing back over her shoulder at him. "If I'd known you were coming, I would have prepared myself better. I didn't.... I meant to...."

"Avoid me?" he asked.

Her soulful gaze locked with his. "I thought that was my line?"

He stared at her, taking in every inch of her heart-shaped face, and the storm of emotions crossing it, hungry in a way he'd not been aware of. A surge of need swept through him. Something he'd never felt before.

He wanted to kiss her.

No, he wanted to do more than that, and the second he thought it, fear and distaste overrode him, and his fingers curled into a fist.

Cleo was the purest young woman he'd ever met. He'd only taint her. She deserved better. And strike him blind, but all he could picture was the day they'd first met, when she'd leaned up on the balustrade of a garden folly, and pointed to the lake behind him and said, "Look!"

He'd turned, a second before he realized she couldn't see anything, and then the warmth of her body was pressed against his, her lips sliding like a silken caress over his mouth, and all his senses fled.

It was barely a kiss.

And it was the only thing that had sustained him through the dark nights that followed.

"Are you going to say something?" Cleo demanded, and he realized he'd been lost for words for far too long.

"I've missed you," he admitted, precisely what he hadn't meant to say. Sebastian turned away, the muscles in his abdomen tightening. Control yourself, damn it. "I'm sorry if you've felt neglected, but I had a great deal to work through."

Her tone softened. "I could have helped you."

"No." The word came out sharper than he’d intended. You're the cause of half my problems. "You're safer here."

"Safer? Pray tell... in what way?"

"Safer from me," he said in the cool tone he used to inure his feelings.

Cleo flung her arms wide. "Everyone wants to keep me bloody safe." She tripped on her basket, and breadcrumbs scattered, sending ducks quacking and squawking at her feet. "'You are precious and pure,' my father used to tell me when he locked me away inside his estate, so I never had a chance to even see any of the world—"

"I am not your father—"

"No?" Cleo's skirts swept against his shins as she stepped closer, staring up at him with an obstinate gleam in her dark brown eyes. "You're right, you're my husband. But one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, couldn't they? Do you think you're the only one who's lost everything? Do you think you're the only one who stares at the ruins of their life and wonders where they are going?" She clenched her fists, her dark eyes gleaming. "I can't see the future anymore, Sebastian. My own father took that away from me the second he tore my blindfold free. And then he died, and as much of a monster as I realized he'd become, he was still my father. Still the only anchor I had in this world, until you. And you don't want me, and I've barely seen you. And Drake is gone, and I know he was your father, and you feel guilty for what happened to him, but he was also the person who promised to help me. I have nothing. I have no one. Ianthe and Lucien are kind, but they're not you."