Page 11 of Protector

Tristan looks relieved to have an excuse to break the unexpected eye contact with me. He lifts his hand, scratching the back of his perfectly-styled blond hair. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s ducky,” Fallon says. “Luc just wanted you to know that we’re going to the Coven House to have another sit-down with Armand and a couple of his cronies. If they’re serious about making this truce thing solid, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to let them call me Madame.”

Tristan’s brow furrows. “They’re still insisting on that? But you’re pack.”

“Right. And somebody told me that it would be the best for all us supes here if I admit that I can be coven, too.”

Me. That somebody was me. And the way Tristan’s gaze darts back over at me, he’s figured that out.

I give him a smile, making sure to show him my teeth. “Maybe if you were here instead of dodging your Beta responsibilities, you’d know what was going on.”

Oh, boy. His eyes flash beneath the old-fashioned lighting in the kitchen, and my smile widens. I think I touched a nerve.

He opens his mouth.

“She’s pack, Tristan,” Fallon says softly. “Remember that before you say something you can’t take back.”

I’m also supposed to be his fated mate, but Fallon wisely doesn’t mention that. Neither does the Alpha throw in his two cents. Mainly because, when it comes to me living in the pack house, he’s happy to let me be his mate’s responsibility.

And isn’t that a complete one-eighty to our former relationship?

Tristan stays quiet.

I don’t.

“Like I said. If you were around, you’d know that, too.”

To punctuate my admittedly bitchy tone, I give him another smile I don’t mean. How can I? It currently feels like I’m being stabbed by shards of glass all over, just being in his presence with the missing part of our rejected mate bond.

It’s been like that for almost two months. From the day Fallon found me waiting patiently in the Coven House, ready to escape whenever I felt like, the moment I saw Tristan again, I felt it. Mate bonds, when they’re forcibly broken, are jagged. When one mate formally rejects the other, it’s a clean slice.

And then there’s one mate purposely blocking the other from their side of the bond and it’s a constant ache when we’re close.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s what he’s avoiding me. That he feels it, too, and it’s a constant reminder that he can’t ignore me forever. I’m not going to be the one to reject him. If he wants to take away my chance at a true forever mate, fuck him. He can do the dirty work for a change.

I’m over it.

Only… he hasn’t. The Luna has come and gone—that blocked bond the only thing that kept me from suffering moon fever—but he insists on going on as if I don’t exist.

Now he’s forced to confront me, and I keep my eyes on him so he knows it.

Pity he’s purposely keeping his gaze on anyone and anything except for me.

“I was on patrol,” he says after a moment. “I was protecting.”

“We have a truce with the coven,” reminds Lucas. “The train to Winter Creek isn’t scheduled to roll in until the new moon. Our pack’s down to four, Tris. For the first time in seventy years, we can take a break.”

The shards twist as his pretty blue eyes—so unusual for a wolf—dart my way.

“I can’t.”

Right. Because going on his endless patrols is the perfect excuse he needs to pretend his fated mate—his rejected mate—isn’t shacked up in the pack house.

And since it doesn’t seem like he’s going to change his mind about my status any time soon, I’m not just done today.

I’m out.

My plate is half-touched. Usually, I could put away that much food easily, but you know what?

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