Page 345 of Bride of Choice

She didn’t leave him. She loved him. You’d have to be stupid not to know Joanie loved Rek something awful.

I’d heard the whispers, wondering if she might have just up and left, along with the horrifying thought that she could have been taken by another creature hanging around in the woods just waiting to pounce.

I was going with the latter. I probably watched her as often as Rek had, partially because I stuck to him like glue whenever possible. Odd as she’d been acting for a while there, she had no intention of leaving. She had family here and she obviously loved them, too.

If I hadn’t been such a coward… maybe- Maybe things would have gone differently.

But they hadn’t, and I’m a total chicken shit.

Rek was safe. Rek might yell and get grumpy with me, sure, and yeah he’s hurt my feelings, but he’s never put his hands on me. He’s never made me fearful for my life. He’s big and scary looking but when it comes down to it he’s sorta my hero.

Guilt gnawed at me.

And I’d repaid him for all of that he’s done for me by getting his mate to shun him and most of the village in the process. My fears consuming me had led to this.

I couldn’t help but feel like this was all my fault. Who else was I to blame?

If Rek had been with her, she’d have been protected. He’d have died for her.

Watching him now, listening to his muffled sobs as he clutched her purse like a lifeline, then mumbled her name over and over in his nightmares as he tossed and turned. Yeah, this was my fault.

Because I was scared and didn’t want to be alone.

He’d tried to introduce me to others but it was hard when everyone thought he’d just picked me up and decided to keep me.

I’d heard what others say, think, about us, about me. Some didn’t even try to hide it.

I hated myself for it. All of it.

I’d quietly, selfishly been relieved he couldn’t find someone else to pawn me off on.

I didn’t want Rek, no. Absolutely not. And he wouldn’t want me anyway. Everything the male lived and breathed, was his Joanie. I’d say his interest in her bordered on obsession but it wasn’t my place to say and better her than me.

Rek was safe for me, he was a thousand percent uninterested and mainly occupied with his mate. That left me too much time to quietly sit in my intrusive thoughts, while he sat in his, and bask in this odd, self-deprecating parallel play we’d fallen into.

But we didn’t even have that now.

This was no longer all about me, my feelings, my pain and fears and hurts.

Rek wasn’t doing good. I mean, really not doing good.

He’d sort of become kind of like the odd, heavily hairy cousin I’d never had, or big brother even, maybe, and he was killing himself trying to find his Joanie.

I was terrified to think of what he’d do if he couldn’t find her.

To make matters worse, he’d passed out during one of many a hunt for her, sleep deprivation, lack of food, he’d barely been coherent, and long story short they’d, and by they I mean all the really big scary guys running around day after day looking for her, well, they’d basically banned him from hunting.

Kirch, the guy he seems to quietly look up to, was put on babysitting duty.

This is where we’re at.

Sitting in Rek’s backyard so I wasn’t front row seat to their latest shouting match, Rek weakly trying to fight Kirch off to get past him to leave, the only family it appears Rek has knocking some sense into him, literally if necessary, keeping his butt grounded.

Wincing as I heard a loud crash and a snarl, I focused on the bowl in my hands and filling it with snow to boil in the weird filtering pot system Rek had set up underneath a bunch of strange, glowing stones.

He usually had enough water for more than both of us but he’d given up on daily chores. Since Joanie had disappeared, he’d given up on a lot of things.

From the smell of him lately, I was pretty sure he’d foregone bathing completely. I’d never been so happy to not have that crazy Lo denaii sense of smell in my life.

---