Page 32 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

Hesitating in silence, I gauged whether or not I wanted to speak with anyone. The dream burned vividly in my mind’s eye—the feeling of the dragonflies gnawing on my skin, the sheer winds evocative of the Sky Goddess’s grief. I cleared my throat and sat up. “What is it?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

The door slowly cracked open, and Billie stepped into the room. Then, behind her, gingerly hunched with his wrists still bound, was Colt, his eyebrows drawn together over his dark blue eyes. A blue that struck me with the same grief as Welkin’s.

“Colt wanted to talk to you,” said Billie. “I understand if you don’t want to see him right now. We’ll leave if you tell us to. Otherwise, I thought if you wanted to feel safer, I could stay while he says whatever he has to say to you.” She glanced sidelong at Colt, her face hardened and unforgiving of him, warning him that neither she nor I were to be trifled with.

I bristled when I met Colt’s gaze. However, burdened as we both were by all the pain we’d each suffered, our mate bond left us aching for union. We remained drawn to one another in spite of it all. I didn’t feel strong enough to resist our bond, especially when the dream had impressed those blue eyes into my thoughts. “I’ll speak with him alone,” I decided.

“It’s fine. I can stay, really,” Billie insisted.

“That won’t be necessary.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, staring with a warning of my own at my fated mate. “He’s not going to take anything else from me.”

Billie glanced at Colt, who nodded. He mustered a small smile for his adoptive sister, but she had yet to move past everything he had done and gave him little more than a cold look before heading for the door. “Call for us if you need anything,” Billie advised.

I understood.Call for them if Colt tried anything.

When the door closed, it was just Colt and me in the bedroom. We stood before each other, once more at a stalemate, as we grappled with the urges of our fated bond.

I dared him to make the first move.

Chapter 20

Colt

The tables had turned since the last time I had Kiara alone. Now, my wrists were bound, and I was at her mercy while she leered at me with the judgment of a titan.

She said nothing as I scoured my brain for the right words.

“Nothing I can say can give you back everything you’ve lost,” I sighed.

Kiara’s eyes narrowed, her fists clenched by her sides. But she stayed silent, so I conjured up more to fill the silence.

“I want to undo everything. Go back in time and find a way to get your mom out of that cave, take back everything stupid I’ve said and done to you. I’d…I’d kill David if it would stop all of this from happening.”

“It’s too late,” she said coldly.

“I know it’s too late, but I wish it weren’t. I wish I’d had the courage to do what had to be done, to protect you and your mother and everyone that David hurt—”

Kiara suddenly lunged, shoving me hard in the chest. My back thumped against the wall as her hands grabbed my shirt, blazing anger igniting in her eyes. “She’s dead because you handed me that fucking child! Because you thought you could play games with me instead of helping me—your fated mate! Even if you mean what you say, do you expect me to believe you? Or for it to change anything?” She shook me and slammed me into the wall again.

Even if I’d had my hands free, I didn’t think I would have resisted her. I deserved every ounce of her anger. The bruises around my eye and on my cheek might as well have been caused by her. The pain in my body was because of her, but if it had deceived me into feeling like I’d atoned for my sins, I would have had her throw me to the ground and beat me until I was dead.

By the time she’d spent her wrath on me, Kiara was still gripping my shirt between her white knuckles. Her head slumped between her shaking shoulders, pale hair draped across her back, her forehead leaning on my chest.

“I never even got to speak with her,” she breathed. “And now she’s gone, Colt.”

I didn’t move from against the wall. “Kiara, I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for letting this happen. I never should have obeyed my father.”

“It’s my fault, too,” Kiara muttered.

“No. You did everything you could to save her.”

“But it wasn’t enough. I failed.”

“At least you tried,” I argued.

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