Page 14 of The Accidental Assassin's Mate

“I’m back because my jackal wouldn’t let me stay away.” I attempted to open my eyes, but it was too much work. “He needed me here. He scented Sutton as ours.”

“I heard.” Then, why did he ask? Couldn’t he see I was tired? And grumpy. Apparently very, very grumpy.

“All right.” The healer held something under my nose, my eyes popping wide open and my head instinctively moving out of the way. “Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

He asked me a thousand questions, used tools to listen to different parts of my body, poked and prodded at others, took samples of blood and saliva, and had me drink some nastyconcoctions. He even held his hands over body parts like he thought it would accomplish something. And maybe it did. I knew less than nothing about healing.

When he was done, he turned to Sutton and said, “We need to feed him.”

“On it.” He all but ran out of the room.

“I can go to the kitchen,” I offered, trying to climb out of bed.

“No,” the healer said firmly. “You need to eat here and without exerting more energy than needed. “Your beast is starving. Don’t you feel him?”

Now that he brought it up, I realized I didn’t feel him at all. Not his hunger. Not his emotions. Nothing.

“No. No, I don’t. Is he sleeping?” For the first time, I was really worried. Being tired I could explain away, but my beast? He was always up when I was.

“Probably. Or he’s too weak because he needs food.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Because none of this sounded good.

“I can, and I will—while you’re eating.”

Sutton came back a few minutes later with a triple-decker sandwich, a cut-up apple, and some peanut butter. I ate and, when I was halfway through my sandwich, the healer began his explanation.

“The problem is you have two bonds. One is just beginning, and the other one isn’t gone.”

“Okay…” That wasn’t new information to me.

Sutton sat on the bed beside me.

“Do you feel it?” the healer asked Sutton.

“I feel our bond,” Sutton said.

“Do you feel that your bond is…kind of off-kilter?”

“I’ve never had a mate before. I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel.”

“Well, not like that.”

The healer had the worst bedside manner ever. Or, maybe this was normal. I didn’t know, my jackal kept me pretty healthy, until now, that was.

“Right now, you have a half-bond from your first mate, and that’s dangerous on a good day—especially the way they did it. And, on top of that, you have this newly forming bond trying to smoosh the other one out of existence.”

“Let it. I never wanted it in the first place.”

“You don’t understand. It can’t just do that. That’s not how it works. The alpha who left you with this half-bond is the worst of our kind.”

“He’s dead.”Thank fuck.

“Good.” The healer didn’t mince words.

I thought he already knew from the night he helped me, but maybe he was one of those healers who worked on the wrong side of the law and never asked questions. He seemed the type.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that these bonds are going to keep fighting each other. What we need to do is sever the half-bond.”

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