Page 18 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

No one would notice, but I do. I see how Ado doesn’t twitch or even seem to breathe. His hands are so still in his lap, the kind of still that makes you realize how twitchy and unsteady hands usually are.

I have rattled him.

“I’ve been behind a desk,” I repeat weakly. “So, this is all new all over again, and I can’t mess it up. I just can’t.”

Ado hesitates. His jaw works, the first sign of movement since I spoke. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you. But I didn’t want to make things worse.”

His words surprise me. I hadn’t considered that maybe he was holding back because he was trying to protect me—I had especially failed to consider that he would ever admit that to me. It had occurred to me that maybe he was struggling with this as much as I was, but it had seemed like wishful thinking. When it comes to Ado, most of my thinking is wishful.

“I thought you were just… avoiding me,” I say, feeling the hot ball of frustration I’ve been carrying spitting in my gut. “And you were. I know that. I was avoiding you, too. It’s only fair. I thought maybe we could make that work.”

He leans forward and runs a hand through his hair. If Ado were a different type of man, he’d be huffing frustratedly, but he is silent, as I knew he would be.

Neither of us speaks for some time. A bird streaks through the clear blue sky outside the window, soaring up toward the spotty white clouds that capture and hold the sunlight high above the pack center.

Ado straightens. He looks through the glass out over Rosecreek rather than at me as he says, slowly and quietly, “I thought about you all the time when you were gone.”

I am drowning. I am the banks of Halfmoon Lake, eroding backward from a powerful tide. For a sheer, singular moment, I am the woman I used to be, watching the man I love lead me through the dark. I am waking up alone, and he’s gone.

Then, I’m back on the couch in the Rosecreek pack center. I’m myself again, watching him as he watches the sky.

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. We both understand that something fundamental has been broken, some unspoken pact not to acknowledge what happened.

I stand, the movement sudden and stiff, breaking the quiet. Ado doesn’t look at me, but I sense his attention shifting. My wolf wants him so badly that I can hardly stand it. My breath catches in my throat, and I force myself to speak.

“I… need some air,” I say, my voice thin and shaky.

In my words is a plea—to him, to myself, to whatever it is that still lingers between us.

Ado nods once, still staring out at the sky.

I turn and head for the door, my steps quick and uneven, desperate to escape that room. I grip the cold metal handle and hesitate for just a second, glancing back at Ado one last time.

But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything more. So, I leave.

I have something I need to ask Aris.

Chapter 10 - Ado

Hognose Creek once boasted a narrow, rickety jetty, stretching out over the coppery waters of the swamp toward the bank of the reed bed, beyond which the spill is clear as crystal. I’ve seen photos of it in our research. Aris has one that he showed me on his phone of Linnea as a young girl, standing on that very jetty, staring over the water. I sometimes forget that this is their hometown.

Whatever structures once existed over the creek, they are long since underwater. Or, at least, one less well-trained than us might think so.

Byron points out the hidden slipway to the covered dock to the others. He doesn’t have to point it out to me. We crouch in the mud on the far side of the inlet—me, Byron, Bigby, and Keira, who hovers a bit behind the rest of us, one hand on the stubby pistol at her hip, the other on the ground beneath her, as if she can hold herself together if she just keeps a grip on the physical world around her.

“They’re collaborators, not organizers,” Byron is saying to Bigby and Keira, though I can tell she’s only half listening. “So, there won’t be relevant goods or… well.” He coughs. “Nothing is coming to and from this warehouse that helps us directly, not that we know of. It isn’t on their route. But if we can take these guys in and find out what they know—if we offer them immunity, they’ll spill. It’s how goons like this always are. They can lead us to the ringleaders.”

“We expect a fight, though?” Bigby asks. He doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t be here if we didn’t expect a fight.

Byron fiddles with his phone. Probably firing off a text to Aris about the job. Probably exasperated that Keira and I aren’t speaking still.

“We’re just being well-prepared,” he tells us.

I’m not all that great with people, but even I know Byron well enough to know he’s lying.

Keira’s hand in the dirt tightens into a fist. Her face is almost white with nerves.

When she insisted on coming along, everyone tried to talk her out of it—everyone except me and Aris. I said nothing because I was sure I’d be sick if I spoke, and Aris simply looked her in the eye for a moment and then told her yes.

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