Page 37 of Wicked

“We won’t be able to bond in time. Fate messed up.” God didn’t mess up, did He? Why would He give me this opportunity, only to take it away? Is this His way of saying that what happened in the pits really was my fault? Is that why His Bishops hold the survivors from the pits responsible for what we did there?

There are far too many questions in my head. I no longer know what I believe about what happened to me and how I reacted to it.

“Why don’t we just tell Anne, and she can try to find someone while we spend my heat together? Then we’d at least have a chance.” Candlewick reaches for my hand, but I step back.

“Sex outside the sacred rituals of a bond is a sin.”

I force myself to watch as tears slide down Candlewick’s cheeks. This is my fault. Everything is my fault. I did this to a good man.

I’m a terrible person. I’ve known that for a long time now. Candlewick just can’t see it because he spent too long with Dorian Gray.

“That is complete bullshit,” Candlewick says.

“You’re welcome to think that. Everyone in my life thinks my religion is crazy, but that doesn’t change what I believe.”

He stares back at me with such loathing, I want to die.

“You know what? I don’t think your religion is crazy at all. Religion, in general, makes a lot of sense to me. My Gran died when I was eighteen, and back then, I really wanted to believe she went to heaven. That was so much easier than accepting that she was gone. The problem with believing in heaven is that religion comes with a lot of other stuff that’s really bad for people. Like condemning sex. Sex is a healthy, natural, and important part of being human, and religion has turned it into this controlled, shameful thing.”

“Sex should only happen—”

“Within the sacred rituals of a bond. Yeah, I know you believe that. But I don’t, and most people don’t follow that rule. Hell, even the people on the compounds don’t always follow it. That rule is unrealistic and harmful.”

“It makes sex special—”

“It makes sex forbidden. Sex with you would have been special for me regardless. If sex with the person you love isn’t special, that isn’t because you’ve had sex before. If anything, sexual experience helps you know when sex truly is special. It enables you to appreciate the difference.”

That doesn’t make any sense. How could sex be more special if you’ve had it before?

“Saving yourself for the right persondoesmake sex special. It’s romantic.”

He narrows his eyes in anger. “Nothing about you saving yourself feels romantic to me, the person you were supposedly saving yourself for. If that’s what you call romance, I want nothing to do with it.” He starts off down the driveway again, then pauses and looks back at me. “We could have been happy, you know. Really, really happy.”

I watch him walk away from me with a confusing mix of anger and regret. My religion isn’t just a way to protect myself from dealing with death, and having sex with other people before you meet your mate can cheapen the sex you have in the future. The first time I had sex in the pits was excruciating because I wished it had been with my mate. The whole time I cried and tried to imagine the omega I could have been with if I wasn’t sinning with someone else. That experience is what made trying to have sex with Candlewick so hard. Or in other words, less special.

He will never understand me. He doesn’t even want to. Everything that happened between us during the last twenty-four hours was a mistake.

12

Candlewick

Dorian’s house has never been this full of people. Anne and two security guards are in the kitchen. She tells me that Buddy and H are asleep in the guest room.

In the past, it was always just Buddy and me in the mornings. Memories come flooding back.

I wokelate in the morning, sunlight shining through the windows. Dorian was no longer sleeping next to me. On his pillow there was a note.

Candlewick,

Money has already been wired to your account for last night’s services. Stay as long as you like. There’s food and coffee in the kitchen. Please help yourself.

Dorian

I set the note back in its place. That was a little presumptuous. It would cost at least a hundred dollars to take an Uber back to the city. He’d better be willing to foot the bill.

I found a robe in his enormous closet and padded outside the bedroom. The house was obscenely large with lots of windows and light. I made myself some toast and coffee, and sat down at the dining room table to eat.

Thump.

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