Page 116 of The Wolf Prince's Mate

I was more afraid that he hadn’t.

With a long breath, I finally held the power button.

I watched the screen light up, and waited a long moment for a message to come through.

Finally, it buzzed three times. The first message was from that morning. The second was sometime in the afternoon. The third was recent.

I opened the conversation and stared at the earliest one.

Clay

I’m sorry

I stared at the two words.

He wassorry.

Ugh.

The message beneath it was better, though.

Clay

I already miss you

That made my chest ache.

Clay

If you ever want to talk about anything, I’m always here

That message just made me want to punch him.

Because he wasn’t here. He was gone. He had left me, by choice, because he was afraid.

I stared at the message for another minute before shaking my head and clicking away from the conversation.

My phone buzzed again.

Clay

You read my messages but didn’t respond. Why?

Seriously?

I had turned that setting off forever ago.

Why did the option to let someone know when you read their texts even exist? What sane person wanted people to know when they were ignoring messages?

I debated ignoring that text too, but ultimately, I cared about Clay a lot. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than he already had to be hurting, even if he kind of deserved it for ditching me.

Me

The only thing I want to talk about is you making an executive decision to end what we had

And considering the way you left without a conversation, it seems clear you’re not willing to discuss it

Bubbles popped up as he typed an answer, but it didn’t come through.

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