Page 85 of Tempted By the Alpha Outlaw

I feel it through the bond. The devastation. The sheer ache of it. And it’s my fault.

Her breath hitches. “When you kissed me—you were keeping this from me. When you…at the observatory, when you—” Her voice wobbles, and she swallows hard, pressing her lips together. “You knew, Colt. You knew what this would do to me, and you still let me?—”

She stops herself before the words can leave her lips, but I know what she was about to say.

You still let me love you.

The bond between us pulses, and I feel her war with herself—her instincts screaming that I’m still hers, still safe, while her mind knows better.

“I should’ve told you,” I say, voice rough, pleading. “I tried. I didn’t know how—I didn’t know how to do it without?—”

“Without what?” Magnolia cuts in. “Without me looking at you exactly how I’m looking at you right now?”

I flinch.

Because yeah.

That was the worst part. The part I couldn’t stomach.

“I love you,” I say, because it’s the only thing I have left, the only truth I know won’t change. “I love you, Magnolia. And I never—” My voice breaks. “I never wanted to lose you.”

Her breath shudders out of her, and she presses a hand over her mouth like she can physically shove down the sound of her own pain.

I take a step forward, my instincts screaming at me to fix this, but she stumbles back.

“Don’t,” she breathes, voice broken. “Just…don’t.”

Silence stretches between us.

She’s trembling. I can feel the way her body wants to run but her heart won’t let her. Her wolf is snarling, torn, because she knows I’m not going to hurt her. She knows I’m not a threat.

But she also knows what I’ve done.

And that’s worse.

I exhale slowly, clenching my fists. “I swear to you—I swear on everything—I would never hurt you.”

She stares at me for a long, stretched-out moment.

Then, so quiet I almost don’t hear her, she whispers, “You already did.”

The words land like a killing blow.

Her shoulders shake, but she lifts her chin, swallowing hard as she drags a shaky breath into her lungs. “I—I can’t—” She breaks off, squeezing her eyes shut. “I need to go.”

My whole body locks up. I don’t know what to do, how to fix this, how to stop her from walking away when I can feel through the bond that it’s the last thing either of us really wants.

But I don’t stop her.

I can’t.

I watch, helpless, as she turns. As she forces one foot in front of the other. As the distance between us stretches too far, the bond thrumming with pain and loss?—

And then I figure out what that strange scent was.

It’s faint. Almost nothing.

But now that the bond between us is screaming…

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