Page 62 of Covenant

Suddenly, I’m all too aware I’m holding his wrist. That I can feel his pulse racing under my fingers. Is that a leftover remnant of his nightmare? Or is it because I’m touching him?

I’m no longer sure what I want the answer to be.

A muscle jumps in Matthias’s jaw as he stares at the floor. “I’m really sorry, Wy. I could’ve hurt you.”

“No,” I disagree softly. “I don’t think you can. Not physically anyway.”

His gaze shoots up to mine and, for once, I don’t hide anything from him. I let him see how much he hurt me. The betrayal I still feel. The fury at his abandonment of our friendship.

Suddenly, it’s all too much. I lie down, pulling the sheet up to my chin. “If you’re that worried about hurting whoever is in bed with you, maybe you shouldn’t sleep with a weapon under your pillow.”

He bends slowly to pick it up from the floor, turning it over in his hands with an inscrutable look. “It’s not been a problem before.”

My stomach turns in a knot as his meaning sinks in. “You think I’m going to attack you in your sleep? Thanks a fucking lot. I know your opinion of me is low, but I didn’t realize it’d hit the bottom of the barrel.”

“No, I meant I’ve never slept in the same bed as someone before. Before you, if someone was in my room, the dagger was likely needed.”

My mind empties out at the thought of what Matthias is hinting at. “Just what aren’t you telling me? What secrets are you keeping?”

He gives a humorless laugh. “So many that I’ve lost count. But there’s only one thing you need to know right now. Two, actually.”

“What?”

“You’re right that you don’t need to fear me hurting you,” he turns his back and stalks for the door, throwing away the next comment over his shoulder. “And my opinion of you is anything but low.”

16

WYATT

Little changes in the week leading up to our supposed honeymoon. Matthias goes to work. I spend my days in the garden, Corbin silently assisting me as needed. Jules keeps me fed with all my favorite foods from my childhood on a steady rotation.

My daily check-ins with Jackson keep me sane. They remind me of why I’m doing this.

Really, nothing changes. But somehow, everything has.

It has because Matthias won’t tell me what he was dreaming about, nor why he sleeps with a weapon underneath his pillow.

Because he’s not sleeping in bed with me.

For all his insistence that we have to be seen “keeping up appearances”, he seems to have had a change of heart. I don’t know where he’s laying his head these days, but it’s sure as shit not on the pillow beside mine.

I don’t know why it annoys me. I should be reveling in the extra space, satisfied I’ve gotten my own way, and relieved I don’t have to share a bed with someone I hate.

But I don’t. Most of all, because I’m not sure I hate him. Not as I once did. Everything that happened the night of the gala opened my eyes to how many secrets Matthias has been keeping from me. To the demons that haunt his sleep.

To the danger he believes himself to be in.

Add in my unexpected reaction to the kiss, and what happened in the shower…yeah. I don’t think I can say I hate Matthias anymore.

Doesn’t mean I particularlylikethe fucker. But there’s no denying that it’s cracked open the vault I’ve kept him in all this time. It hasn’t opened the door, but it’senough. Enough to have me questioning everything.

There hasn’t been a repeat of the shower incident. What’s more, Matthias seems to be going out of his way to avoid me. There’s been no more teasing. No more flirting. No playing games of any sort.

No more dares.

I should be happy about it because it seems like I’ve won, but I’m not happy. Without the hate, without the games, I don’t know where I stand. I don’t know what this is.

I know what it’ssupposedto be. A fake marriage. A solution for both our problems.

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