Page 26 of Savagely Mated

One second Sevilla is all about plans, the next she’s forgetting how pups are born? I don’t think so. Oh, well. She’s good for Jory. Whatever that means. I hear people say it enough so it’s got to have some kind of meaning.

“In that case, congratulations!” I hold up my coffee and give him a smile.

“Yeah. Thanks. But see, it means…”

“What?”

I shove a pancake into my mouth so nothing stupid can come out of it.

“It means you can’t come around like this anymore. If Sevilla were here, or the baby, and you show up basically naked with half the city after you…” He gives me an apologetic look, and I swallow the sharp, lancing pain I feel in my gut as I realize exactly what he is saying, and why.

I’m losing my oldest friend because I’m a piece of shit. He wouldn’t put it that way, but I would. I’m trouble. I bring trouble. And he’s about to settle down and play house with the woman who is most likely the love of his life.

He’s about to be happy.

And I can’t get in the way of that.

“I understand,” I tell him. “Don’t worry, I won’t come back. I get it.”

“I’m sorry, Darcy, but she’s going to move in soon and I need everything to be perfect for her. If things ever… if you get… maybe in the future, if you, you know…”

“If I get normal?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. But yeah,” he says. “I’ve got to be respectable.”

“Don’t worry, Jory,” I tell him, sucking up my hurt pride. “I understand. Really. I do. You’re going to have a baby. That’s the most important thing. The baby has to come first.”

The words feel like they’re turning to ashes in my mouth. I always thought that was a weird expression and I had no idea what it meant. But I do now. I’m saying what I have to say, because saying literally anything else would make me the world’s biggest asshole.

There’s a part of me I’d never dare give voice to, and that’s the part that wonders why that wasn’t true for me. I didn’t come first. I got abandoned. I was left and raised in an institution by a parade of people I don’t even really remember. But Jory’s kid is already more important to him than I ever was to whoever my dad was. Feels bitter.

“Hey. Good luck, man. I’ll see you around,” I say, pulling my—well, his—clothes up into more appropriate positions.

“You don’t have to go right now,” he says.

“Oh, but I do. You’re gonna be a great dad, Jory. Catch you later.”

I get up and I go, because I’m very close to crying and I don’t want to let Jory see that. I don’t want him to feel any more guilty than he obviously already does.

“Darcy…”

I hear him say something, but I don’t hear what it is. Blood is rushing in my ears as I run off, back to the academy. I hope my absence hasn’t been noted. I’ve gotten in more trouble than this before.

I try one of the rear side gates to the academy, hoping it’s still early enough that nobody is on guard yet. It’s not entirely uncommon for the lesser gates to be manned by students who often run late.

Today, as I have already established, is not my lucky day.

“Darcy, where have you been?”

The soldier at the gate is in my class. His name is Brian, and he’s good at math. None of this matters, but it’s what I think of when I see his country boy face looking at me with curiosity. Brian is excited and honored to be at the academy. He can’t believe his fucking luck.

“I went for an early morning run,” I say.

He looks me up and down. I can practically see the syllabus of the detection skills class running through his head.Chapter 3. Part 5. External Indicators of Dishonesty.I’ve read that bookdozens of times. I’m actually quite good at study, in spite of being a complete mess in every other respect.

“Wearing boy clothes?” He frames it as a question, but I just reclaim it as a fact.

“Wearing, as you say, boy clothes.” I find it’s easier to just agree with what people are saying.

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