Page 72 of Hunted
So, I wandered.The halls were quiet.The air hummed with residual tension, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Cheese Crackers met me near the elevator, his tiny paws reaching up to delicately touch my leg.He squeaked at me once—sharp, insistent—and I knelt down.
“I know,” I whispered, stroking a finger down his back.“She’s worse again tonight, isn’t she?”
He let out a little huff, like an exasperated sigh.“Your dragon needs you.I’m not enough this time.”He squeaked again, then tapped the metal of the elevator door.I deliberated, biting my lip hard enough to bruise.
Robin hadn’t spoken more than a few clipped words to me since the night I accepted the true mate bond with Sadavir.I didn’t think she was mad at me—not really.I assumed she just needed time and space to adjust, to let her alpha instincts settle.I had tried my best to give her that time and space.But I couldn’t do this anymore.
I couldn’t stay away.
Closing my eyes, I let my aura unfurl around me, opening, reaching out, searching for the fiery aura of myothertrue mate.The one who feared our bond.Sighing softly when I sensed her, I followed the pull toward the alpha dragon.
I found her on the roof of The Fox.The access hatch was open, and I popped my head up, taking a bracing breath of fresh air before I carefully finished climbing the old metal ladder and perched on the roof with my back to the solid bricks of one of the chimneys.The space was lit only by the dim light of the waxing moon and the faint amber flicker of the city in the distance, blurs of light against the landscape of grays and blacks that filled my vision.
I could sense Robin nearby, and a scuff of sound told me she had stepped closer, probably as afraid as I was about the blind woman being up on the roof.The faint whiff of smoke that reached me was just proof of her worry and strain, despite her stoic silence.
“I thought you’d still be with Cicely,” she finally said.
“I needed some air.”I shuffled myself a little closer to her on my bottom, not feeling confident enough to stand up.One misstep and I’d be a stain on the sidewalk below.“And you.”
Silence.
“I’m not here to talk about the mission,” I added gently.“I know from the others that you did what you set out to do, and that you brought back the stupid bauble she asked you for.”Theproofthis time was a pendant laced with traces of the now-dead fae’s personal magic.Acacia’s sick collection of trophies was disgusting.“And I know what it costs you to deal with Acacia.”That was the more important part.
Robin didn’t reply immediately.But something in the air shifted.Then she spoke in that deceptively soft voice thatsoundedpleasant, but hid teeth and claws.“If you’re not here to talk about the mission, then what are you here for?Your new mate hasn’t done something to upset you, has he?If he’s mistreated you, I will rend him in two and devour his entrails.”
“What?No.Sadavir...”I had been about to leap to his defense and tell her how wonderful and attentive my mate was, but maybe that wasn’t the best response, considering who I was speaking to.“I’m not here to talk about Sadavir,” I said, waving that away.
I took a deep breath and soldiered on with things she probably wanted to hear evenlessthan my gushing over Sadavir.“I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone.That you don’t have to do this with your armor strapped on so tight it suffocates you.”
She finally crouched down, her knee bumping into mine.
Goddess, she was tired.I could feel it in her aura, my healing powers automatically reaching for her.I didn’t have much left after healing Cicely, but I recovered quickly.And healing her minor depletion was far less taxing than knitting someone’s body back together and helping them make more blood.
The air between us fairly crackled with tension, with the weight of everything Robin was holding back, everything she’d never let herself feel.I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.
“Don’t,” she said softly.“Don’t offer me comfort.I can’t afford it.”
“You’re wrong,” I said.“You can’t affordnotto let me comfort you.It’s literally what I wasmadefor, Robin, remember?”
She let out a low growl, and I thought maybe she wanted to scream—or fall into my arms, the way I wanted to fall into hers.But instead, she move back, removing the small point of contact between us.
“I told you before,” she said.“If I bond you—if I make you mine—I won’t survive losing you when you realize it was a mistake.And I can’t afford the distraction.”
“Robin, you’re already losing me,” I said earnestly.“Piece by piece as you withdraw into yourself.”
That landed.I felt it in the way her magic seemed to flare for an instant before she was able to stifle her response.
“I love you, Robin,” I said.“I always have.And I will stand beside you, no matter how this ends.But you have to stop pretending you don’t want me by your side.”
“Idowant you,” she hissed, voice cracking.“But I won’triskyou.”
“I’m not breakable,” I insisted firmly.Robin had always had faith in my strength and resiliency, more than anyone else I knew.She had seen strength in me when no one else had—not even myself.Why was she suddenly doubting me now?
“Iam breakable,” she whispered.
I understood then.It wasn’t me she was worried about, at least, not my strength or my ability to cope with a bond to her.It wasn’t even her silly fears about free will, or her own goals, or any of the other nonsense she tossed out as reasons.
