Page 60 of Collar Me Crazy
"If what we have destroys everyone else, then yes." He shouldered the bag, finally meeting her eyes. The pain there nearly drove him to his knees, but he forced himself to remain standing. "I won't be responsible for your death, Sonya. I won't watch the Void use our bond to tear apart everything we care about."
"The Void is using your fear right now." He could see the tears beginning to gather. "It's manipulating your worst instincts, making you believe that isolation equals safety."
"Maybe it does."
"And maybe you're a coward who would rather run than fight for what he wants."
The words hung between them like a chasm. Ryker felt their partial bond straining, stretching thin as his decision to leavewarred against every instinct that told him she was his mate, his other half, his reason for existing.
"Better a living coward than a dead hero," he said quietly.
"What about a living mate? What about the man who told me he loved me last night?"
"That man was deluding himself." He moved toward the door, each step feeling like walking through quicksand. "And deluding you too."
"Ryker, please." For the first time, her voice broke. "Don't do this. Don't let fear win."
He paused at the threshold, his hand on the doorknob. Behind him, he could feel her pain like a physical wound, their connection screaming in protest at what he was about to do.
"Take care of yourself, Sonya. Find someone who won't get you killed."
He opened the door and stepped into the pre-dawn cold, leaving behind the woman he loved and the future he'd briefly allowed himself to imagine. With each step away from the cabin, their bond stretched thinner, more fragile, until he felt something inside him tear with audible finality.
The partial connection they'd built over weeks of growing trust and intimacy snapped like an overstretched rope, leaving him hollow and aching in ways that had nothing to do with physical pain.
Behind him, he heard Sonya's cry of anguish as she felt the bond breaking too. The sound nearly sent him running back to her, but the visions were still too fresh, too real. Her death, the town's destruction, the collapse of both realms—all because he'd been selfish enough to believe in happy endings.
By the time he reached his truck, tears were streaming down his face. But he kept walking, kept moving away from everything that mattered, because sometimes love meant letting go.
Even when letting go felt like dying.
35
SONYA
The pain of the breaking bond felt like someone had reached into her chest and torn out half her heart. Sonya sat on Ryker's bed, clutching his shirt to her chest while tears streamed down her face. The cabin still smelled like him, like them together, but the warmth of their connection had been replaced by a hollow ache that made breathing difficult.
But grief was a luxury she couldn't afford. Not when the fate of both realms hung in the balance.
She forced herself to stand, to dress, to think beyond the agony of abandonment. Her visions had never been wrong before, and they all pointed to the same truth—Ryker was the key to saving everyone. Which meant she had to find him and drag his stubborn, terrified ass back to Hollow Oak before the Void destroyed everything.
The tracking spell was simple enough, using a hair from his pillow and the lingering traces of their bond. Even broken, the connection between them hummed with residual energy that led north into the mountains.
By the time she reached her car, dawn had still not arrived. Thanksgiving morning, the day that would either save bothrealms or watch them fall to ancient hunger. And her mate—the man she loved—was running away from destiny like a scared child.
"Not on my watch," she muttered, following the spell's guidance onto mountain roads that grew progressively narrower and more treacherous.
She found his truck twenty minutes later, the first pink of dawn was beginning to show. She found it abandoned at a trailhead that led deeper into the wilderness. The tracking spell pulled her up a steep path between towering pines, her breath misting in the cold mountain air as she climbed toward whatever refuge he thought he could find.
He was sitting on a fallen log beside a frozen stream, his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking with grief that matched her own. The sight of him—broken and alone and convinced he was protecting everyone—made fresh tears burn her eyes.
"Running away again?" she called, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice.
Ryker's head snapped up, his green eyes red with tears. "Sonya? How did you?—"
"Track you? I'm a seer, genius. Also your mate, whether you want to admit it or not." She approached carefully, noting how he tensed like he might bolt deeper into the woods. "That broken bond? It's not as severed as you think."
"You shouldn't be here. It's not safe."
