Page 102 of Just One Bite
Without a word, she tugs me by my shirt toward my room.
“What part of what I said did you like?”
“We don’t have to talk. I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Oh … okay.”
When we’re inside, she drops her pants to the floor and pulls me into bed.
Her scent calms all my senses when she lays her head on my chest, so I close my eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so afraid of anything else. Her arms are tight around me, and she tangles her legs in mine. I’m losing her even while she is clinging to me.
I don’t realize I'm shaking at first. There’s so much moving through me. The bond is so intense. Fresh. Powerful. Unyielding. It’s all I can think about. Never letting her out of my sight and knowing she will have to be.
Her rejection.
The fear of being separated.
She may decide this is the last night we do this.
It makes me think about my mother. When she got sick, I laid my head next to her bedside and begged her to stay. I hide the tears in my eyes when I rest my head over hers.
Her fingers press into my skin, and she traces the scars on my chest, soothing me, and I squeeze her as the lump builds in my throat. Tonight, she’s holding me together.
Our heartbeats sync in rhythm as seconds tick by. Her existence is enough.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Olivia
“Please don’t leave me, baby,” Parker begs over and over. He’s sobbing, shaking me.
I’m so hot. My skin is burning.
I’m trying to stay.
Please, I don’t want to go.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Emma just finished giving me her fifth lecture on love for the day. According to her, I’m calloused, out of practice, and totally ruining my own life. We’re currently sitting in the Stelliea House garden while Eva does her afternoon duties of weeding and picking produce. I’m helping. Emma is not. I’ve felt sick to my stomach all morning as the reminiscence of my dream lingers.
There are no shapes. Barely words remain, but thefeelingof it stays in my gut like a heavy stone.
I’m sitting knees first in the dirt to stay off my tired feet. I snuck out early this morning to get my practice in before anyone else got into the studio.
I needed to clear my head. Just be Olivia, even while the entirety of Vviveren has imploded with the news. The first linked pair in more than a century. Emma showed me the feed on her phone that was flooded with pictures of me. They’re pictures of Parker and me arguing while that asshole cameraman hid out of sight. Then a few blurry ones of me putting my hand to the camera and Parkerpushing him. But clear as day, you can see the mark on my neck—an imprint of Parker’s teeth, dark like a tattoo. I’m still too afraid to look at the ones of me at the party. Some things are too embarrassing for me to swallow.
Octavia called me in a panic this morning to check on me, and then brought me a coffee. Which I barely drank while she rattled off a plethora of questions I couldn’t answer. It’s my fault for responding to all her calls with texts after the party.
“The mark is hot,” Emma says.
I spent nearly twenty minutes staring at it in the studio mirror.
I roll my eyes. Though, I’m thankful for their company.
Being Parker’s linked mate isn’t gaining me new friends; in fact, it’s the opposite. A group of Were girls growled at me on the front lawn this morning. Emma says it’s jealousy, but I know the true answer. They don’t think I’m good enough for Parker. They see me as Olivia Osborne, a difficult, stubborn girl they think parties too much and is stuck up. I know because I’d read at least twenty comments saying that exact thing. They hate my hair. My eyes. The way I breathe, probably. I even overheard a rumor about how I’d ensnared Parker into some fake scheme that involves me using his notoriety and a fake linked mate bond to get a spot in the IBCE.
That one worries me the most. What if someone from the IBCE actually believes that? Would I get kicked out of the Doxlothia company? Never be let into the IBCE? Octavia told me it would be fine, but I don’t know her well enough yet to know if she’s just trying to cheer me up.
