Page 25 of Prodigy & Tybalt
I would have got up and confronted him about it—or maybe just kissed him until neither of us could breathe—but a familiar scent hit my senses and I flinched so hard my head whackedinto the chair back. That dull ache wasnothingcompared to the excruciating agony that devastated my chest.
It was like a web of cracks in a pane of glass; the pain hit my soul with whip after whip of pain, so vicious that I gasped, my eyes burning, watering, dripping tears.
My hands shook on the book as I numbly slid my new bookmark into the pages and closed it, getting to my feet. My legs shook, the acid burn of rejection flaring into a tsunami, an eruption of lava.
Sweetie’s throat was marked. A bite scarred the rich gold of his throat, violent in its freshness. It was days old at most. ChaCha’s neck had a matching bite, their claim on each other defiant and clear. The network of fractures inside me shattered, the shards of my soul cutting and sharp. I needed to get out of here. I couldn’t stay a single second longer. I couldn’tbreathe.
“Right, we’re off for the weekend,” Sweetie said to Guardian and two other high-ranking bikers I’d heard people call officers. He hadn’t noticed me here, as if I mattered about as much as a speck of dust. My entire being was bleeding, straining towards the broken shreds of a bond he’d killed, and hedidn’t even know I was here.“Call me if any shit goes down and you need—”
“A chef?” Guardian interrupted, teasing.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sweetie grumbled, but his whole expression softened when ChaCha laughed. She was tucked into his side, the two of them a united front, a happy couple. And it hurt, even as I snarled at myself that Sweetie was none of my business, that ChaCha must have been a great person if she had so many friends who spoke so highly of her. Unfortunately, the other voice in my head sneeredSaint Fucking ChaCharight back at the other voice. No wonder he loved her; she had a god-awful name to match his.
I waited until they’d crossed half the room, clearing the path to the door, and then I made a run for it. His scent waseverywhere, and hers too, a sweet, fruity scent that filled my lungs like liquid until I drowned. I cut off my air and rushed out the door, stumbling down the hallway like a drunk, my chest ripping itself apart.
“Miraya.” Tybalt’s voice hit me like a life raft, pulling me out of the depths I drowned in, but the pain went nowhere. It dug into my insides, gouged trails that welled nothing but torment.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” I snapped, the pain seeking an outlet and falling from my sharp tongue.
“Not happening, warrior,” he replied, far too calmly.
Fine, if he wanted to follow me that was his questionable choice. But I couldn’t do this alone. Endure this pain, accept that my mate was never going to want me, murder that last tiny shred of hope that had refused to give up until this very minute.
Stupid. So stupid, that hope. IknewSweetie didn’t want me, and yet. I guessed deep down, I’d been waiting for them to break up. Butfuckthat. I was no one’s second choice, no one’s rock bottom offerings. I was the star fucking prize, the greatest woman anyone would ever have the hope to be mated to.
At least that’s what I yelled at myself inside my head as I fled across the clubhouse, aiming for the double doors that led out into the garden. I threw myself through them and gasped down clear, biting air, so cold that it stung as I forced it into my lungs. Purging the mingled scent of leather, vanilla, and sweet peaches. Her scent, all over him. A message, loud and clear. Not his scent on hers; ChaCha’s scent onhim,like he’d drowned himself in it, like garlic to vampires, iron to fae.
A fine haze of raindrops clung to the air, and I tipped my face up into them, letting the water soak my hair, my clothes, my skin. Cleansing me of the sight and scent and sound of my mate. No, he wasn’t my anything. He was just Sweetie. Just some guy in a biker club.
“Your book’s getting damp, warrior,” Tybalt said, spinning me to face him and locking his arms around me, the book clutched between us. As if the paper warping mattered.
But it did, I realised, when my omega turnedfrantic.My whole body shook, teeth chattering together. The book was a gift from Prodigy, from my alpha, and the thought of ruining it made me want to cry. No, Iwascrying. Gasping, heaving sobs that only grew in frequency, tumbling together until I struggled for air between broken, howling wails.
“I ruined it,” I wept, an omega whine making my voice pitiful. “It was a gift and I-I ruined it.”
“You didn’t ruin it,” Tybalt disagreed in a firm tone. “It’s only paper; it’ll dry out.”
I shook my head, my fingertips biting into the cover, tears falling down my cheeks. I wasn’t rational right now, wasn’t anywhere in therealmof rational. My hormones had full control, the rest of me slaughtered by the never-ending pain.
“But it was agift.”
“It’s just a—oh.” Tybalt pulled up the hood of the leather jacket I hadn’t taken off all day and tucked me closer, my head on his shoulder and his scent of woodsmoke and fire dominating my senses with every broken gasp and jagged breath. “A courting gift.”
A whine slipped free, followed by a messy tumble of sobs.
“Is that why you’re still wearing this?” He pinched the shoulder of the jacket and I—growled? “I’m not going to take it from you,” he said in that even voice. It was the antithesis to the chaos of hurt inside me. “It’s not my size, anyway. It’d look like a fucking crop top on me.”
I was too far gone to laugh, but it did get a smile out of me as I shifted my head closer to his neck, dragging in breaths of his scent like it was medicine that could cure the sickness in my soul.
“Fucking Prodigy,” Tyb muttered, his hands sliding under the jacket to stroke my back. “He’s got you all this shit and I haven’t got you a courting gift.”
“My phone,” I disagreed, the frequency of sobs slowing, my breathing back under my control.
“That was yours to begin with.”
“My shirt.”
“Your—I didn’t give you a shirt, warrior.”
