Page 109 of The Piece You Stole

A million questions buzz about in my gut about his mate:

Who is she?

Why would she and Leandro sleep together?

Is it possible to break the mate bond?

And most importantly, if the bond was gone, would it kill Rylan’s need to own me?

I quietly observe Dariel as he goes about making himself a coffee. He pours a long stream of rich, dark coffee from the cafetière, then adds a splash of cream. No sweetener or sugar. From what I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t seem like a man who would like a lot—or any—sweet.

As I work myself up to ask Dariel a question that’s close to exploding out of me, I feel Aden and Kade’s attention flicker from me to Dariel and back again.

“He changed the most after I ran away the first time,” I say, not sure why, out of anyone in this house, it’s him I’m telling this. I’d thought it would be Aden I would talk to, since he’s the one who feels more like a friend. “So maybe it made him crazy, even if it didn’t happen to you.”

But I still have my doubts about you not being crazy.

Dariel pauses for so long that I’ve lost all hope he’s going to answer when he does. “Rylan Treveiler isn’t crazy, and he was probably lying about you being mates.”

How does he know that? Have they met?

I lick my suddenly dry lips as I go back to fiddling with the hem of my t-shirt. “But he said we were mates, and he said…”It doesn’t matter what he said. He believes it, and if I get him to not believe it, maybe he will leave me alone.I clear my throat. “I can’t feel anything because I’m not a shifter, so is there a way to break it in case he wasn’t lying?”

And then I wait, holding my breath, conscious that Kade has started stroking my right hip with the tip of his index finger as if he can feel the tension gripping me and is doing what he can to ease it.

“It’s permanent.” Dariel’s voice is expressionless. “But as I said, Rylan was probably lying. You don’t treat—”

He halts.

You don’t treat your mate the way Rylan treated me? Is that what he was going to say? Or was he going to say something about his mate who slept with his brother?

I frown. His voice wasn’t completely expressionless.I remember the photograph back in Aden’s apartment of three grinning men with so much pain buried in their eyes that I couldn’t ignore it.

It feels like he’s hiding something.

“What happens when two mates don’t want to be together anymore?” I ask. “Surely, over time, the bond fades and then—”

Dariel straightens so suddenly that I flinch back. He stops moving, as if, even though he has his back to me, he felt—or saw—my response. “It never fades.”

He angles his head toward me, not quite meeting my eye, but looking at me all the same. Now Kade is the tense one of us. “You learn to ignore it.”

Is he talking about himself?

I come so close to asking him, but I swallow the words. “But what’s the point of it at all if you can just ignore it?”

He laughs, but it’s a short, hard sound. “I’ve asked myself the same question more times than you can imagine.”

Without another word, he picks up the mug from the counter, waves off Aden’s offer of breakfast, and crosses to the kitchen door.

He’s nearly reached it when I remember how much he wanted me gone. Kade and Aden wanted to help me, but Dariel always wanted me to leave. If he knew how dangerous Rylan was, there’s no way he would let me stay.

“He’s going to come after you,” I call after him.

Dariel halts and again angles his head toward me, giving me another brief flash of his emerald-green stare. “Let him come.”

Am I still in one long dream because none of this feels real?

“I thought you wanted me gone,” I remind him.

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