Page 122 of Haze

She shakes her head, denying my touch and dissuading me from bringing her toward me.

“I didn’t understand,” I admit.

I was an idiot. Looking past what she told me hurts, but I was dumb to the intent behind her words. “I didn’t understand when you said that you saw them.”

“See them,” Lena corrects me. “I don’t just see them once, Finn. I see them regularly. All the time. I’ll wake up in the dead of night like this. I’ll see things you’ve done. Things you might not even remember doing, but I will. It’ll be with me each day after that because I saw it. I saw how happy that makes you.”

“I can’t undo the past, Kathleen.” I don’t know what to say. That’s already a dumb answer. “I can’t make my past with them go away.”

My statements aren’t granting me any favors. Lena makes herself smaller, wrapping her arms around her legs as she balls herself up in the sitting position away from me.

Why is she so hard to reach? I slide out of bed and walk around to be in front of her.

If our mate can truly think we would even look at one of them again, she’s unwell. Even my wolf is at odds trying to understand what we didn’t get the first time she said these things and what we’re still missing now.

“Aoife, Siobahn, Roisin, and Orla are my past submissives. You know that from your gift. I can’t take my past back, Kathleen,” I remind her as gently as I can.

I try to tilt her head to meet my eyes, but I can’t pull Lena from the ball she made of herself.

Trying to reach her on her level, I keep speaking, “They will always be behind me, Kathleen. But I promise, I mean it, you’re my now, my future, my forever. I don’t know how to help you with seeing them or not seeing them. All I can do is assure you that I’m not moving backward. I am not looking behind me because everything I have and need is before me.”

Lena shuffles on the bed and raises her beautiful tear-filled hazel eyes to meet mine. I watch in the low light of the bedroom as the greens play with the browns for a moment. The gold glint of her wolf rises to meet mine.

“It isn’t just scenes, Finn. It isn’t just a glint or a passing instant. It’s not that I’m just getting names and dates.” Lena’s voice isn’t her own. It’s hoarse and hesitant.

I want to interrupt her and tell her what she sees doesn’t matter to me because none of it has any bearing on us and our bond. Nothing she sees will ever accurately reflect the way I feel about her. But this time, when she speaks, I have to listen. I can’t miss another instance of her telling me something and not hearing it. ‘I’m a submissive’ and ‘I see your exes’ shouldn’t have been passing statements.

“You’re all I want. You’re all I need, Kathleen. It doesn’t matter what I’ve had before. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done before because there’s no one else I would rather spend forever with. There’s no other submissive I would rather play with. There’s no other woman I would rather sleep with. Even if you are looking back at the time we’ve spent together, even if you happen to look at us together on Monday. It won’t be accurate, Kathleen. Because yesterday is no longer an accurate reflection of how I feel for you today.”

“That’s fine, Finn. It is. But it doesn’t change how this is for me. It doesn’t change the reality I live with.” Lena tries to spell it out.

But I have a feeling it’s difficult for her to explain something that comes so naturally to her, like a duck to water.

She tries more words. “I wake up in the middle of the night to visions of you touching, kissing, fucking them. Even if I wanted to believe at the end of all this that I’ll get to keep you...”

I try to cut in, and she puts her finger to her lip, indicating for me to be silent.

She’s right. I need to listen. When did I get so bad at listening?

“How can I submit to you knowing that Orla sat at your feet begging to be collared? The way she asked for you to possess her in every way. It echoes in my brain. Then the way you wrapped your fingers into her hair and nearly suffocated her with your cock down her throat.”

Tears no longer well in Lena’s eyes. They run freely down her face.

For the second time in only so many hours, my beautiful mate is falling apart.

I only remember that scene with Orla in part. I trust Lena’s account of it. My stomach sinks deeper. Chills run down my spine as I try to come up with anything to assure her that what she sees is only part of the story. They’re only part of the dynamic with her. I try to draw a breath to give her words. But air doesn’t get into my lungs, and I’m left speechless from a physical reaction I can’t control.

Lena looks away from me, heartbreak and devastation written all over her gorgeous face.

Dropping my head to my chest, I focus on anything I can to try and breathe. Slowly air seeps in, and I can give her the only defense I’ve ever held onto. In the twenty years I’ve been lifestyle, I’ve always held out hope for this moment.

“I’ve never offered any of them a collar, Kathleen,” I explain. “It doesn’t make it better knowing what you can see. Because how could you know? But with every submissive, I’ve refused to take that next step with them. I’ve refused to ever own someone the way I wish to possess you. The mark of my fangs on your shoulder isn’t the only part of me I’ve saved for you. I’ve held out hope for all these years, twenty of them, in hopes that God would give me the opportunity to place a collar around my mate’s neck... around your neck. That I could earn the privilege of your trust. I have only ever wanted to offer all the permanent things in my world to the one who is divinely mine. I wanted to present you, only you, with the collar of our people and the collar of our lifestyle. It isn’t a command. It isn’t something I can pressure you into because it wouldn’t be true to who we are.”

Like one of the delicate flowers tattooed across her ribs, Lena unfolds from the tight little ball. Tension slowly escapes her as each limb unfurls. I wait and watch as she slowly comes to me.

When she moves into my lap, I say my final piece on the subject. “I’m sorry that you have to live with seeing them. If I can help you not see them, I will. Anything I can do to protect you, I will do it.”

Lena wraps her arms around my neck and buries her nose at my throat. She draws a slow inhale, taking in my scent.

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