Chapter 16 #3
"It's a claiming mark," he says. "It tells every alpha who comes near you that you're spoken for."
"By you."
"By me."
His hand is still there. Mine has come up and closed around his wrist at some point, and I'm not pulling him off. I'm holding him there.
"You were in heat," he says, his brows pulling down. "You couldn't have told me no."
"I remember saying yes."
"I know." His eyes shut. "So do I." His forehead comes down until it's almost against mine. "I made you promise you'd tell me if you didn't want something. And then I never asked you."
The room is very quiet.
"There was a second where I knew," he says. "Right before I bit you. I knew exactly what I was doing to you and I did it anyway."
Why?"
"Because I wanted you to be mine and I didn't want to have to ask."
My legs go a little wobbly. I turn and lower onto the edge of Calder’s mattress with the paperback still clutched to my chest like it's going to do me any good. Like it might protect me from all this.
"Oh," I say.
Calder stays where he is.
"It's not finished," he says. "The bond."
I look up.
"A bite starts one. It doesn't finish one." He says it to the floor, flat, like he's telling me what's wrong with an engine. "Finishing takes both. You'd have to put your teeth in me too. Or we'd have to go through a whole cycle together."
"And if we don't?"
"Then it stays how it is."
"Which is what?"
"Half-done." He shrugs one shoulder. "That's what you're feeling. Something that started and can't get where it's going."
"How long does that last?"
"Don't know."
I shake my head. I think if it’s possible, I feel more uncertain and scared about all this after talking to him. "What do I do about it?"
"Don't know that either." His hand comes up and drags down his face. "I'd fix it if there was a way to. There isn't one. I've looked."
I look down at my hands.
I want to tell him it's alright. I want to tell him it isn't. I don’t know what to say.
I want to say that I came up here on purpose and put on his jacket because being in this room is the only time my chest stops hurting, and I want to say that I can't tell anymore which parts of me are mine or my stupid biology.
That’s what I need to understand.
What do I feel? What do I want?
"Can you sit down?" is all I say instead. The hooks in my sternum are an achey pull that takes my breath away.
He blinks.
"Not close," I add, fast. "Just—not standing over me. It's worse when you're standing over me."
He looks around his own room like he's never been in it before. Then he crosses to the chair by the window and lowers himself into it, elbows on his knees, and that puts about six feet of floor between us.
The half-bond goes quieter. Settled momentarily.
Outside it starts to rain.
"You can stay in here," he says, to the floor. "If it helps. I'll be somewhere else."
I think about telling him that isn't what I want.
I don't do that either.
"Just don't talk for a while," I say.
"Okay."
So he sits in his chair by the window and does what I ask. The raindrops tink against the window and with him here, it’s easier to think clearly.
I think… I think I know what I want.
Maybe I’ve known since the cellar, since the ravine, since he apologizes for snapping me in the kitchen.
I want him. Not the bond. Not the pull. Him.
I want him near me and I want him talking to me.
I want to take that hollowed-out look off his face and replace it with the one full of adoration that I saw the last time we were in this room.
But there’s a bite on my neck that I didn’t agree to and a thing in my chest that wants finishing, and every time I try to hold those two facts at once they slide out from under me. I think I want him, but how can I be sure?
And finishing the bond means teeth. Mine, in him. Permanent. Forever.
Forever is a long time.
And I can’t. Not yet. Not while I still can’t tell where the pull stops and I start.
"Calder."
"Yeah."
"I think I need some time." My voice comes out steadier than I expect. "Not—not away from you. I don’t want you gone. I just need to work out how I feel before I decide anything. A couple of days. Maybe more."
He’s quiet a second.
"Take whatever you need," he says. "A couple of days. A month. Doesn’t matter."
"You might not like what I decide."
"I know." He gets up. "Take it anyway."
He crosses the room and stops in front of me, and for a second I think he’s going to say something else. He doesn’t. He just puts two fingers under my chin and tips my face up, careful, the way you’d handle something that’s already been dropped once.
Then he leans down and kisses the top of my head.
My chest tightens up and my hands ache to touch him, grab him by the shirt and pull him on top of me to quiet all the rambling in my head.
"Stay as long as you want," he says. "Door doesn’t lock."
And then he’s gone. Leaving me to figure things out like I wanted.
I touch my chin where he did, the warmth of his fingers still there, and I fall back onto the mattress.
How do I even begin to sort all of this out?