Chapter 12 - Skylar
I wake up alone in a bed that smells like sex and regret.
For a long moment, I just lie there staring at the ceiling and taking in the evidence of last night. The sheets are tangled around my legs. My muscles ache in places I forgot could ache. There’s a tenderness between my thighs that makes me want to simultaneously moan and scream.
I slept with Bryan.
I let him take me against the wall and carry me to this bed and worship every inch of my body. I let him sink inside me and complete the mate bond that I swore I would never fully accept. And I liked it. God help me, I more than liked it.
The memory of his mouth on me, his hands gripping my hips, his voice growling mine against my throat… It all comes flooding back in vivid detail. My body responds to the recollection with a pulse of heat that settles low in my belly, and I want to bury my face in the pillow and never come out.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had walls. I had boundaries. I had ten years of carefully constructed defenses designed specifically to keep Bryan Dinac on the other side.
And I let him tear through all of it in a single night.
I rub the heels of my hands against my eyes and try to breathe through the shame coiling in my stomach. It was building all week, if I’m being honest with myself. Every moment we spent in this cabin together was another crack in my armor, another fissure in the walls I thought were impenetrable.
Last night, those walls came crashing down.
And the worst part is, I can’t even blame him for it. He gave me every opportunity to say no. He stood there with his fists clenched at his sides and begged me to stop him. I’m the one who told him to keep going. I’m the one who pulled him closer instead of pushing him away.
This is a man who broke me. He left without explanation, never looked back, and let me spend ten years wondering what I did wrong, what I could have done differently, and why I wasn’t enough to make him stay.
And I spread my legs for him anyway.
I drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the mirror as I turn on the shower.
The hot water helps a little as it washes away the physical evidence of last night, even if it can’t touch the emotional wreckage.
I scrub my skin until it’s pink and tingling, but I can still feel his fingerprints on my hips and the phantom press of his mouth against my throat.
The mate bond rests contentedly in my chest, satisfied. I want to claw it out.
Bryan is nowhere in sight when I finally emerge from the bedroom.
The couch cushions are rumpled like he slept there after I fell asleep, which shouldn’t make me feel guilty but somehow does.
His boots are gone from beside the door, and the coffee pot is still warm, which means he left recently.
He didn’t wake me before going. The cabin is quiet except for the ticking of the old clock on the mantle.
Good. I don’t want to see him right now. I don’t want to have whatever awkward morning-after conversation is waiting for us or look into those gray eyes and see triumph or tenderness or anything else that might make this situation worse than it already is.
I grab my bag and leave for work without eating breakfast.
The walk to the medical center takes fifteen minutes, and I spend every one of them trying to shove last night into a box in the back of my mind.
It doesn’t work. Every step reminds me of the soreness in my muscles, and every breath brings a ghost of his scent.
The mate bond keeps reaching toward him, content and purring like a cat that finally got the cream.
I hate it. I hate how good it feels to be connected to him like this, and I hate that my body already wants more.
The medical center is blissfully busy when I arrive.
Two patrol wolves came in overnight with minor injuries from a training exercise, and Fern is already elbow-deep in paperwork when I push through the front door.
She looks up and opens her mouth to say something, but I shake my head and make a beeline for my office.
Work. I need to work. I need to lose myself in patient files and treatment plans and the familiar rhythm of healing other people’s problems so I don’t have to think about my own.
The morning passes in a haze of appointments and consultations.
I check on Davis, who’s recovering well from his injuries and already complaining about being stuck in bed.
He tries to charm me into letting him leave early, and I shut him down with a look that makes him sink back against his pillows with a dramatic sigh.
I review lab results for an elderly wolf with a persistent cough and adjust his medication accordingly. I counsel a young mother whose toddler has been having trouble with early shifting symptoms, walking her through the exercises that will help her daughter learn control.
Every patient, every problem, every moment of being needed… It reminds me that I have value here. I’m more than just Bryan Dinac’s unwilling mate. I built something real and important in the years he was gone, and one night of weakness doesn’t erase any of it.
But between appointments, in those quiet moments when no one needs me, my mind keeps drifting back to the cabin. Back to the wall and the bed and the sounds I made and the things he said. Back to the way he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
I’m refilling my coffee mug in the break room when Ruby appears in the doorway.
She’s carrying two cups from the tea shop down the street, and she holds one out to me with a knowing look that makes my stomach drop. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly what every woman wants to hear.” I take the cup anyway and wrap my fingers around its warmth. The familiar scent of chamomile and honey drifts up, and some of the knots in my shoulders loosen despite myself.
“I mean it in the most loving way possible. Want to tell me what’s going on, or should I guess?”
“Nothing is going on. I’m fine. Just tired. Didn’t sleep well.”
Ruby raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t sleep well, or didn’t sleep alone?”
My cheeks burn, and that’s answer enough.
“Ah.” Ruby takes a sip of her tea and looks annoyingly unsurprised. “So you and Bryan finally stopped dancing around each other.”
“We weren’t dancing around anything. We were actively avoiding each other.”
“And yet here you are, looking like someone who spent last night doing very un-avoidant things with a certain dark-haired wolf.”
I groan and sink into one of the break room chairs, cradling my tea. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was walking out of the bathroom, and the next minute I was—” I cut myself off, not sure I can actually say the words out loud.
“Having spectacular makeup sex with your estranged mate?”
“It wasn’t make-up sex. We haven’t made up, and we haven’t resolved anything.” I stare into my cup and wish it contained answers instead of tea. “I just couldn’t resist him. I’ve been trying for weeks, and last night I just couldn’t.”
Ruby is quiet for a moment. When I look up, she’s watching me with understanding.
“You know, James and I didn’t exactly have a smooth start either.”
I snort. “That’s an understatement.”
“I hated him. Genuinely, truly hated him. Not just because of the forced bond, but because of everything that came before. The way he let the pack treat me when we were younger, and the things I thought I heard him say about me.” She pauses and swirls her tea absently.
“I was so convinced that he saw me the same way everyone else did. That I was nothing but the pack’s resident outcast, tolerated but never truly wanted. ”
“What changed?”
“I found out the truth about what he actually said and why he acted the way he did. Turns out there was a massive misunderstanding at the root of everything.” She lets out a short laugh.
“I heard him talking about something being enormous and fat, and I assumed he was talking about me. He was talking about my cat.”
“Your cat?”
“The big orange one that lives at the bookshop. He was complaining about how the thing kept getting underfoot during his visits.” Ruby shakes her head at the memory.
“I spent months hating him for something he never even said. All because I was so sure I knew what he thought of me that I never stopped to actually ask.”
I turn that over in my mind. Ruby and James seem so solid now, so perfectly matched. It’s hard to imagine them at each other’s throats the way Bryan and I have been.
“It didn’t fix everything overnight,” Ruby continues, “but it gave me something I didn’t have before.
Context. A way to understand his actions that didn’t involve assuming the worst.” She sets her cup down and leans forward.
“Secrets have a way of rotting relationships from the inside, Skylar. Even relationships that seem beyond repair.”
I think about all the things Bryan hasn’t told me. Why he really left. What he did during those ten years. Why he came back now, after all this time.
“He won’t talk to me about it. Every time I ask about the past, he shuts down and says it was necessary. That’s all I ever get.”
“Have you tried asking after last night?”
“We haven’t exactly had a conversation since last night. He was gone before I woke up.”
“Skylar, I know he hurt you, and I know the last thing you want to do is make yourself vulnerable to someone who already broke your heart once. But if you’re going to be stuck in this bond with him—and you are, whether you like it or not—you need to understand why he did what he did.
Otherwise, you’re just going to keep running in circles, sleeping together and then avoiding each other, until one of you breaks for good. ”
“What if I don’t like the answer? What if the reason he left is exactly what I’ve always been afraid of—that I just wasn’t enough?”
“Then at least you’ll know, and you can decide what to do with that knowledge instead of torturing yourself with possibilities.” Ruby reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, and you can handle the truth, whatever it is. You deserve to know it.”
I want to believe her. I want to believe that knowing would be better than this constant state of uncertainty, this endless loop of anger and desire and confusion that’s been spinning in my head since Bryan walked back into Silvercreek.
But the thought of asking him again, of making myself vulnerable to more rejection, makes my stomach clench.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell Ruby, which isn’t a yes but isn’t a no either.
She seems to accept that and gathers up her cup before pushing to her feet. “That’s all I ask. Just don’t let the silence eat you alive, okay? You deserve answers, even if they’re not the ones you want to hear.”
After she leaves, I sit in the break room for a long time, staring at the wall. The tea goes cold in my hands.
The rest of the day crawls by. I go through the motions of my job, but my thoughts keep circling back to Bryan. To the weight of everything unspoken between us. To the question I’ve been afraid to ask because I’m not sure I can survive the answer.
By the time my shift ends, the sun has already dipped below the tree line.
I take the long way back to the cabin and let the cool evening air clear my head.
The forest is quiet around me, settled into that peaceful hush that comes with twilight.
Somewhere in the distance, an owl calls out to its mate.
The cabin comes into view through the trees, and I slow my steps when I spot Bryan.
He’s sitting on the porch with his back against one of the support posts, and his legs stretched out in front of him.
His attention is fixed on the dark forest beyond the clearing, and something about his posture makes my stomach flip.
He looks like a man waiting for something to emerge from the shadows.
Like a soldier who never quite learned how to stop watching for threats, even when he’s supposed to be home.
I stand at the edge of the tree line, hidden by the gathering darkness, and watch him.
He spent ten years doing God knows what, and now he sits on our porch like he’s expecting the past to come crashing through the trees at any moment. What did those years do to him? What did he see, what did he survive, that left him so unable to let his guard down even here?
The mate bond tugs at me and urges me forward. It begs me to sit beside him and finally ask the questions that have been burning in my throat since the night he came back.
But my feet stay rooted to the ground.