Chapter 19 Olivia
NINETEEN
Olivia
Ifumed in silence as Gael and I walked back to the guest residences. Every line of Lucien’s body had been screaming that he knew it was dangerous, knew it was risky, but still, he was stubbornly determined to throw himself into certain danger.
And then, he’d sent me away, packed me off like so much luggage he didn’t need. He may as well have shoved me in the attic and slammed the trapdoor shut.
The message was clear. Buzz off.
“They’re all in our room, and they want to see you.” Gael led me to a door farther down the row and opened it politely.
It was all polite avoidance with him, as if he were embarrassed for me. For us. We just kept screwing this relationship up any time we had a tiny bit of progress, and it was humiliating.
But as I walked into the room full of concerned women, all I could feel was fury. That and worry at his stubborn pride, his unwillingness to even consider a different path.
“Are you okay?” Fiona asked, wrapping me in a quick hug before pulling back to study me.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Do you want to talk about it? Eat ice cream? Scream at the heavens?” she offered, and all I had was a pathetic shrug for a response.
“BD, Reedsy dear, I think you two might want to wait outside for this conversation. We need a testosterone-free zone for a little while.” Leigh made shooing gestures at the men, who rolled their eyes but knew better than to argue with a pregnant she-wolf.
When the door clicked behind them, Galyna pressed a pint of ice cream and a spoon into my hand, not even bothering with a bowl.
She had her own in hand, so clearly, this was a group sugar-up-and-vent session.
I followed her to the area in front of the window, where the other women had all settled into a circle, some on the bed, some on the floor, Leigh in the chair.
I took a bite before saying anything else, letting the sweet, creamy bite melt and giving myself a moment to gather my thoughts.
“You asked me before what I want, Fiona, but what I want is for him to stop being stupid and realize that he shouldn’t do this. But apparently that’s not an option.” I stabbed my ice cream with the spoon, definitely not imagining a giant, assholishly gleeful centaur’s face as I did so.
“Oli, you know I love you, right? We all do. But I have to say something, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.” Elodie looked nervous, and that made me nervous right along with her.
My throat tightened, and I was suddenly at a loss for words. I nodded stiffly for her to spit it out.
“I don’t think you were right to ask him not to take the challenge.
I don’t blame you for being worried or upset, but if they’d challenged me, I wouldn’t have backed down either.
I’m a fighter. It’s in my blood. My identity.
And an alpha male? They’re no different.
It’s in their nature to protect. Backing down from a challenge like that…
I don’t think any of those males would have been capable of it. ”
“So, I’m supposed to just watch him go off and do something reckless when he’s still having attacks?”
“I’m not saying that. You can express your feelings, you can tell him you’re scared or worried or don’t want him to be hurt, but…”
“But what?”
“Do you want him to go into the challenge thinking you don’t believe in him?”
The question burned like fire, because damn it, she was right. That was not what I’d meant at all, but I could still see the hurt way he looked at me, and then how he pushed me away from him as soon as the attack had passed.
I’d actually told him he couldn’t do it. Regret climbed up my throat with wicked claws, making me feel instantly ill now that I was removed from the situation and looking at it with a clearer head. After everything he’d told me about how he felt like he wasn’t good enough for me.
“Shit.”
“Don’t sweat it. We all make mistakes. You’ve just gotta own it and do your best to make it right.” Leigh gave me a thumbs-up. “Also, it gets a lot easier when you can make it up to him with lingerie, just saying.”
I imagined laying myself out on the bed in nothing but lingerie, and immediately, my cheeks heated. I wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Lingerie isn’t a Band-Aid. Ignore her,” Brielle said, shooting a scolding look Leigh’s way.
“But I can see both sides of it. Your mate bond is so new, everything is heightened right now, and that includes your fears for him. Those won’t go away, but they do get to be…
” She waved her hands back and forth in the air, as if she couldn’t think of the word.
“Tolerable? I think the mental bond helps settle you a lot, because if you feel afraid for him, he gets that emotion through the bond, and it makes it a lot easier to know why you don’t want him to do something.
And also, that protective instinct kicks in when he feels your fear.
Kane comes running like I’m a beacon when I feel afraid about something. It’s really nice.”
A pang of longing hit me with the force of a prize fighter. Everything she’d described about her mate bond sounded so comforting, and I wanted that more than anything.
If I pushed Lucien away by accident, I wasn’t going to get there. But how could I make it right when he didn’t want to see me?
“Should I go try to talk to him again?” I asked, trusting their greater relationship experience.
Leigh was the one to answer. “Before the challenge, yes, but right now, maybe not. Sometimes a cooldown for both of you is a good thing.” She shrugged. “Gael and I fought like crazy people before we bonded, but we had shit to work through.”
Brielle smiled at me encouragingly. “All of us have struggles to work through. Shay’s not here, but I’m pretty sure she’d chime in right about now and mention that she had to deal with a feral mate at first. This isn’t insurmountable.”
“Thank you for that. I know it’s fear… I just wish there was something I could do about the pain he keeps feeling from his scar.
I’m terrified he’s going to be in a dangerous situation tonight when one of those attacks hits, and he’ll get hurt.
Or killed.” I buried my face in my hands, even the thought of Lucien dying in a few short hours enough to crush me.
That was the real problem. I was so fucking scared, I couldn’t breathe, and instead of communicating that honestly, I lashed out, and he pushed me away.
I didn’t realize it was possible for two people to be so bad at a relationship, but it felt like the two of us were setting some kind of record.
I did not want a gold medal for bad relationships. No way.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything you can do?” Leigh asked, snapping me out of my pity party with her speculative look.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Brielle’s omega magic isn’t working, but that pain is coming from somewhere.
You’ve got your special herbalist talents.
Maybe there’s something herbal you could make to help numb the area, something to keep him from having an attack at least during the challenge.
And you’re his mate. Your touch helped him recover both times.
If you make it, maybe you can imbue a little bit of that mate’s protection into it, somehow? ”
I had no idea if a plant like that existed, let alone if it was on this itty-bitty island. But if there was any chance I could help, make a difference in the outcome, I had to try. And hopefully, he would see the apology in it and know that I wanted to support him. Even though I didn’t know how.
I was just so fucking scared to lose him.
“It can’t hurt to try, right?”
“Hell yeah, there’s my girl,” Fiona said, squeezing my shoulders and almost making me drop the half-melted ice cream.
Okay, so, the island wasn’t as itty-bitty as it looked when we were pulling up in the boats. That was an illusion.
No, the island was miles of walking under the hot sun, looking for…
I wasn’t sure what. But I knew that when I got close enough, my weird plant thing would trigger, and I’d probably wake up with it clutched in my fist. Elodie was trailing me without complaint.
She’d gotten the thumbs-up from Kane to go walking with me and seemed to be enjoying herself, while still giving me space to do my thing.
Galyna had stayed back with the other women, and I was glad.
The walk was helping me think. But also, the other women hadn’t all seen me do my weird zone-out thing, and I wanted to keep it that way.
It was useful but embarrassing. No one knew why it happened or how it worked.
My old pack had looked down on it as if there was something wrong with me.
Hell, maybe there was. I didn’t know.
But right now, I needed it if I had any hope of helping Lucien stay safer during his challenge tonight. And I desperately wanted to give him something, something tangible, more than just an apology that was too little, too late.
Dealing with an alpha was different. I never expected to be mated to one, but that seemed to be the trajectory for all omega-marked females. Maybe it was part of what ensured I’d have an omega baby?
Food for thought.
I swiped a bead of sweat off my forehead before it could roll down into my eyes and sting, grateful as we stepped into a shady patch of low, shrubby trees with scattered greenery beneath them.
They were in rough rows, as if they had been planted intentionally, but there didn’t seem to be any close tending of the ground underneath.
If I was going to find a useful plant, this was the most promising area I’d seen so far on the island.
Scanning the ground intently, I let myself get lost in the plants. Simple grasses were mixed in with various weeds; all useful in one way or another, though most people were happy to dismiss them. I was crouching down, inspecting a small flower more closely, when Elodie hissed.
“Someone’s coming. I hear hoofbeats.” She appeared at my side like a specter, hand on her sword hilt, though she hadn’t unsheathed it yet.