Chapter 49 Monroe #2
“I don’t know.” Her lips press into a thin line.
“But it’s concerning. While the connection has faded with time, it’s still always been there.
Then all of a sudden—nothing.” She swallows thickly.
I stay quiet, shocked she’s admitting Skylar’s her mate to us.
“I went to Fate, and she told me about sending my siblings earthside.”
Even when I didn’t want to feel Briar through the bond, tried to push it away, it still remained. It lingered beneath all the ways I tried distracting myself. I can’t imagine that tether being clipped off. Unless… “Could she have found a way to break the bond?”
“That’s impossible,” Corrigan says, venom bubbling through her tone, like I’ve somehow offended her.
“So is having the connection fizzle out,” I hiss. “But whatever the case, isn’t this what you wanted?”
Corrigan huffs. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My hackles rise. How dare she act so defensive and innocent.
If anyone’s to blame for Skylar being MIA, it’s her.
And right now, Briar and Dani are out cleaning up her mess.
If she’d treated her mate more kindly, no one would be missing and they’d all be here with us.
“You want me to feel sorry for you because you can’t feel Skylar through a bond you had no interest in? ”
Corrigan’s chair scrapes against the floor, and she stands, looming over me like a storm cloud.
“You think what you’re doing to my brother is any better?
” Her hot-pink eyes narrow to slits. “Playing house while he’s gone, having him help you plan a claiming ceremony you don’t even believe in.
You’re stringing him along,” she seethes.
“Unless you’ve actually decided to give the bond a chance? ”
I stand from the table and glare right back at her. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t willing to give it a chance.”
“Well, let’s chat in a few years and see how that goes for you.”
“I won’t make him wait that long.”
“I didn’t think I would either,” she snaps.
Corrigan holds so much beneath the surface, as if it’ll drown the emotions by keeping them there.
I hate that I recognize it so quickly in her.
Is this how I came off under the guise of control?
It’s humbling finding flaws in others only to realize they’re merely holding a mirror to the ones you hate in your own reflection.
“Can’t we sit down and talk this through? Hear each other out?” Cherri waves her arms between us, trying to diffuse the match that’s been lit.
She’s right. This isn’t going to find Skylar or get Briar and Dani back any faster. I slowly sit and Corrigan follows suit. After a minute, I finally break the silence. “I don’t understand why you turned her away.”
“That makes two of us.” Her words are harsh, but she clears her throat, softening her tone.
“You pushed my brother away for almost a year. He won’t say it because he doesn’t want to send you running again, but I’ll say it on his behalf.
You hurt him. Still are. And I don’t want him hurt again, or the girls, if you change your mind. ”
The words cut despite the calm manner in which she delivers them. I hate that she’s right.
“He doesn’t have to say it. I hear his feelings loud and clear.
” There was a time my anger toward Briar and the bond was valid, but too much has happened since then.
The anger’s fizzled, but the fears dredged up by it persist. Briar deserves someone who’s as sure of him as he is of the bond.
Every time I think I’m ready to be that person for him, there’s a voice in my head telling me it’s too good to be true, waiting for the roots I’ve planted to be pulled out from beneath me.
Would he choose differently if this weren’t his world?
Am I ready to commit myself to four sprouts who’ll rely on me?
“I could say the same about Skylar, until recently that is.” She grinds her jaw.
“I was a Radix, a leader in this community. She was a new Bloom. It wasn’t appropriate.
What if people believed I was giving her special treatment because of my position?
No matter how much I told myself I wanted the bond, that Fate had tethered us for a reason, something wasn’t right… ”
“So you didn’t send her away this season?” Cherri asks, glancing over at me before returning her focus to Corrigan.
“Of course not. It is physically painful to be so far from her. I’m assuming you have felt it too—that draw to be near them?
It only gets stronger the more you fight it.
” She huffs out her frustration. “She said she needed to get away. Told me not to come after her… Now I have no idea where she is.”
Neither does Briar or Dani, based on every emotion that’s filtered through the bond since they left.
“They’re going to find her, Corrigan,” Cherri reassures, though there’s a catch to her tone and I wonder if she truly believes it. “And when they do, you can tell her exactly what you told us.”
Corrigan purses her lips, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “I don’t know what difference it will make.”
And then I do something I never thought I would. I take her hand.
It startles her as well because her eyes are wide when they reach mine.
“You won’t know until you say the words,” I say, certain they won’t return without Skylar. Not with how much she means to their sister. I hope they find her soon. Dani can’t miss their claiming ceremony with Cherri, and Briar’s girls need him, and…there are important things we’ve left unsaid.
It’s only now I realize just how much they need saying.