Chapter 10
Elowyn
By the end of the week, it was clear Abram had buried what happened. I took the hint. If he could erase it so easily, I refused to be the one who begged for what he didn’t want.
But no matter how hard I tried, the image of him looking terrified of me touching him continued to hit me all over again and repeatedly made me feel like shit. The thought of my touch making him recoil in disgust constantly clawed at my chest.
He had looked like that was the last thing he wanted, and it hurt my feelings to see his eyes fill with… regret. He didn’t truly want me and had just been caught in the moment. The backs of my eyes burned with unshed tears when I thought about it. I refused to let them fall.
He came home every night like he was expecting me to be waiting in bed for him. But I was usually sitting on the couch, reading or pretending to. His eyes always lingered on me for a long moment. There was no way I was making the first move again, and he clearly would never make a move either.
On this particular night, I glanced up when Abe returned from the bedroom. His jaw was clenched, and his entire body looked tense. He seemed on edge, like he was fighting some inner-battle I couldn’t see.
For a fleeting moment, my mind betrayed me.
I caught a flash of a memory, him, alone in the dim light of his bedroom, hand moving over himself, eyes shut tight, flushed with need.
My stomach fluttered, and my cheeks warmed.
My chest tightened at the intimate, impossible image, and I bit my lip, trying to push it away.
I shouldn’t be thinking that, I scolded myself, but I couldn’t stop the warmth pooling low in my stomach, the ache of wanting him so desperately. What had he been thinking of?
“How was your day?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
He looked at me from the kitchen and relaxed slightly.
“It was uneventful. What did you do today?” His question felt like a probe, like he was trying to gauge something private about me, and it made my pulse stutter.
I shrugged. “Nothing, just a little gardening.” I stood up and stretched, trying to shove the memory away. “I’m actually going to go to town and grab some things we need for the house. I’ll be back.”
“Right now?” He looked outside as if it were dark.
“Yeah, I didn’t feel like it earlier. Besides, my favorite vendor doesn’t open until later in the day. And he’s probably wondering why I haven’t come in days.”
I kept my voice light, but my heart thudded against my ribs. I wondered if he was noticing the way I was trying not to look too eager to leave, trying to keep some distance, some control over myself. And I thought spending the least amount of time together was best.
“He.” His eyes narrowed like he wanted an answer to a question he never actually asked. My stomach tightened under his gaze, and I felt a flicker of that impossible pull I couldn’t quite resist.
“Yes, he is expecting me.” I looked at Abram and waited for him to say something, hoping he might say anything, to bridge the quiet tension. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
He looked like he might say something, like he was about to reach for me or stop me, but he didn’t. My chest ached with the half-glimpse of hope I let die, and I headed out, feeling the weight of the unspoken between us.
I smiled at Nate when I approached the cart. His eyes flicked over me in quick recognition, and some of the tightness in my chest eased. Nate had always been easy to be around—steady, familiar, uncomplicated.
“There’s my favorite girl.” He ignored the two women fawning over him when he saw me, coming up and hugging me. “Where have you been?”
Heat flushed my cheeks.
“Oh, just busy with coven stuff.” I left out accidentally getting married to a god. “I waited all day to come see you. I have been dreaming of a pastry.”
He draped his arm over my shoulder and pulled me back behind the cart so I could see all the options he had today.
“Wow, you went all out.” I smiled at the flavors.
“I have to keep my favorite customer satisfied so she’ll keep coming back to me.” He gave me a big grin, and his arm stayed slung over my shoulders.
“No one comes close to your pastries, so don’t worry about that.”
I bent down, focusing on the sweets a little too hard when I felt him behind me.
His presence pressed close, unmistakable.
He followed me. The thought made my heart lift in a way it shouldn’t have, a fragile, reckless thrill curling through me.
Then I heard his voice, and my body betrayed me, stiffening as memories I didn’t want resurfaced.
“Do you flirt this much with all your customers?”
I whipped my head around to see Abram standing at the cart. My cheeks immediately heated as his red eyes bored into mine. A shiver ran down my spine, equal parts fear and desire. He was clearly pissed. My stomach tightened as his gaze darted to Nate’s arm draped over my shoulder.
“Remove yourself from her,” he warned.
Nate didn’t. He looked at me for an answer, and my heart thumped painfully in my chest. “Do you know this guy?” he asked.
“Yes.” I didn’t say anything else. My hands trembled slightly at the tension radiating off Abram.
“I’m not going to tell you to remove your arm from my wife again before I rip it off myself.”
The word wife landed like a blow. My chest ached, breath catching as I realized he’d said it out loud, in front of everyone.
Nate’s eyes flicked to me, uncertainty written all over his face. I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing.
Nate looked at me, his eyes darting down to my hand.
“I don’t see a ring on her finger.” Nate glared at Abram.
I felt a pang of guilt and embarrassment twist in my gut, my throat dry. Abram’s eyes flickered to me, searching, demanding. My pulse raced. I stepped out of Nate’s touch, and he frowned, a small, confused crease forming between his brows.
“You married this guy?” Nate sounded disappointed.
“Whatever you thought this was, it wasn’t,” Abram said, his gaze flicking briefly to me before returning to Nate.
“Abram…” I sighed, the tension pressing against my chest like a physical weight.
“Let’s go home, wife.” He used the word like a blade, his possessiveness cutting straight through the air.
Annoyance flared hot and fast. He wouldn’t let me touch him, yet here he was staking a claim like I belonged to him. A marriage in name only—his words, not mine. I turned to Nate, heat creeping up my neck, shame and something far more dangerous twisting together in my gut.
“He’s my husband in name only. Just ignore him.” I turned away from Abram completely, pretending my heart wasn’t hammering against my ribs.
Nate smiled at me, and the tension eased just a fraction.
“If you needed a husband,” he said lightly, “you could’ve come to me. I wouldn’t have had to fake anything.” His eyes flicked to Abram, a smirk playing at his mouth.
The air thickened instantly. Abram’s power pressed in around us, heavy and suffocating, raising the fine hairs along my arms.
“Elowyn.” His voice was sharp. Possessive.
I stilled, every instinct screaming to be careful. I froze for a moment, aware of how carefully I needed to hold myself. “Do you want to tell him that you don’t have to fake anything with me?”
I turned to him slowly, schooling my expression into something calm, almost curious, like I wasn’t standing in the middle of a storm.
“Maybe I should’ve explored all my options before marrying—”
The world shifted.
Abram was suddenly in front of me, fury blazing in his eyes, the distance between us gone in a blink. I sucked in a breath, my pulse slamming as his presence swallowed everything else.
“Be very careful with your next words,” he said quietly. “You are my wife. We’re leaving.”
“I’m buying pastries first.” I rolled my eyes and picked a few, deliberately unhurried despite the chaos in my chest. I reached for my coin, painfully aware of how close he was behind me.
Abram didn’t wait. He pressed money into Nate’s hand and pulled me back against him.
Star mist wrapped around us, disorienting and hot, and then the world snapped back into place. Home.
He set me down and stared at me like I’d struck something raw.
“What?” I asked, sharper than I meant to.
“You know what,” he said, stepping closer, voice tight. Our chests touched. I didn’t retreat.
“You’re my wife.”
I rolled my eyes, attempting to mask how much his presence unsettled me.
“In name only, that is what you said.” His jaw clenched tightly, and I forced myself to keep speaking. “I don’t see the problem here if we are only married in name only. You can be my husband, and I can find someone who won’t flinch away from me when I try to touch them.”
My voice broke slightly, revealing the conflict inside me—wanting to push him away, yet wishing he would notice just how much he mattered in that moment.
Abe’s eyes burned bright red at my words.
The fury in them should have scared me, but all I could feel was the ache of how much I wished that anger meant something deeper.
Did I want to sleep with someone else? No.
But he was being ridiculous acting like he actually cared that Nate had flirted with me, when he’d made it clear I wasn’t his to want.
“You are waiting for your mate, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a celibate woman if I don’t want to. After all, you are the one who made it clear this was not a real marriage.”
“Yeah, I fucking dare you to go and try to sleep with another male. I will gut him before he can lay his eyes on you.” He stepped closer. “I. Will. End. Any. Man. That. Thinks. You. Are. Interested. In. Him.”
His voice was rough, dangerous and heartbreakingly possessive.
“Bold of you to think I wouldn’t be interested in someone. We aren’t actually married, or did you forget that?”