Chapter 4
His gaze dropped instantly to my bare throat, my robe, my face, checking for tears, weakness, damage. Not because he cared. Because he was assessing the situation.
“You left,” he said.
I almost laughed.
“Yes.”
“Without speaking to me.”
“I found that our conversations had become a little one-sided.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. “You don’t walk out on a pack like that, Elara.”
“There it is,” Harper muttered.
Dominic ignored her. “Do you have any idea what kind of mess you created? The council is asking questions. The household staff are talking. Megan—”
“Megan,” I said, “is welcome to your bed, your office, and your excuses. She does not get to be my problem too.”
He went still.
For a moment, the room shrank to the space between us.
Then he took one step forward. “I came here to get you.”
“No,” I said. “You came here because I signed the papers before you were ready for me to.”
His eyes flashed. “You had no right to sign a rejection without discussion.”
I stared at him.
“No right.”
He exhaled sharply, as if I were the one being unreasonable. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then say what you meant.”
His voice dropped. “I meant you made a permanent decision in anger.”
I walked down the stairs slowly until I was standing at eye level with him.
“No, Dominic. I made a permanent decision after three years of warnings, six months of humiliation, one ruined anniversary, and the sight of my husband in our bed with another woman.”
Harper crossed her arms behind me like a wall with a pulse.
Dominic’s expression hardened again. Shame never lasted long on him if pride could crowd it out.
“It wasn’t what you think.”
I actually laughed then, because it was such a pathetic sentence that even hearing it out loud felt insulting.
“What part?” I asked. “The lies? The late nights? Her answering your phone from your bed? Or the part where you laughed after I left?”
Something shifted in his face.
Not guilt.
Confusion.
I saw it, and for the first time since he walked in, I hesitated.
But it lasted only a second.
He took another step toward me, slower this time. “Open the bond.”
“No.”
“Elara.”
“No.”
His wolf stirred under his skin. I felt it even through the distance I’d built. Old instinct. Old pull.
My own wolf lifted her head, not in longing, but in warning.
“You don’t get to command me anymore,” I said.
That landed.
Good.
His nostrils flared. “I’m trying to fix this.”
“No,” I said again, softer now. “You’re trying to stop the consequences.”
His phone buzzed. He ignored it. Then it buzzed again, and again.
Harper smiled without warmth. “Popular man.”
He glanced down at the screen and swore under his breath.
Megan.
Even from where I stood, I could read the name.
Something bleak and calm settled over me.
“Go back to your emergency,” I said. “I’m sure she needs you.”
He looked at me as if he wanted me to react. Cry. Rage. Beg. Something that would let him feel central one more time.
I gave him nothing.
At last he said, “This isn’t over.”
Harper opened the door wider. “It is in my house.”
He left with the kind of force that made the windows tremble.
I stood there for several seconds after the sound of his car disappeared.
Then I sat down on the bottom stair because my knees stopped cooperating.
Harper crouched in front of me.
“You did well.”
My laugh came out shaky. “I think I might throw up.”
“Good,” she said. “That means you’re alive.”