My Fated Mate Can Have Her-Chapter 215: Finding Ground
[Warning: Mixed POV]
- Violet -
I put as much distance between us as the cave allowed and it wasn’t enough.
I sat at the far edge of the pool, my knees pulled to my chest, staring at the glowing water until the blue light burned into my eyes. My lips still felt swollen and the tingling sensation still lingered after so long. And my skin still felt warm where his hands had been, like I had been branded.
It had already been nearly an hour.
I pressed my fingers against my mouth.
’Stop.’
The bond had flared up since then and it was nearly unbearable.
Kael’s face surfaced in my mind and the guilt hit me so hard and fast it stole the breath from my lungs.
Kael...
And I had just—
I closed my eyes, trying to ground myself. If Rowan wasn’t here, I would have cooled myself in the pool.
I squeezed my eyes harder.
I shouldn’t even be thinking about him too.
’It’s the bond. Just that,’ I tried convincing myself.
The bond had been pulling at me for weeks, wearing me down, and I had been tired and off guard and the blue light and the dancing and his hands had just...
’But you kissed him back.’
The voice in my head was ruthless. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦
’Twice.’
I tightened my grip around me.
For some reason, it felt like I had kissed him before.
But that wasn’t possible.
I pressed my forehead against my knees.
The worst part wasn’t even what I had done.
The worst part was that some quiet, horrible part of me didn’t regret it.
And that felt like the real betrayal.
I could have lived with a moment of weakness. A stumble. Something I could point to and say ’that wasn’t me, that was the bond, that was exhaustion and loneliness and months of being worn down to nothing.’ I could have forgiven myself for that.
But I had wanted it.
I had felt him pull back that first time, felt the space open between us, and I had ached at the loss of it. And when his hand had found my wrist again and turned me to face him, some part of me had already known what was coming and had moved toward it instead of away.
’I’m sorry.’
The apology formed in my chest, hollow and shapeless, with nowhere to go.
I didn’t know if it was meant for Kael or for myself or for Rowan, who I was going to have to face with nowhere to hide.
The soft sound of movement behind me made my shoulders tense.
He didn’t come closer.
I could feel him somewhere behind me, keeping his distance, and the careful restraint of it made my throat tighten in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
He had apologised and it had only made me feel worse.
"I don’t regret it, but I’m sorry for pushing this on you."
"Violet."
I flinched. It was a strange coincidence he had spoken up just when I was mulling over his words.
"I’m fine," I said, before he could say anything else.
A pause.
"I know."
He didn’t believe me. I could hear it. But he didn’t argue either, and the absence of argument felt somehow worse than if he had pushed back.
I stared at the water.
Kael would be worried. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he would be sick with it. He had let me go because I had asked him to, because there had been no other choice, and he was probably tearing himself apart over it right now.
And here I was...
’I’m sorry,’ I thought again, and this time it was aimed somewhere specific, somewhere distant and aching.
But underneath the guilt, the warmth of Rowan’s kiss still lingered.
And I hated myself for it.
[ - ]
- Rowan -
We had left the cave an hour ago, maybe more, and I was still acutely aware of the distance she kept between us as we walked.
She hadn’t looked directly at me either ever since we left. There was also the careful, deliberate arrangement of her posture that said she was trying very hard to appear unbothered.
I was trying very hard too.
Getting myself under control in that cave, with no privacy and nowhere to go and the scent of her still thick in the air, had been one of the more quietly uncomfortable experiences of my life. My wolf had been absolutely no help, smug and unhelpful in equal measure, offering nothing useful while I stood with my back to her and breathed through it with grim, mechanical focus.
I kept my eyes forward now, scanning the streets we moved through, and tried to think about useful things. The black market ahead, and the route my small scouts had mapped out through the winding passages of this place.
She moved in front of me. At the very least if I wasn’t going to hold on to her, I needed her within my sights.
I didn’t close the distance.
She needed the space. I understood that, even if the bond made it feel like a slow pulling apart every time she drifted further.
I had kissed her.
The thought surfaced again, as it had been doing every few minutes since we left.
She had kissed me back.
Twice.
A quiet, private satisfaction settled in my chest at that fact, the kind I didn’t dare let show on my face. I was aware it was not the most useful thing to be pleased about given the circumstance... along with the guilt I had watched move through her eyes afterward.
She had thought of him.
But I couldn’t help it entirely. She had kissed me back, and her hands had been in my hair, and for a few extraordinary minutes the cave had contained nothing else in the world except the two of us.
I was glad it had happened.
Though the dancing being off the table, but thankfully, hope was not lost.
Some of the smaller rodents I had sent ahead earlier, had found what I had been looking for. Deep in a quieter section of the city was activity that moved with the particular rhythm of people conducting business they preferred not to be observed conducting.
A black market.
I was now guiding us there.
"We are close," I murmured.
It was the most I had said to her since.
She made a small sound of acknowledgment.
Violet was watching the streets around us. Her short reddish-brown hair was tucked behind her ears and the cropped style still struck me differently every time I saw it. I wished I could run my hands through that hair again.
She glanced back and caught me staring at her.
We both looked away at the same moment.
