Chapter 56

Aurora

He’s in pain and I hate to witness it.

Of course I feel a small pang of guilt over him rejecting the royal pack. He is doing it because of me. I watch him hold his breath and try to remain still, my wolf wondering if this is how he felt when I decided to reject him as a mate. He shuts his eyes, scrunching them tightly closed and trying to steady his rapid breathing.

His hands form into fists into his lap, the notion making me worried, and I pull back just a little. He whimpers. The royal prince of the king Alpha whimpers when I move away from him. It overshadows my fear an di press myself into his side, inhaling his scent and feeling his arm curl around my back, holding me to his side as she trembles.

The moment flees as fast as it had arrived. He releases a deep breath, opening his eyes that are brewing with tears and almost collapses back into the sand, catching himself with his free hand while his other arm keeps me close.

I bring my hand to his cheek, reaching slowly and carefully until my fingertips drag across his smooth, fresh stubble that perches on his neck and jaw. He hardly seems pristine right now, and in some ways, he looks exhausted like me, and franticly trying to pull it together. I almost admire seeing him for the first time not as a prince, but as a typical wolf like me.

“Are you okay?” I ask, trying to kill his tears.

He nods, taking my hand off her cheek and kissing my knuckles lightly before holding my warm fingers in his lap. “I’m fine,” he hums, his voice strained. “Felt weird.” He stares out at the ocean, at the warm sun above beating on us and the slight breeze that pushes past us. “Could hear a lot of the pack trying to reach out to me but—”

He stops short, shaking his head.

“I didn’t hear my father say a thing.”

I look away, pressing into his side. He relaxes when I do, holding me tighter. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says quickly. “It’s better this way. Just you and me.”

I try not to flinch at the sound of those words. I thought a lot about Jaxson while I was rotting away under Xander, and I saw a few little memories that made me hopeful that Jaxson was a better man that I assumed he had been. He has stuck up for commoners in the past, and he has proven now that he wants me more than he wants to be a king, to be an Alpha.

He was a calming thought to me and my wolf.

“Are you going to make me revoke the rejection?” I ask, knowing it’s a topic we have to discuss sooner or later. I keep my face buried into his side, too terrified to look elsewhere. “You left your pack for me. Does that mean we have to be mates again?”

“We are mates,” he grumbles. “It’s nothing to do with your rejection, sweetheart. You and I are fated to each other. Your wolf needs mine just as my wolf needs yours. I know you still have some time until your twentieth birthday, but I can wait for you to come around to the idea of us being mates. I want you to love me.”

I settle at the idea of him not forcing me to take back the rejection. He is new to not being a royal, and I have to adjust my thinking about him now. He wouldn’t try and hurt me anyway, I know that, but without the horrid backup of the royal pack, I can believe now more than ever that he doesn’t want me to be hurt anymore. Never again.

Tentatively, I lean forward and press my lips to his cheek, feeling warmth spread and flush down his features. He goes stiff all over, and it makes me giggle, watching him press his cheek out as though to steal another peck.

I move to do it again, watching him turn just in time for my lips to crash into his. I want to pull away and laugh, but his taste is so familiar, so bold, that it makes my wolf so happy to kiss him again. My hands tremble at my sides, feeling his fingers pull at my hips, wanting to launch me into his lap, so I can straddle him while we kiss, but all I can think about is the marks that Xander has made on my body.

I don’t look like I used to. What if Jaxson doesn’t find me attractive anymore?

I pull back suddenly, breaking our lips, and needing to catch my balance so I can jump up off the beach and make a run for the hut. He catches me before I can do any of that and I panic, flinching aside as he pins me onto my back in the sand.

“Hey,” he says, speaking in heavy exhale. “Relax, sweetheart, I’m not going to hurt you.”

He is straddling me, same as Xander had, and I cover my face with my hands to shield how much I’m sobbing over a simple kiss. I feel Xander over me, laughing in my mind and at everything that crosses it. He tormented my fears, my insecurities, and used it to make me fearful along with the physical abuse he had put me through.

“Look at me,” Jaxson says, batting my hands away. I blink the tears out of my eyes and clear my vison in doing so. He slowly reaches for my cheek and I refrain from yanking myself away, his light blue eyes so cold and calming. “I would never hurt you or force you to do anything you don’t want to do, sweetheart.”

I nod hastily, my stomach cramping. “I’m sorry, Jaxson.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, trying to wipe the sand off my arms and pull the blanket back up around my sides, all while he grins. “Thank you for the kiss, sweetheart. It was nice.”

I hesitate, wanting to beg for him to back up, but he does it before I can ask, standing tall to wipe the sand off his pants. He flicks a look back to the ocean, then to me as I sit up, unsteady. His eyes match the horizon; cobalt and extensive and endlessly full of mystery.

“Come on,” he hums, holding a hand out for me to take. He helps me stand, even as I stumble, feeling my heart race after our close interaction before. “I can make dinner and we can maybe go for a late night swim tonight. What do you think?”

I swallow hard, my heart frantically nervous still. “I don’t know how to swim,” I admit.

He tries to hide his shock. He isn’t good at it.

“Well, it’s just like dancing,” he hums. “I can show you how.”

“I wasn’t very good at that, either,” I say.

He waves me off, rolling his light eyes. “I think you are too hard on yourself, sweetheart.”

I watch him walk back into the hut while I stay outside to brush off the sand. I watch him float around the small kitchen, blissfully in his own world again. It’s weird to see this calm, easy man since I had met a pushy, controlling royal just a handful of months ago.

He wouldn’t leave me alone and when he would, it would be behind a locked door. Since Xander’s quest to use me against Jaxson, he has actually softened. I woke up from my deep sleep to find the place empty, except little Snowflake who jumps on the countertop now, Jaxson grinning wide before handing her a small sliver of raw fish.

He catches my eyes, something so kind in his glare now. He nods for me to come inside and I want to, but my wolf is still cautious. She likes Jaxson, the mere thought of him in Xander’s cellar made me at peace. I just can’t ignore the fact that that he still wants to prove he is my mate and although he is doing so much for me, for Luke, and he has even rejected his pack to be with me and keep me safe out of the palace, I can’t help but still feel weary about it all.

What if he isn’t my mate? What if he is wrong and the mating pull he feels is false? He could wait until my twentieth birthday, misconstrued in what he thinks is a fated mate pull, and I could be mated to someone else; or no one.

My heart feels so weak in pulse. I want to feel what he feels now, to see if he really is experiencing a mating pull, but I will be left to wait. I want to be loved, to be unconditionally promised to a man, and the more I watch Jaxson ease his way around the hut on the beach, I allow myself to open up to the possibility that if we are fated to one another, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Not so bad at all.