Chapter 49

Aria & Darren

Aria

For a moment I could only stand there and blink, too stunned to even move as Darren rushed toward me like a freight train.

Darren’s face was close, his breath warm, so intoxicating that I couldn’t think clearly. He leaned in, his eyes fluttering closed.

His lips brushed mine and his hands slipped to the back of my head, bringing me closer. I wanted to kiss him—I’d wanted it so badly since that day in the park. Sometimes, when I was lying awake at night unable to sleep, it was all I could think about.

I almost gave in. As I felt his warmth spread through me, I almost caved and melted into him. I really did miss the taste of him, and he smelled sweetly of cologne and a hint of wine…

But I knew what this was. And I knew how it would end.

I shoved him back with more force than I meant to, jabbing my index finger into his chest as he stumbled back. “No. No, you can’t keep doing this to me,” I hissed, my voice trembling.

He stared at me for a moment as if he was confused by my reaction. His eyes were still glowing, flicking back and forth between my lips and my own, as if he was warring with that primal part of himself. Caught somewhere between pure animalistic drive and common sense.

“You can’t just kiss me whenever you feel like it, Darren,” I said as I took a step back. “I know it’s instinct, and maybe you can’t really help it, but it’s still not fair to me.”

“Aria, I…” he started, the glow fading a little in his eyes. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I’m not doing this again. You don’t get to play with my head, to use your instinct as an excuse to toy with my emotions. That might be how werewolves work, but it’s not how humans work.”

“Aria, that’s not—”

“I’m serious, Darren,” I interrupted, feeling my throat tighten. “I’ve been through enough of that with my ex, and I’m not about to sign up for a sequel. Unless you intend on being with me, really being with me, then don’t kiss me.”

He fell silent, eyes darting away as if suddenly realizing I was right. It hurt to see the way he looked then, as if I had just slapped him across the face, but I pushed the guilt aside.

There was no way I could just let this happen, let him keep chipping away at me when I had only just started putting myself back together. I wanted love, romance, commitment. Not… primal urges and excuses.

“I didn’t mean—” he said softly, but he didn’t finish, quickly realizing that there was no excusing it. He took a step back, and there was a subtle shame in his expression that I hadn’t expected. “I’m sorry. Goodnight, Aria.”

“Goodnight, Darren,” I said, my voice a little softer although I felt as if I was on the brink of tears now.

I didn’t wait for him to make his way back to his car before I was slipping inside and slamming the door shut behind me.

…

Darren

The second I got into my car, I growled out loud and buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t decide if I was furious or just downright embarrassed. Likely both.

“What the hell was that?” I ground out, focusing on my wolf. He’d driven me to kiss her, yet again, making me feel like a prisoner in my own body. I had tried to stop him, but it was no use. He had taken over in an attempt to make me kiss her, and if it hadn’t been for Aria shoving me away, he might have succeeded.

This wasn’t right; it had gone too far. If anything, I should have been respecting her wishes tonight, not letting my wolf take over, not letting him take advantage of the vulnerability between us. And Aria didn’t deserve this bullshit. She deserved better than this after all she had been through.

I could practically hear my wolf sigh in the back of my mind. “She’s our mate. I can’t exactly help it, you know.”

“Help it?” I muttered bitterly, starting the car and pulling away from the curb with a screech of the tires. “No, but you can control yourself. You could’ve let me walk away tonight, and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t think I was some ass who’s just playing with her emotions. If you really wanted a chance with her so badly, you would have considered that.”

My wolf didn’t answer, but I could sense his presence lingering, restless, as if willing me to go back. He thought I should kiss her, maybe even take her to bed tonight. I shook my head, gritting my teeth as I gripped the steering wheel.

“No,” I said firmly. “You’re making an ass out of me. I can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to either of us. She’s a human, for all intents and purposes, and we can’t be together. We have to find a way to end it before the bond solidifies even more. We have to do something… anything. She doesn’t deserve this.”

My wolf growled with distaste, but I didn’t let myself pity him. There was only one way forward, and it didn’t involve dragging the girl who had saved my life through an endless back-and-forth of instinct and logic.

If I wanted to make things right for her, then I had to break this bond—for good. Letting her go was the only way I could actually repay her for what she had done for me as a kid.

I’d been trying to think of ways to repay that kindness for years now, but this… If I couldn’t keep my wolf from messing with her emotions, then she would never be free. She deserved to have the chance to find a human man who loved her, not be forced into a mate bond with a werewolf who could never truly let her into his life.

And I had to act quickly. Before we did something heinously stupid, like sleep together, and then the mate bond would truly become unbreakable.

I returned to my office that night, where I immediately turned on my computer and pulled up the pack databases—our digital collection of literature and information. I’d already made a trip to the pack lands to look into it myself, but I couldn’t raise too many suspicions, so this was the next best thing.

For hours, I searched for something—anything—on breaking mate bonds.

But page after page, I found nothing. Occasionally I would find something that seemed promising, only to find it unreliable or unrelated. The odd anecdote here or there of a wolf rejecting his or her mate, but only before the mating mark. Never anything on breaking a bond that already existed.

The office lights dimmed as the hours passed, and I barely noticed the weariness creeping over me until a knock suddenly jolted me upright, making my heart slam in my chest.

I’d fallen asleep at my desk without even realizing.

Before I could answer, the door swung open, and Lily stepped inside and flicked on the light. I squinted and grumbled a curse, blinded by the fluorescent bulb.

“Alpha!” she jumped, clamping a hand over her chest. “I-I didn’t know you were in here! I was just coming to turn on your heater for you before you arrived—”

I rubbed my forehead, glancing at the time. Eight-thirty. Half an hour before my usual arrival time.

But before I could answer, Lily was prattling on about how cold it was today and how haggard I looked—in her usual over-the-top chipper demeanor—and was circling my desk to turn on my space heater for me.

And it was then that she saw the article that was pulled up on the screen.

“How to Reject a Mate.”

Lily’s eyes widened into saucers. “Alpha—”

I closed the screen quickly, but it was too late. She’d already seen enough.

Her face split into a grin, a grin that bordered on something almost gleeful, like she had just found the world’s best gossip. I didn’t like where this was heading.

“You have a mate?!” she practically squealed, jumping up and down on her toes.