17. Fragments of a Bond

17

Fragments of a Bond

GLEN

" S he betrayed you, Glennie. I know it hurts. Let me make you feel better." The perfumed woman next to me stroked my arm, either scent marking me or comforting me, I wasn't sure which. All I knew was she was wrong.

Wrong scent, wrong voice, wrong everything. I didn't want any hands on me but Flor's.

And now Flor was my best friend's mate.

That was wrong, too, even if there was nothing I could do now to make it right.

Tables of food lined one wall, with a buffet of finger food and plenty of drinks. It was a party to celebrate Flor and Brand's mate bond. Everyone was here except Mom, Dad, and… Vanessa, actually. I thought I'd seen her at the beginning of the party, talking to her friend in the corner—the friend who was now trying to stick her hand up my shirt. I batted it away, without looking at her.

I couldn't look at any woman, other than her . My perfect, vicious, beautiful, forbidden mate sat only a handful of yards away. So close, I could hear her breathing. So far from being mine, she may as well be sitting on the moon.

Flor was ranked now. She was the mate to an Alpha Heir. Just not the one I'd hoped for.

She and Brand were nestled in a love seat together where they'd been all night, Flor draped across his lap. While she tried to read some dusty pack history book, Brand was picking up small pieces of fruit and cheese from a plate and feeding them bit by bit between her lips.

Her pink, delicate lips that had kissed him. It was fucking disgusting.

At least she was rolling her eyes and punching him every once in a while, at his over-the-top romantic actions. But she kept taking the fruit.

Of course she did. She'd taken more than fruit from him, and I was the worst friend in the world to be staring at her, wishing him gone, and her in my arms.

Their mating had been four days ago, and the pain was still as intense as the moment I'd seen them, seen her beautiful body under his.

I understood why he had mated her; I was even glad. After all, he'd saved her life, when I had been too far to help. But every time she touched him, every time he laughed—serious Brand, laughing like a kid!—something in me died.

At least they hadn't been sleeping together at night. For some reason, Brand had encouraged her to stay in her room, though I'd caught him sleeping outside her door, on the fucking floor, the night before.

I didn't get it. If she was mine, I'd have been with her every moment of the day, and every night, all night long. I'd keep her so exhausted, so physically fulfilled, she wouldn't be able to see anyone but me.

I'd finally asked Brand about their sleeping arrangements that morning at training. He'd answered in his usual terse way. "When she's ready."

Whatever that meant. She had obviously been ready for him before. But when I'd thrown that back at him, he'd lost his shit and beaten me down so hard, I'd had at least three fractures to heal.

I was haunted by what-ifs. If I had been in the training yard when she needed me, maybe she would have chosen me. The thought soured my gut and twisted inside me, poisoning my thoughts. I hadn't been there, and the choice had been made. I'd lost her forever.

I slammed back my whiskey and poured another crystal tumbler almost to the brim. It was harder than hell for a shifter to get drunk, but I'd made it my goal for the foreseeable future. I had lost my only other goal in life this week. Might as well make a new one.

Of course, Mom had fucked everything up for me, in more ways than one. She'd explained—or tried to—the day before.

"Glen, I'm sorry. I know you're angry . " Mom tried to pry the crystal decanter of whiskey out of my hand. She was speaking softly, since we were outside Dad's sickroom.

Well, Mom called it his recovery room, but as far as I could tell, he wasn't recovering. He was getting worse. Outside of a very few, no one in the pack knew, but he was on a ventilator now. The doctor acted like he was doing everything he could, but there was no record of any shifter even needing a ventilator for this long.

His healing wasn't kicking in. The silver had gotten into his lungs and his blood, and it was taking him from us.

I was devastated about Dad. But I was every bit as gutted by the loss of my mate.

"Glen, listen to me."

"I am listening." I let Mom take the whiskey, knowing I could get more once I left, and crossed my arms over my chest, hoping to hide the tremors that had started the night before.

"I need you to move past this thing with Flor," she began.

I let loose a short, humorless laugh. "This thing? Thing? Mom, she's my true mate."

Or at least, she had been. It felt like she still was, even though I knew that was impossible. The ache inside, the longing to be with her, it hadn't lessened, even after she'd bonded with Brand.

Mom frowned, insistent. "She can't be, Glen. She would never have mated Brand if she was meant for y ? —"

"She was dying. She would have died. She had no choice."

"I could never have made that choice," she said, almost cautiously. "Once I met your father, I only had eyes for him. That's how I knew we were fated by the moon." She rubbed a hand over her face. She'd been crying again, and I pulled her in for a brief hug.

My voice cracked as I replied, "That's how I felt about her. How I still feel, Mom. She's all I see. She's all I'll ever want." I took a deep breath, ignoring her sharp gasp. "I shouldn't have gone with Finn. I knew she was going to spar. If I'd been there, maybe she would have chosen me. I could have saved her."

"She wouldn't have let you." Her voice was muffled by my shirt.

My blood went cold. "What?"

Mom's voice was filled with remorse. "She was so angry with me, and she was right to be. I was… I was pushing her to choose you. I told her, I insinuated, that she owed it to us."

It was all I could do not to shove her away. But she was in so much pain, and I knew adding to it would not be right. Not honorable. And, like it or not, my questionable honor might be all I had left. "What exactly do you mean, Mom?"

In short bursts, she admitted what she'd done. I'd known she'd been trying to push Flor and me together. I'd suspected it was making Flor even less likely to spend time with me. She hated being forced into anything, with good reason.

"You tried to force her hand, Mom," I said gently, though inside I was raging. Had Mom's meddling had even more severe effects? Patrick had said Flor had seemed distracted during her fight. Angry, emotional. Sloppy.

Had that anger been what made her drop her guard, when Brand injured her?

"Well, she had to choose one of you, didn't she? She left Luke to die. She looks at Finnick like he's shit on the trail. You weren't pursuing her like a shifter needs to, not that Brand was either. I thought if it was between you and him, and she knew why she needed to choose you — that we needed her…" She let go of my arms. "I fucked up."

I nodded. "We all did. Well, not Brand. He was the only one of us who didn't fuck up. He was the only one who didn't pursue her. And that's why she chose him."

"What do you mean?"

I met her confused, teary gaze. "She's been hunted for years. Every instinct she has says to stay as far away as she can from males who pursue her. I fucked up from the very start, but you…" I wanted to lay the blame at Mom's door. Tell her that she was the reason I would never have my mate.

But she was losing hers, and my pack needed me. I closed my eyes and took a few more deep breaths, fighting to accept what had happened. Knowing I had to accept the blame as well.

"We can all share the blame. But when it comes down to it, I'm glad she's alive, even if it means I live my life alone. Maybe someday, I'll even be happy for Brand and for her. For now?" I picked the whiskey back up off the floor. "I need to numb the pain."

Mom opened her mouth to say something, but the doctor chose that moment to exit the sickroom. His expression was grim.

"Is there any change?" Mom asked, straightening.

"He's losing strength," the doctor admitted. "His blood pressure is dropping; his heart is beating more erratically. I think… you need to make certain the pack is protected." The hiss and hum of the machines keeping my dad alive slithered around us like invisible snakes.

Without answering, Mom walked into the room and closed the door behind her.

I blinked. It was me the doctor was talking to.

"Alpha Heir, you need to make certain the pack is protected. When he passes, your mother…"

I finished his sentence. "She'll follow."

I pushed the woman's hands from my chest and reached for the crystal decanter again, needing whisky to wash down my dark thoughts. If my father died, my mother would, too. That's what it meant to be soulmates.

I hadn't needed Dad's doctor to say it to know the truth. I sure as hell hadn't needed him to remind me of my duty to the pack. My duty to take up the mantle of leadership… and take a mate.

But I didn't want to be Alpha. Without Flor, I didn't want to be anything.

I poured another three fingers of my father's favorite Macallan and drank it in one gulp. The den was growing raucous, more shifters coming to the party as the night wore on. I hated it. Hated them. Hated myself.

"Glennie…" The woman's hands were back on my arms, then my shirt, patting, buttoning—no, unbuttoning, practically stripping my shirt away.

What? I grabbed one of the hands and tried to focus my eyes. I recognized her long blonde hair, her watery blue eyes. "Clara?"

Oh, yeah. This was the one of the women Mom had said she wanted me to "consider." Though she hadn't said it out loud. She'd left a note that morning, a list, in my room. Six names, all ranked females, all worthy of "consideration."

I didn't have the heart to tell Mom I'd already considered all the names on her list rather thoroughly a few years before. Clara had been one of the more memorable, but only because she'd followed me around for a week, whining, after we'd stopped fucking.

She obviously still hadn't given up.

I didn't hold it against her. We'd both been twenty-one and working our way through the unmated ranks, knowing we wouldn't find our true mates in our own pack—all the single shifters made sure to casually touch every other shifter of age as soon as they met, just in case—but willing to see if there was enough chemistry there for a back-up plan.

So few of us met our true mates anymore. In my mom's generation, at least a third of all shifters found theirs. But a few decades ago, that had changed. Now, it was only one in eight who found the love that the moon had meant for us. Or was it one in ten?

"Glen, come on. We were good together. Good enough," Clara murmured in my ear.

"Maybe." I finished off another tumbler of whiskey.

She wasn't wrong. The sex had been good, for a while. Until she'd started hinting that she would settle for a chosen mating, not a true one. I'd fucked around, sure. But I'd never really given up hope. How could I settle for an insipid almost-mating, when my fated love could be out there, waiting?

Only she hadn't waited.

I glared at Flor's thigh, where Brand had wrapped one of his huge hands. For a flash, I slipped into a fantasy, an impossible dream. Brand would hold her slender thighs open for me to taste her, bury my face in her.

He would play with her small tits, murmuring filthy praise in her ear as I worked her close to her peak, as I set myself at the entrance to her pussy, sliding insi?—

"Is that for me, Glennie?" Clara's hand landed, a little too hard, on my erection.

I shoved it off, and she fell to the rug, crying out like I'd clawed her or something. My eyes locked with Brand's for a moment. He was frowning at me.

Flor, on the other hand, was very carefully not looking at the cluster of females who were helping Clara off the floor. Or at least, I didn't think she was. Her hair was long enough to partially cover her face now, ever since Brand had saved her. For all I knew, her eyes were on mine.

I tried to fill my gaze with all the longing, pain, and hope that swirled in my mind.

Finn was there suddenly, whispering, though that didn't matter with shifter hearing. "Stop staring like a fucking lunatic, Glen. She's Brand's now, and he's two seconds away from coming over here and gouging your eyes out. Pull yourself together."

"Come sit with us, Finnick," Clara said, sliding down next to me again, as if I hadn't just thrown her on the floor. Maybe if I gouged her eyes out, Flor would notice.

Finn growled. "Get off him, Clara, and go put some clothes on. You look like you're auditioning for a part in Chicago ."

"I'm auditioning for something far more important," Clara hissed.

"The part of the pack whore?"

What? I blinked, my vision wavering. I'd never been this drunk before. It felt odd. Numb. I decided I liked it. "Who're you calling a whore, Finn?"

"Hear that, Clara? He doesn't even know you're still here. Give up."

"Glennie, I can't stay in the room with him." She rubbed her hand up and down my arm, then up and down her own body, drawing my attention.

Huh. She was dressed far too provocatively for a night in the Lodge, her skirt and bustier top all black leather and metal hardware.

"Where ya goin'?" I murmured as she stalked away, still snarling at Finn, who brushed dust off his dark sweater as she wandered over to a group of Enforcers who'd just come through the door.

He scoffed, "She's going to find out if a shifter can get an STD, it looks like."

Flor's voice was soft and censuring. "Finnick, that was mean."

He sniffed. "She had it coming."

My mind spinning, I stumbled to the far side of the room, where a wet bar beckoned. Once I had another full glass in my hand, I turned back to the vital task at hand: staring at Flor and wondering how I'd lost her.

"Stop moping, brother," Finn whispered again. "You're pathetic."

"Yes," I agreed. "That's probably why she mated him instead." He snorted. "No, it's true . Brand is the best of all of us. The best hunter, most honorable, best shifter of us all. She made a good choice."

"From what I heard, she made the choice to stay alive," Finn muttered. "If one of us—if you had been there, we would be celebrating very differently tonight." He paused. "Not that our dear Brand has done much celebrating with the little spitfire."

As if he heard us, Brand took that moment to lift Flor's hand to his lips and kiss it gently.

"Why was she sparring with him in the first place? Why the hell were they fighting with weapons?" I slammed my whiskey glass down. The crystal shattered, and blood seeped from a cut on my hand for an instant.

Finn made a disapproving cluck and waved for a servant to clear away the broken glass and ice. "She was following orders. I think Sergeant blames himself, but he said at the end, she just froze. Didn't block Brand's blow at all."

I grunted. "I heard she was distracted." Finn shrugged silently, distracted himself. He was watching Flor as intently as I had, his thumb rubbing his lower lip. I pulled him over to an empty sofa. "It would have killed Brand, if she'd died."

Finn lowered himself onto the sofa next to me. "Yes, literally. As it would all of—both of you. He saved her life, and yours. And Luke's."

Our eyes met. Luke was not doing well, from the reports we'd had. Of course, those reports hadn't come from shifters we trusted, but from the Council's Enforcers who'd arrived at Southern not long ago. But we had bigger problems here. I gestured for an unranked servant to bring us water; I needed to be a little more sober for this conversation.

I lowered my voice, hoping the distance from Flor would keep her from hearing. Though her hearing didn't seem to be as good as most shifters. Maybe once she'd shifted a few more times… "It doesn't make sense. How could we both have been her true mates? And Luke?"

Finn's expression was inscrutable. "Just because something seems unbelievable, doesn't mean that it is. It's just unexpected."

"It should have faded, this feeling. I shouldn't still be drawn to her. She's his mate. But she's all I see, Finn."

"I know," he said. "I wondered…" He took a breath, shook his head, then took another breath. My eyes narrowed. Finn didn't do uncertainty.

"What?" I felt a flicker of hope. "What just occurred to you?"

"I wonder if she feels the mate bonds to all of you… a bit differently."

"Differently?"

"Less intensely. She hasn't shifted since the battle at Southern. Maybe her wolf is suppressed, somehow." He pressed a hand to his heart, and I noted his fingers were trembling slightly.

"You think she might still be able to feel for me... might feel a bond with me as well?" My head pounded almost as hard as my heart at the thought. "Maybe her wolf would?"

He shook his head. "I'm fairly certain she never felt the way we—I mean, that you and Brand did. And Luke. It's as if the bond is stifled. Buried under something, fragmented. She feels something ; you can smell it on her. She jumps a little when either of you touches her."

"Yes," I agreed, thinking of the reactions she'd had when I was close enough to note them over the past weeks. The goosebumps on her arms when I ran close to her. The heady scent of cinnamon and jasmine when I stripped off my shirt in her presence.

Finn went on. "But she didn't seem to feel the compelling urge to be near us—or Luke, obviously. Look at her now, though. Tell me she's not feeling the mate bond." Brand was teasing her with a grape, holding it out of reach until she snarled, then placing it between his lips for her to retrieve. She moved her lips over his, sucking at the sweet fruit—but her eyes were open, and for a split second, her heavy-lidded gaze was on me.

As I watched, her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip. I let out a near-silent growl, but she shivered, like she'd heard me across the room.

Holy shit.

Her cheeks pinkened, and her eyes darted away, but for that one second, I knew without a doubt she knew what I was feeling, and had responded.

Next to me, Finn shifted on the sofa. I copied his movement to discreetly camouflage my hard-on. He let out a sound that was between a sigh and a groan and murmured, "I think you should test it. See if she still feels any attraction."

My jaw dropped, and my whisper was more of a breath. "Seduce her? My best friend's mate?" Finn was rubbing his chest slowly, like his heart ached. But he also had a tent pole in his damned pants. "She's his now, Finn. What the fuck are you thinking? "

"His? Yes. But that doesn't necessarily mean she won't respond to you. Or others."

I could hear the lust in his voice, and I growled low. "That's not right. That's the sort of thing your parents might say about her. Seducing a newly mated female out from under her male is exactly the sort of thing they would do, from what you've said. Try not to act like your parents."

He shrugged, but I could smell the hurt on him. It was pretty low for me to bring up his parents. They'd hurt him in so many ways, not the least of which was his mother's constant attempts to mate him with shifters who could help their family fortune.

"I can't hurt him, Finn. I can't have her."

"Then don't. Just live with this." He waved at the way Flor was trailing her fingers over Brand's neck unconsciously, tugging at his beard. The scent that was rising from them was suffocating. I noticed a few of the shifters nearby drifting away, smiling.

"I have to respect her choice."

"Starting now , Mr. Peeping Tom?"

"Fuck you." I wanted to argue, but he wasn't wrong. I still felt the hot burn of shame when I thought about the first day I'd met her.

Shame, and desire.

"I don't know if I could have looked away," I groaned softly into my hands. "Could you, Finn? If you'd seen her and she'd called your name?"

He stood. "She's nothing to look at. I dare say I could have resisted." With that, he left, and I laughed harder than I had in weeks at the obvious lie.

I lifted my glass to Brand and Flor. "To the true mates!" I shouted, and all the other shifters in the room echoed my toast.

To the true mates.

Clara returned to me later, her hands on my shoulders and my hair, and I felt Flor's eyes on me again. But I didn't return her gaze. Why bother? She was forbidden, and I was alone.

And that was why, a few minutes later, I let Clara take me to my bedroom.