“Are you joking?”
His anger and confusion had now hardened into pain. She felt it vibrate in her veins as he stepped closer to her. She retreated deeper into the shadows of the small room.
“Zael, please… I want you to go.”
“Brynne.” He reached out to her.
“Go!” It was the beast that lived inside her that shouted the command at him.
She felt her nails harden into black talons as her misery morphed into desperate fury. Her skin prickled with the eruption of her alien dermaglyphs, the tangled patterns rising to the surface to cover most of her body.
Zael stood motionless, his handsome face unreadable. But she could feel his reaction in his blood. It wasn’t fear or anger. It was pity.
She steeled herself to the hurt. “Please. Just go.”
She turned away as he slowly retrieved his clothes and put them on, knowing if she watched him start to walk away from her, she might be tempted to call him back.
He didn’t make her suffer the waiting for long.
The room lit up with a sudden blast of light.
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER 33
Brynne didn’t sleep at all that night.
Her own misery would have been enough to keep her lying awake until the soft light of dawn began to fill the small cottage, but she also knew Zael’s restlessness through her bond to him.
He was as unhappy as she was. But he was angry too. He was confused and hurt.
Because of her.
Because she was too weak to admit what she wanted—him, as her forever mate—and too scared to believe he could ever look past the abomination that she was.
He had gotten an irrefutable reminder of that in the moments before he’d left her.
Self-directed rage had brought her monster out in all of its hissing, lethal worst. He’d seen it, and he had felt sorry for her. She’d felt his pity. The sting of it still burned like acid in her throat…and in her heart.
Maybe he finally understood just how impossible any kind of future would be for them. Maybe seeing her like that again was just what he’d needed to admit that she was right. They were from two different worlds, and although she’d never had much to call her own and even less to return to now, he had everything waiting for him here at the colony.
The last thing she wanted to do was jeopardize that for him by shackling him to her through a blood bond.
Even if pushing him away had felt as though it were killing her inside.
She couldn’t deny that a shameful part of her had hoped he might return to the cottage and demand another chance to convince her.
Nor could she pretend that she wasn’t disappointed when the knock came on her door that morning and she found Neriah waiting there, instead of Zael.
“Hi, Brynne.” The girl smiled cheerfully in greeting. “The council is going to be meeting soon. Zael’s on his way there now. He asked me to come and fetch you, if you’re ready?”
“Oh.” He was already there. Already adjusting to the distance she’d insisted upon. She schooled her expression into one of pure professionalism, even though an ache was tearing open inside her. “Of course, I’m ready. Let’s go.”