I WAS RAVENOUS as I tore into the rabbits. Gavin had no plates or cutlery or even a kitchen, just a sink that didn’t work. I hissed as the hot flesh burned my fingers when I tried to pull the first rabbit from the spit. I blew on it, hoping it would cool quickly. I was close to just eating it as it was. The flesh was split and cracked, and disgustingly, juices leaked from it onto the table. I had to stop myself from bending over and licking it up.
Gavin snarled at me, pushing me away from it. I thought he was going to go for the rabbit, but he nosed at my hands. They had already healed, the sting fading. He snorted onto my palms, first the right, and then the left.
“I’m fine,” I told him.
He froze as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing. He stomped away to the other side of the cabin near where he’d been sitting when I woke up. He grabbed the blanket he’d dropped to the floor earlier and, with a practiced flip of his head, tossed it up and over his shoulders. It covered the top of his head, and he lay down away from me, facing the wall.
“Oh, so now you’re pouting. Great. Wonderful. Extraordinarily mature of you.”
He didn’t move.
“I can still see you. Your ass is hanging out. Blanket’s not that big.”
His tail tensed ramrod straight. He rose slowly, turning around and facing me before lying down again, lower half against the wall. The blanket fell off his eyes as he lowered his head to the floor.
I ignored him, going back to the rabbit. It was cool enough now. I barely cared about the cracking of bone as I ripped pieces off and shoved them in my mouth. I groaned as I chewed, feeling light-headed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten anything substantial. I knew I’d lost weight in the past ten months, but I’d been so driven to find him that I hadn’t given it much thought.
Now, though?
I’d barely eaten a quarter of the rabbit before my stomach clenched. I swallowed what was in my mouth, licking the tips of my fingers.
I glanced at the wolf.
He was watching me, nose twitching. As soon as he saw me looking at him, he looked away.
“Full,” I admitted. “It’s… been a while since I’ve eaten something like this. Stomach must have shrunk.”
He huffed out a breath.
“You should eat too. Keep up your strength. You’re gonna need it for what I’m going to do to you.”
He lifted his head quickly, staring at me.
“Not like that,” I said quickly, horrified with myself. “I don’t—dude, what the hell.”
He sneered at me again.
It was startling how used to that look I was, how often I’d seen it. That void in my chest, that gaping black hole that had felt like it’d been eating me alive over the past year, seemed to lessen. I couldn’t feel him, not like I used to. Whatever bond had been between us, between him and the pack, was gone. I should have seen it for what it was while I still had the chance.
It hit me just how fucked this situation was. I was so far from home, and while I’d found what I’d been searching for, what had it gotten me? We’d tried after Robbie had been taken, some of us thinking darkly that he’d left of his own accord. But no matter the front we’d put forward, mostly for Kelly, it’d still felt like a lie.
I wondered if they were acting the same now.
Lying to each other.
And themselves.
All because of what I’d done.
Kelly had crumbled at the loss of his mate. At first he’d moved through the house like a ghost, haunting the rooms and hallways. He hadn’t spoken much and barely ate. I’d chided him, I’d pleaded with him, I’d yelled at him, telling him he couldn’t let himself go, that I’d be damned if I was going to let him waste away in front of me.
I hadn’t known it then, but I’d been stoking a
fire in him, one that rose until it consumed him with growing whispers of Robbie Robbie Robbie.
And then, after everything, just when he was starting to heal, I’d turned around and left him too.
My chest hitched.