Chapter 2

"Caelum." My voice was still unsteady. "If you have no real feeling for me, we can end this cleanly. You do not need to humiliate me to do it."

"Feeling?" He said the word as he had never heard it used seriously before. "Sera, did your father have feelings for you?"

"Did your ex?"

"All those people you gave everything to. Did any of them have feelings for you?"

He needed me to say it out loud: every bond I had ever stretched myself thin for had never truly held.

"Probably," he answered himself, and his voice went quieter. "At least at the start."

My tears finally fell.

Not because he was cruel, but because somewhere inside what he had just said, I recognized something true.

"Are you signing or not?" He held the pen out, patience gone.

I reached out and took it.

I turned to page two, clause five: Should Party B become pregnant, the matter shall be resolved at Party B's sole discretion.

My hand paused.

Caelum added offhandedly, "Do not worry. I will not let that happen. My intended mate's family is traditional. No pups born outside a registered bond."

Intended mate.

The title I had waited six years for, and it had never once belonged to me.

"Caelum, what if I told you I was already..."

The words reached my lips, and I swallowed them back.

There was no point.

I looked down and said, very quietly, "What if I told you I had already spoken with my mother and arranged a bonding ceremony for early next month. Would you still make me sign this?"

"Your mother?" He almost laughed. "The one who threw herself into the river? Who exactly did you consult?"

He exhaled slowly, and the smoke blurred the lines of his face.

"Even without all of this, I had no intention of registering a bond this young."

"Early next month. You have quite an imagination."

I closed my eyes.

Six years. We were both nearly thirty. That was not young.

The bond that could never happen had been impossible from the very beginning.

When I opened my eyes, my fingers had stopped shaking. I signed the final page.

"Good girl." Caelum lifted the agreement, satisfied. "Everything stays the same. The only difference is, from now on, you call me Alpha Voss."

He leaned down and pressed a cold kiss to my forehead.

"Good."

He left. The door closed behind him without a sound.

I stood there looking at the card on the table.

Slowly, I folded down until my face was buried in my knees.

Outside, rain had started.

The same kind of rain that was falling the night he pulled me in off the street six years ago.

That night, he had been the one holding the umbrella.

Now he was the one who had pushed me back out into it.

I do not know how long I stayed like that, until my legs went numb and there were no tears left.

I stood slowly, walked to the bathroom, turned on the cold tap, and pressed the water against my face.

I held it there until the face in the mirror was steady again.

Then I picked up my phone and dialed.

"Mom. You were right. I lost."

"That thing you mentioned before. You do not have to wait anymore. I am ready."

There was a pause on the line. "Are you certain? Once we begin, there is no going back."

I looked out at the rain. "I am certain."