7 Sebastian Tyla didn’t have to tell me what she’d dreamed about, because she talked in her sleep and had said the exact thing she’d said to me that night at the lake, “I’m sorry . . . this isn’t going to work.” Those words had plagued my mind ever since they slipped from her lips. Watching her walk away from me that night was the most infuriating thing, and I did what was necessary to ease that tension. I drank. It was the only thing that dulled the nagging ache of rejection. I was her mate. Why was she fighting it? Once we got off the plane, I rented a black SUV, then we were on our way to the mountains of North Carolina. Tyla was right beside me, but she might as well have been a thousand miles away. Why did she have to be so goddamned stubborn? “Why don’t you tell me about Amelie?

