My Alpha Rejected Bonding, He Cried After I Died

In seven years of marriage, Damian Blackwood had never once formed a bond with me. Another Heat Cycle had hit. Since three that morning, cramps had been twisting through my lower abdomen as if someone had reached inside me and wrung my organs with bare hands, tightening, releasing, and tightening again. The ache seeped from the marrow of my bones and crawled up my spine. When it reached the empty bond site at the nape of my neck, it turned into a blunt knife, sawing back and forth. I curled up on the carpet outside the master bedroom, my forehead pressed to the cold floor. My skin burned as if it had been held too close to an open flame, yet my body shook with cold. I knew exactly what this was. My body was craving the comfort of an Alpha's scent. Without it, my inner wolf would start attacking itself. I clutched my phone and read the words on the screen three times before they finally sank in. The doctor had sent the report that afternoon. I had not dared to let Damian see it. Medical report: [Inner wolf activity levels continue to decline. Immediate Alpha scent support is strongly recommended. Without intervention, the inner wolf will enter complete failure within three months. The patient will permanently lose the ability to shift, followed by multiple organ failure.] Prognosis: [Extremely poor.] The meaning was simple. If my Alpha did not mark me, I would die. I set the phone face down on the floor and closed my eyes. Then I braced one hand against the wall, forced myself to stand, and made my way toward the bedroom. Damian was reclining against the headboard with his shirt open at the collar. A fresh lipstick mark stained his collarbone. A woman sat on his lap with her back to me, wearing a slip dress so thin it was nearly transparent. Damian's hand rested on her waist, his thumb tracing slow circles on her skin. He did not look at me. "Damian," I said, my voice hoarse and almost unrecognizable. "What is it?" he asked. My gaze slid over the lipstick mark on his collarbone. I dug my fingernails into my palm. The pain cleared my head a little, which only made the desperate need consuming my body feel sharper. My scent had already spiraled out of control, spilling from my bond site in thick waves. It smelled of white roses, so cloying that it tasted bitter on my tongue, warm and damp in the air. Damian's scent, that cold, crisp cedarwood, was only a few steps away, pressing down on me like a wall. "The Heat Cycle," I said, my voice trembling. "Could you help me? Even a temporary mark would do. One bite, right on the bond site. That's all. I can't take this, Damian. It hurts so much." "Our fated-mate compatibility is too low. A mark would be pointless." Damian finally looked straight at me. His eyes were calm and flat, without the slightest trace of guilt. I stood in the doorway and watched them touch each other as if I were not there. The bond site at the back of my neck burned as if someone were pressing a hot iron against it again and again. The pain made my eyes ache. I had stopped crying in front of him a long time ago because it never made any difference. The first time I found out he had betrayed me, I cried the entire night. The next morning, he looked at my face and said, "You look ugly when you cry." The second time, I tried to fight with him. He threw a cup and said, "If you can't stand it, leave." By the third time, then the fourth, then the fifth, I could no longer keep count. Somewhere along the way, I stopped counting and stopped crying. Every time it happened, I told myself the same lie. He would come back. He simply had not gotten the restlessness out of his system yet. As long as I waited long enough, everything would be fine. After all, I owed him that much. I leaned against the hallway wall and pulled the door shut. Then I slid slowly to the floor, my whole body burning and shivering. My fingernails had drawn blood from my palms. I sat there with my eyes closed, waiting for the wave of dizziness to pass. From the bedroom at the end of the hall, his cedarwood scent suddenly thickened. It surged like a tide, spilling beneath the c***k of the door, flooding the corridor, and pooling at my feet. His scent only ever grew that concentrated when he was aroused. It was dense, scorching, and overwhelmingly aggressive. In all seven years we had been together, he had never once let his scent grow this intense for me. I leaned against the wall with my eyes shut, wrapped in his scent like a drowning woman clutching driftwood. I knew full well that the driftwood did not belong to me. Still, I breathed him in greedily, again and again, taking in his scent even though it was tangled with someone else's.