His Regret: I Am Not Your Mate

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Eric's POV

My wounds closed up faster than they should have, mostly thanks to Flora's steady visits every evening, checking the stitches, reapplying salve, muttering under her breath about warriors who never gave their bodies time to heal properly. I didn't mind the scolding. I'd started looking forward to it, if I was honest with myself, which I was trying to be more often these days.

A few days after the ambush, she came to do the routine deep comfort session she'd been doing since the cave, the one meant to keep whatever lingered of my panic from creeping back in. I lay back on the cot inside my tent while she settled beside me, her hands finding my arm the way they always did now, familiar, steady.

I let myself relax completely into it this time. No walls up. No pride standing guard. Just her hands on my skin and her low hum filling the space around us, and my whole body sinking into a kind of ease I hadn't let myself feel in longer than I could remember.

That was when it happened.

Something shifted low in my chest, a pull, sudden and unmistakable, like a string I never knew existed had just been plucked taut between us. Warmth spread out from where her hand rested on my arm, spreading up through my shoulder, down into my gut, settling somewhere deep and certain.

Mate.

I went rigid. My eyes flew open and I stared at her, at her face bent in concentration over my arm, humming that same soft tune, completely unaware of what had just detonated inside me.

"Flora."

She glanced up, her humming trailing off. "What. Did something hurt?"

"You're my mate."

The words came out rough, stunned, like I couldn't quite believe I was the one saying them. I searched her face for the same shock I felt roaring through my own chest, waiting for her eyes to widen, for her hands to still in surprise.

Instead she just looked at me, calm, almost tired.

"I know," she said.

I blinked. "You know."

"I've known for months." She said it so plainly, so evenly, like she was telling me the weather instead of the single most significant thing that had ever happened between two people. "Since the ambush at the supply lines. When you pulled me out."

My mind reeled backward, three months of memory rearranging itself all at once. The ambush. Her arm under my hand. I remembered grabbing her, dragging her clear of the fighting, snapping at her to get back to camp before she got someone killed. I'd been mid-battle, blood roaring, wolf too close to the surface to notice anything beyond the fight in front of me.

She'd felt it then. And she'd said nothing. For three months.

"Why didn't you tell me," I said, something in my chest twisting tight, equal parts hurt and disbelief. "Flora, this is—this is everything. Why would you keep that from me?"

She set my arm down gently and sat back, folding her hands in her lap, her expression something careful and closed off, guarded in a way that made my stomach drop even before she started speaking.

"Because it doesn't mean what it used to," she said. "The Goddess is fading, Eric. You know that better than anyone, seeing what's happened to warriors without her strength keeping them steady. The bond isn't what it was in the old stories anymore. It doesn't guarantee love. It doesn't mean two people are meant for each other, not really. All it does now is create a strong pull. Attraction. Chemistry, nothing more."

"That's not nothing," I said.

"It's not everything either," she said, steady, though something in her voice wavered just slightly at the edges, something I might have missed if I hadn't been listening as closely as I was. "Wolves live like humans now, mostly. We choose. We date. We build things on purpose instead of leaving it up to some thread the Goddess barely has the strength to spin anymore." She met my eyes directly. "If you don't want this, Eric, you can reject it. Just because the bond exists doesn't mean you're obligated to anything. I never expected you to want it in the first place."

I stared at her, my chest a strange, chaotic mess of feelings I didn't know how to sort through fast enough. Somewhere underneath the shock, joy had started rising, bright and sudden, the realization that this woman, sharp-tongued and fierce and utterly unwilling to let me get away with anything, was mine in a way the Goddess herself had marked. I felt almost giddy with it, off balance in a way battle never left me.

Then her words caught up with the feeling and doused it cold.

If you don't want this, you can reject it.

Like she was already bracing for that. Like some part of her expected exactly that from me, had expected it for three months, apparently, long enough to decide it wasn't even worth mentioning.

"You thought I'd reject you," I said slowly, understanding landing heavy in my gut. "That's why you didn't say anything. You thought I'd hear this and turn you away."

She didn't answer right away, which was answer enough.

"You called me useless," she said finally, quiet, not unkind exactly, just honest in a way that hurt more than anger would have. "More than once. You mocked my work, my gift, everything I am. Why would I hand you something like this, knowing that's how you saw me? Why would I give you one more thing to throw back in my face?"

The joy I'd felt a moment ago sat curdled in my chest now, replaced by something closer to shame, sharp and immediate. Every cruel word I'd ever thrown at her rose up at once, every sneer, every dismissal, and I understood, all at once, exactly what I'd cost myself these past months without even realizing what I was losing.

"Flora," I started, not entirely sure what I meant to say next, only that I needed her to understand something had changed, that I wasn't the man who'd said those things anymore, or at least that I didn't want to be.

But she was already standing, already gathering her satchel, her face smoothing back into that careful, guarded calm she wore like armor.

"You should rest," she said. "Your wounds are healing well."

And then she was gone, leaving me sitting there alone with the mate bond humming warm and unwanted-feeling under my skin, and the terrible, sinking knowledge that I might have already ruined this before I'd even known it existed.