His Regret: I Am Not Your Mate

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Flora's POV

I was kneeling beside a warrior named Corin, working through his shaking with the same steady hands I used for everyone, when something in him snapped wrong.

One second he was calming under my touch, his breathing evening out the way it always did. The next, his hand shot out and struck me across the face before I even saw it coming, hard enough that I went sprawling into the dirt, my ears ringing.

I heard shouting. Boots pounding against packed earth. Then a snarl, low and furious, and Corin was wrenched backward so fast I barely registered what happened until I looked up and saw Eric holding him pinned against a support post, forearm braced hard across his chest.

"Stand down," Eric barked, his voice a blade edge. "Now."

Corin went limp, blinking like he'd just woken from somewhere far away, horror creeping into his face as he realized what he'd done. That happened sometimes, in the deepest part of an attack. A warrior's wolf clawed too close to the surface and lashed out at whatever was nearest, no matter how gentle that thing had been trying to help.

Eric shoved him toward two other soldiers to be escorted off, then turned and knelt in front of me, his eyes scanning my face with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

"You're bleeding," he said, reaching toward my jaw.

I pulled back before his hand landed. My cheek throbbed where Corin's knuckles had caught me, and my pride throbbed just as hard from being caught on the ground in front of half the camp.

"I'm fine," I said, pushing myself up without his help, brushing dirt off my knees.

"Flora—"

"Thank you," I said, and the words came out flat, clipped, nothing like gratitude at all. "For pulling him off me."

He frowned at the tone, like he'd expected something warmer and didn't understand why he wasn't getting it. Maybe a few weeks ago I would have been grateful enough to let that show. But I hadn't forgotten last night, the way he'd sat there refusing to give me a single true thing about himself, refusing to trust me with whatever was eating him alive, even after I'd held him together with my own hands while he fell apart.

If he still couldn't trust me with the truth, then he still saw me the way he'd always seen me. Useful, maybe. Necessary, apparently. But not someone worth his honesty. Not someone worth respecting all the way down.

I picked up my satchel and turned to leave before he could say anything else.

That was when Aiden jogged over, slightly out of breath.

"Eric," he said. "We've got a rogue problem building at the southern border. I need you leading a group out at first light." He glanced at me, then back at Eric. "You want to bring Flora along? In case anyone flares up out there."

Eric hesitated. I watched it happen, watched the war behind his eyes, some old instinct telling him a Soother in the field was still somehow beneath him, and something else, newer, maybe from the last few days, telling him otherwise.

"...Fine," he said finally, like the word cost him something. "Bring her."

I didn't wait to hear anything more. I walked off toward the healers' quarters, my jaw aching, my chest tighter than the bruise on my face had any right to explain.

Aiden caught up with me a few minutes later, jogging to match my pace.

"Flora," he said. "I need you out at the border tomorrow. With Eric's group."

"No," I said, not slowing down.

He blinked, clearly not expecting that. "Flora, we need a Soother out there. You saw what almost happened to Eric last time. If it happens again, out past the border, with no one to—"

"Then send Daisy," I said. "Or find someone else."

"You know Eric trusts you more than anyone else at this point," Aiden said, and something about the way he said it made my chest ache in a way I didn't want to examine. "He let you see him at his worst. That matters."

"He hasn't let me see anything," I snapped, stopping finally and turning to face him. "He let me hold him together while he shook apart, and then when I asked him one simple thing, when I asked him to trust me enough to tell me what happened out there, he shut me out completely. He still thinks less of what I do. He proved that again just now, standing there deciding whether or not I was even worth bringing along, like I hadn't already saved his life once."

Aiden's expression softened, something sympathetic in it that made me want to look away. "He's not good at this," he said quietly. "Trusting people. Showing anyone anything real. I've known him since we were pups, and I've never seen him let his guard down for anyone, not once, not even for me half the time."

"That's not my problem to fix," I said, though the words felt hollow even as I said them.

"Flora." Aiden's voice gentled further. "I'm not asking you to fix him. I'm asking you to keep him alive. If something happens out there and there's no one to pull him back, I don't know what we lose. Not just as a pack. I mean him. I've been worried about him for days."

I stood there a long moment, my jaw tight, my cheek still throbbing, my pride still smarting from the way Eric had hesitated over whether I was worth bringing along at all.

"I said no," I told him, quieter this time, though something in my chest twisted at the sound of my own refusal. "Find someone else, Aiden."

He looked at me like he wanted to argue further, but something in my face must have told him it wouldn't do any good tonight. He nodded once, slowly, and turned to walk away.

I stood there in the fading light, pressing my fingers gently against the bruise on my cheek, and told myself the ache in my chest was only that. Only the bruise. Nothing more complicated than a simple, ordinary hurt.

I didn't believe it. Not even a little. But I let myself pretend, just for tonight, that I did.