"No, I know for a fact, because I can feel the mating bond," Xander’s voice cracked through the silence of the warehouse aisle, dripping with a raw, bleeding agony that made my chest physically ache. "And she cannot!"
The second those words left his mouth, the oxygen was violently sucked from my lungs. My breath hitched, trapping a sharp gasp behind my teeth.
Oh, my Goddess. Xander… Xander had a fated mate.
My mind spun into a chaotic, dizzying freefall, hammering me with a barrage of questions, hypotheses, and blinding doubts. How long had he known – how did he even feel about it? How had he managed to carry such a devastating weight completely alone while maintaining the strong, unyielding facade of an Alpha? Suddenly, his absolute, unapologetic refusal to even look at the list of hig
