Damon’s POV
Three days after Aria left, the pain still hadn't faded.
I'd stopped telling Ethan I was fine. He'd stopped asking, mostly because he could see for himself that whatever this was, it wasn't going away on its own. It came in waves now — sharp behind my ribs, worse at night, worse whenever I let myself think too long about a girl with dirt under her nails who'd looked at me like I was the answer to something before I'd ruined it.
"You need to see the healer," Ethan said, watching me grip the edge of my desk through another wave of it. "This isn't normal, Damon. Rejected mates suffer. Not the one who did the rejecting."
"I'm aware," I said, tighter than I meant to.
"Then maybe you weren't supposed to reject her."
I didn't have an answer for that. I'd told myself a dozen tim
