Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 164

Chapter 164

Nicolai

My new wife is keeping something from me.

That’s the thing about a mate bond-it doesn’t just connect you to a person, it makes you attuned to them in ways. that don’t require words. So when Skye came back across the garden after talking to Jaxon, I could ten something about her was different than before she left.

Not different in the visible way. Not in her expression or her posture or anything a guest would notice. She came back smiling, came back to me, tucked herself against my side and stayed there for the rest of the reception.

But she was carrying something. I felt it the way I feel something is true that I’d rather not be true-clearly, immediately, without the ability to dismiss it no matter how much I’d like to.

I’ve been holding that knowledge through the rest of the reception, through putting Benji to bed together, through the long winding down of our mating day.

I am I will be honest with myself-barely holding it together.

We’re finally alone together in our room and all I can think about is whether or not she will finally tell me what happened or if she’ll continue pretending, futilely, that nothing is wrong. Which is not how I imagined this night going.

Then, before I work up the courage to ask for an answer I’m not sure I want, she offers it anyway. She’s direct about it, because she’s always direct with me, which is one of the things I love most about her and is tonight a thing I receive like a blow delivered cleanly.

A bond snapped into place. With Jaxon. A new bond-not the old one, something different, but there and real and present. She doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know why. She needs me to know before anything else.

I listen. Don’t interrupt. Just try to focus over the whirring in my brain that sounds like a helicopter taking off.

When she finishes, I say flatly: “The bond you just broke. Formed again.”

I don’t say this for her benefit but for mine. Because my brain helpfully supplies that if I don’t say it aloud then it isn’t real. And it’s clearly real for her so it must be real for me too.

“Yes.” She responds quietly, a small, bewildered word like she still can’t believe it herself.

“On our mating day.” I continue as if she hadn’t spoken. Because a sense of disbelief in this whole absurd situation is something we both share.

“I know how that sounds.” She twists her hands together and stares at the floor. Her shame and guilt hits me through the bond.

“Tell me anyway,” I demand, sharper than I intend. “Tell me exactly how it sounds.”

She looks at me-searching, the way she does when she’s deciding how honest to be, always landing on entirely honest, which is why I trust her.

“It sounds like the universe is cruel and has terrible timing. It sounds like something that shouldn’t have happened at all, but did, and chose the worst possible moment to happen.” She holds my gaze. “And it sounds like I’m sitting in our room on our mating night telling you that I’have two mate bonds instead of celebrating by spending the night in each other’s arms. And I know what that means and I don’t know what it means and I—” She rambles. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for the timing. Sorry that it happened at all”

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“Don’t apologize,” I tell her. “I know you didn’t choose this.”

No, I didn’t. I swear to you, Nicolai, I didn’t.” She all but begs me to believe her.

I want to pull her into my arms, to comfort her. But I hold myself back. Because if I allow myself the comfort of her pressed against me, warm and soft, I’ll break. And I can’t break. Not yet.

“You told me immediately. Or at least as soon as you felt you could given our surroundings when it happened. Thank you for that.”

“Of course.” She nods, a barely there movement.

I look at my mate-my wife, newly marked, wearing my bite on her neck and hers on mine-and I let myself feel what I’m feeling rather than organizing it.

“I’m going to tell you what I’m feeling,” I preface. “And I need you to let me feel it without trying to fix it.”/

She nods again. “Okay.”

“I’m angry.” The word comes out more controlled than the feeling is. “Not at you. At the situation. At the fact that today-of all days-” I stop. Take a breath. “I planned today. I thought about today for months. The vows, the garden, the ring, all of it. I was very precise about what today was going to be.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “It was beautiful. That much is still true.”

“It was, exactly as I planned. Everything that mattered happened. You’re my mate. That’s real.” I look at her. “But there’s also this. And I’m-“I don’t have the next word immediately. “I’m angry that I have to process this today. I’m angry that today isn’t simply what it was.”

“That’s fair,” she says. “You’re allowed to be angry.”

“I’m also scared.” The admission costs something. “Which is less comfortable.”

“Scared of what?” She asks, a hint of surprise in her tone.

I think about how to say it properly. “That I’ve been telling you I chose you before the bond. That I chose you freely, without obligation. And now you have a bond with someone else, and I don’t know-“I stop. “I don’t know if what I chose is still the thing that’s available.”

Skye is very still. I can feel the effect my words have on her through the bond… shock, pain. But she deserves my honesty too.

“What does that mean?” Her voice is small. Too small. And I hate it.

“It means I don’t know what this changes. And not knowing is-“I have to force myself to admit the rest. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“For what it’s worth,” she offers carefully, “I’m wearing your mark. I said vows. I chose you today in front of everyone who matters. That happened. Whatever else is also true-that happened. And I wouldn;t change any of it.

“I know,” And I do know. But knowing doesn’t fully reach the scared part yet.

“I need the night,” I tell her. “Not to shut you out. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not asking you to. I just need- ” I find her hand. “I need to hold this for a few hours before I know what to do with it.”

“Okay,” she whispers and starts to pull away.

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I don’t let her. I pull her close instead. Hold her, because she’s my mate and it’s our mating night and that is still Completely, categorically true, and I won’t make her feel like what she told me broke something it didn’t break.

But the quality of the holding is different from what it would have been. She knows that. I feel it in the way her whole body tenses instead of inelting into me the way she usually does.

We lie in the dark and neither of us sleeps immediately, both of us scared of what tomorrow will bring. Neither of- us has the answer…

And we don’t pretend to.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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