Chapter 318

River:
The steam curled lazily over the surface of the pool, blurring the edges of her frame but never enough to dull the effect she had on me.
Every little movement, every shift in her breathing, the way her fingers were fidgeting beneath the water… it was impossible for me not to notice. My senses were too sharp, my focus too precise when it came to her.
She was nervous. That much was obvious. The stiffness in her shoulders, the way her eyes kept darting between me and some safe point on the wall, the way her breaths came faster than they should for someone just standing waist-deep in warm water. She wanted to run. Hide. Retreat into the sanctuary of her room where she thought I couldn’t reach her… or, at least, wouldn’t try to reach her.
And yet, beneath that anxiety, there was something else. A current of anticipation.
Excitement.
If not for that – if not for the faint but undeniable spark of desire beneath her unease – I would have let her go. I would have abandoned the plan to draw her closer tonight, to show her the kind of bond we could share if she let me in.
But she wanted this. Even if she hadn’t realized it yet.
The silence stretched between us, heavy but not suffocating. I found myself caught in it, lost in the sight of her.
Stars, she was beautiful.
Not just now, glowing with health, her skin luminous, her body softening and filling with life in ways that made my chest ache with primal satisfaction. No, I remembered the very first moment I saw her – dragged into the dungeon, dirty, malnourished, trembling. She should have been forgettable in that state, and yet… she hadn’t been.
I remembered stepping into that corridor, the dim torch flickering against damp stone wall, and seeing her for the first time. My breath had stalled in my lungs. Even pale and weak, hair tangled, eyes hollow from hunger and fear – she had stood out.
There had been something about her presence that drew my gaze, something I couldn’t explain. I had told myself later it was nothing. But deep down, I knew the truth.
I had never been spellbound by a woman before Evaline Greystone.
And since that day, she had only grown more beautiful.
My gaze slipped lower before I could stop it. The water reached her waist, but her shirt… damn it. The thin white fabric clung to her like a second skin, transparent now, leaving very little to my imagination.
The dark green bikini underneath was outlining her curves perfectly – breasts fuller, waist softening slightly with the swell of her stomach. My throat went dry, heat coiling low in my body, sharp and unwelcome.
I tore my gaze away before she could catch me, clenching my jaw tight. Stars, I should have brought wine down here if I was going to survive this. She probably thought I was torturing her by dragging her into this pool. She couldn’t know… I was the one being tortured.
I forced my focus back to the water, tried to steady the wild beat of my heart.
Then her voice cut softly through the steam.
I’m sorry.”
My head snapped toward her. She wasn’t looking at me, her gaze cast downward, her voice so small I almost thought I imagined it.
“Sorry?” I asked, confusion breaking through my restraint.
Slowly, she lifted her eyes to mine. The sight hit me like a blade. They were wide, vulnerable, threaded with something fragile I rarely saw from her these days. She sighed, the sound shaky, almost weighed down.
“I have been wanting to say this for a while,” she whispered. “But I never knew how to start. So… I’ll just say it. I’m sorry. For what I said that night. When the bond came alive.”
My chest tightened.
Even before she spoke the words, I knew what was coming. And when she said it… the pain came roaring back as if the wound had never dulled.
“That I would reject you.”
Rejection. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ.net
The word alone was enough to make my wolf stir in anguish, a low groan echoing in the depths of me. That evening, when she had said it so effortlessly, as if it were the most natural choice… her voice haunted me still. My body remembered the tearing sensation of that single thought – the woman the Fate and Moon Goddess chose for me wanted no part of me.
My face must have betrayed the rawness of it, because she instantly moved closer. The water rippled around her as she stopped in front of me. Her hand lifted, reaching for me… but she hesitated halfway and then her hand fell back uselessly into the pool.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice breaking just enough to scrape against my defenses. “I never should have said that. I know how much it hurts. I She swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
Her words tumbled out fast, unpolished, her usual composure gone. She was truly nervous, truly desperate for me to understand.
“I was scared that night. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. And the first thought in my head was something so stupid I can’t believe I said it out loud.”
Finally, her eyes locked with mine. Wide, pleading, begging me to believe her.
And then she said the words that knocked the air clean out of me.
“No matter what… I would have never rejected you. If you had refused, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I was confused, afraid, stupid… but I would never have made that choice on my own.”
Something inside me shifted.
The pain that had lived under my skin since that night, and her confession… helped the gnawing, burning ache to ease. Diminish. My wolf had been restless for weeks, but it too quieted instantly.
She meant it. I could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes.
For so long, I had carried that moment like a stone in my chest. But here she was, washing it away with her truth.
The tension in my jaw loosened. The tight grip I had on myself eased, and for the first time since she uttered that cursed word, I let myself believe.
Believe that she didn’t want to leave.
Believe that maybe… just maybe… she wanted me too.