Page 89 of Bound

And she’d nod, and try to decide why it all irked her so much, and then at night, when he was in her bed with his arm about her, she’d feel the prickle of tears in her eyes at the unfairness of it all.

He was waiting for her, he said. To get to know him a little, before they consummated the bond. Wasn’t that kind of him? But he’d inched closer every night, and he’d started to touch her a little. Perhaps to see how she responded. Her hip. Her breast.

His fingers in her hair.

Then there was the night he kissed her. Pulled her beneath him and placed his hands on her face and his mouth moved gently at first. Harder after.

Did she know how hard it was to wait for her to want him back? That maybe he could awaken her side of the bond if he pushed just a little. His hand pushed beneath her shift, and her body didn’t feel like hers any longer. It was a stiff, frozen thing that didn’t like his touches but didn’t know how to reject them. Reject him.

A mate wouldn’t do that, would they? They’d want it. Be soft and yielding, and like when his tongue pushed into her mouth just a bit, would like the way he groaned against her ear.

But she didn’t.

Her mother had told her about this. About being used, and how different it was when the wanting was mutual.

She felt used.

And when he took her, it hurt.

Maybe it hurt him as well with the way his face twisted. She didn’t know.

The pain wasn’t welcome. It was enough to push through the nothingness she felt, but that only left her all the more raw when he’d finished. When he kissed her shoulder, her neck, and whispered how well she’d done, and did she know him yet?

She’d shoved away from him.

Ignored his enquiries. Maybe blurted something about the privy, but she couldn’t be sure.

She didn’t go there, in any case. Went out to the pump, and the water was cold. The wind was cold too. She rubbed between her legs and anywhere he’d kissed her, swirling water in her mouth before spitting it out into the grasses at her feet.

Better alone than this.

He followed. Watched her from the doorway, his mouth an angry twist—obviously insulted by her reaction.

“I want you to go,” she managed, her voice not as firm as she wanted, but her resolve growing as she regarded him. His posture as if he belonged there, his shoulder against the jamb, as if it was common to see a woman—a mate—washing herself free from him after being used.

“Wren,” he sighed, shaking his head as if she was being ridiculous and he was patient and kindly with her. “This is all a bit dramatic, don’t you think? You’re fine. I was gentle.”

Gentle, was he? When she felt bruised and sore, and he got to tell her how she felt.

She laughed. Which likely only let him think she was gripped by madness rather than reason, but she did not care. Let him think her selfish and horrid for rejecting her mate. She did not care.

Not anymore.

“Get out,” she pointed toward the skies, not caring in the least which way was correct. “You have no business here. Not with me. Not anymore.”

He scowled. And at first she thought he meant to argue, and it took everything in her not to shrink back at his approach. “You’re a half-blood whore and no mate of mine. I thought it would be fun to taste you and now I have, I can safely say it was not worth the effort.”

He reached for her, perhaps to pull her close, perhaps to have her again, and she allowed neither. She struck him.

Hard.

Her hand stung and his face grew taut with rage, and she turned toward the house and tried to run, tried to make it before he could gather his wits.

But he grabbed her wing.

And pulled.

And it hurt.