Page 56 of Rejected and Regretted

For some reason, that stole my focus, despite how absurd it sounded. I stopped, heedfully staring at him, waiting for him to continue, yet not wishing to push him.

Seconds dragged like hours until he finally continued, “I…counted the days…you know.” Another brief pause. “Every…single…one…of the 365 days…until I could visit you again.”

My pulse quickened. Kea perked her ears up, her tail wagging subtly as she started connecting the dots. Could he actually mean what I thought he did?

“What are you talking about?” I pressed, never taking my eyes off him.

“I…hired a witch…to help me meet you inside your mind,” he clarified, the truth too absurd to be a lie. “I’m sorry. It was…wrong. I should’ve left you alone, but…I just…I needed to know…that you were safe.”

All I could do was blink, my heart thumping wildly as everything started to make sense.

I could never understand why I would dream about Koen every night on my birthday. When I was out of the woods, after finding my place as the Alpha of Azure Smoke, I grew to resent Koen. At first, it was hard not to think about him, but with time, he stopped crossing my mind altogether. Yet, he never missed one of my birthdays - it was the only time he would enter my thoughts.

That shouldn’t change anything. He still rejected me; he still threw me to the wolves. It shouldn’t matter to me that he felt guilty about it, or that he seemed to regret it now. But if that was the case, why was I so touched by his confession?

A few dry coughs from Koen pulled me back to reality. “Shit, I feel…I’m so tired.”

Inhaling a deep breath to organize my thoughts, I urged, “You should really sleep, Koen.” With a sigh, I prepared myself to continue what I had been doing. “I’ll finish tending to your wound, then I’ll leave.”

Suddenly, his voice grew desperate. “Don’t…don’t go,” he pleaded weakly. “Stay…with me.” It seemed to be an arduous task for him to lift his heavy eyelids just slightly, yet he still put in the effort, just so he could look at me. “Please, stay.”

I bit my lip, but I didn’t have the heart to deny his request.

“Okay.”

35

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A V R I L

After patchingKoen up as best as I could, I lay down beside him. He was already asleep, having finally succumbed to exhaustion. His chest barely moved with each shallow breath he took, but at least the pain had left his expression— it seemed the painkillers I managed to convince him to take had kicked in. I expected it would be hard for me to drift off, focused on monitoring his fever. Yet, the stress of the situation eventually overcame me.

When I woke up the next morning, I found myself entangled in the arms of Koen, who was still passed out. My head rested on his bare chest, my face closer to his skin than it had ever been. Little by little, it dawned on me that we had just spent the night together.In the same bed.

Normally, the situation would have freaked me out. Indeed, my heart was beating fast, but the nerve-twitching fear I usually felt whenever I was too close to him didn’t scream as loud. On the other side, the tranquility that enveloped me as I lingered in his warm embrace, a sensation I always eagerly fought, was too compelling to resist. Inside my head, Kea purred peacefully, though I couldn’t say her reaction was surprising.

How did we end up like this?The question echoed in my mind, but it was little more than background noise against themore pressing concerns that filled my thoughts. Remembering how hot Koen had been before he fell asleep last night, I shifted carefully in his arms, cautious not to wake him. I loosened his grip on me just enough to brush my hand against his forehead. A wave of relief washed over me when I felt that his fever had broken.

Perhaps I would have finally started panicking once my concerns began to fade, but there was no time. As soon as I removed my head from the injured alpha’s forehead, I realized that his eyelids were twitching. Slowly, he opened his heavy eyes, making me stiffen. With every blink, his grogginess dissipated, allowing shock to settle in.

With my ear against his chest, I could hear his heart soaring as he muttered in disbelief, “You’re still here.”

A chill ran down my spine. Once he was awake, it finally dawned on me that we were too close to each other; much closer than we should have been. And I couldn’t afford to let him see how comfortable I felt in that situation, especially when I hadn’t been able to figure it out myself.

Abruptly, I pulled away from him, sitting up on the bed. “Of course I am.” I looked away, afraid the emotion in my eyes would give me away, and crossed my arms. “You begged me to stay, and you’re injured. I couldn’t say no.”

Suddenly, I felt his warmth again, and a jolt of electricity rushed through me as he placed his hand on mine. “Thank you.”

The deep gratitude in his voice was enough to pull my attention back to him. I found myself hypnotized by the vulnerability in his emerald eyes, something I couldn’t say I witnessed often from him. Like any alpha, Koen tended to keep his emotions concealed, especially when there were others around us. But he was never scared of showing me all of his weaknesses, and it didn’t strike me as pathetic, as I expected itto. It touched me, teaching me that there was beauty in letting your walls come down.

I just wasn’t ready to do the same yet.

Withdrawing my hand, I changed the subject. “You’re not feverish anymore, but I doubt that wound is anywhere near healed.” As I rolled out of bed, I added, “Let me change the bandages so you can go see the Elder.”

“We,” he corrected, making me halt. When I glanced at him over my shoulder, I could swear he was trying to hold back a smile as he clarified, “I’m afraid I’m still too weak to walk to his office by myself. What if I trip in front of the other alphas? A fall could also cause my wound to open again.”

Huh. I bit the inside of my cheek, narrowing my eyes in an attempt to see through him. It was almost like he was enjoying being weakened.

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