Page 60 of The Hidden Guardian

His strong arm picks me up and carries me away from the corpse. I still glare at Lupe as curious pack members start to crowd the body and block my line of vision.

“Why did you take me away?”

“You were being insubordinate.”He huffs.

“So … she deserves it.”

“Disrespect is a punishable offense.”

“Punishable.” I scoff. “When she’s practically assisting suicide.”

“Punishable by death,”he finishes as we arrive at our door with the half moon and sun etched into it. He pauses, placing me on my feet, keeping a hand on my back, and watches me quietly.

“I’m okay,” I mutter, opening the door to the cave. We hadn’t bothered to lock it after we left in a hurry.

“Are you?”

I walk inside before spinning around. “I don’t get it, Renall. Why did she jump?”

“Soulbonded pairs are special. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime partner. There will never be another bond like this again. Even if she bonds again, no one will ever compare. There will always be a hole in her heart and memory of the love she lost in her mind.”

“But at worst, she could have found happiness again. She had options.”

He frowns. “If you’ve known soulbonded love—how do you go back to being content with mediocrity?

“With really good medication?” I shrug. “But the pack would really force her to mate again?”

“It’s what is required for the pack. We have so few Guardians. What she did was the honorable thing to honor her soul mate,”he comments.

“Honorable? You call killing yourself honorable?”

“What was the alternative?”

The alternative: to be raped after losing the love of your life and to have a future without true love. “You sound like Lupe now.” I roll my eyes, pacing away from him before coming back and grabbing his arm again. “No. The laws here are backward. She should have lived. She deserved to live to see a new dawn.”

His lips quirk into a grin on the right side.“Then maybe you should have talked to her then.”

“Maybe I should have.” I sigh. “The numbers here are only decreasing; we could use every bit of help we can get to keep this place running.”

“I see.”He smirks again.

“What?”

“You said we. It sounds like you plan on sticking around long term.”

I pause, glancing around the cave, our cave. When did that happen? When did I look forward to Winter Solstice that’s six months away? When did his stuff become our stuff? When did my things take over his dresser? I couldn’t tell you a date or a time when things changed, but somehow, they did. “I guess I could stick around for a little longer.”

“Good.”His smile is still sorrowful and doesn’t meet his eyes. Then he slips out of my hand and heads for the bathroom.

I mean, what’s a little bit longer?

ChapterThirty

RENALL

Leland stands in front of the entire clan. His yellow eyes beaming and desperate. As he growls his frustration, spit flies out between his fangs. I have felt the pain of not being able to reach my Guardian, the panic, the need. He suffered with that until she succumbed to death. I have sorrow for him, but what I see in his eyes as he lists off my previous atrocities (some of which he was a part of) is nothing short of sheer jealousy.

“Why does he get to keep his Guardian? We all know what happened to his last Guardian. Do we want the same fate to happen to this Awe-tum creature? Or should we give her to someone who deserves her? Someone who obeys the rules?”

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