Page 71 of Eclipse Sector
“It’s a response to your question, Ivana.”
“It’s a deflection,” I retorted. “You’re making decisions on my behalf, and I don’t appreciate it.”
“I’m making a decision for both of us. I won’t mate you or anyone else. And nothing you say will ever change my mind.”
He turned to leave, causing me to gape at his back. “You’re a coward,” I realized out loud.
Cillian froze. “What did you just say to me?” His voice was deathly quiet, the shower nearly making him inaudible.
“You’re a coward,” I repeated. Because there was something he wasn’t telling me. A reason he refused to give. “I would understand being second to Kieran. You know I would. Yet youwon’t even give us a chance. Because we might actually work. And that terrifies you.”
I had no ideawhyit scared him, but it did. I was certain of it.
“It’s either that or you’re lying to me about everything in some ridiculous attempt to make me feel better. But I don’t think that’s it at all. My wolf has wanted you since the moment you took us back to your lair. And for six long years, I was certain you felt the same way. Until I heard you talking to Lorcan…”
I trailed off on a wince, the memory one that was still too raw for me to ignore.
However, everything he’d said to me tonight… it suggested my instincts were right. That Cilliandidfancy me. He just didn’t want to like me.
Because he feels he’s unworthy of me.
Because he thinks I deserve better.
Because he’s decided that we can’t be together.
“Coward,” I breathed once more, my gaze dropping to watch the water swirl down the drain. “I… I never realized that about you until now.”
It… it changed things.
If Cillian was too afraid to fight for me—to fight forus—then maybe… maybe he’d been right from the beginning.Maybe we shouldn’t be together.
“Say that one more time, Omega,” Cillian said, a strange note in his tone. “I dare you.”
“You’re a coward,” I repeated without bothering to look at him.
What’s the point?I marveled, feeling defeated all over again.If he’s not going to try, not even going toconsiderbeing with me, then?—
Cold tile met my shoulder blades as a hard, masculine form pressed into my front. I gasped as his fingers tangled with myhair to yank my head back, his molten irises capturing mine. “That’s a very dangerous thing to say to an Alpha, Ivana.”
I stared back at him, feeling nothing inside just like I had when I’d first stepped into this shower. “Dangerous, perhaps. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
He growled. “Do you think I enjoy watching you with other Alphas, Ivana? Because I don’t. Not one fucking bit. But I’m willing to suffer if it means you’ll inevitably be happier. There’s nothingcowardlyabout my sacrifice.”
“Who are you trying to convince here, Cillian?” I wondered aloud. “Me or you?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CILLIAN
Ivana’s ability tochallenge me drove me mad in the best and worst ways.
“You’re a coward.”
Those three words haunted me. I’d witnessed the sudden understanding in her features as she’d voiced that statement. She hadn’t meant the proclamation to be cruel; she’d simply been vocalizing a realization.
And it was a realization I did not like.
Not one fucking bit.
