DAPHNE.
I was hyperaware of Rovian sitting in the passenger seat.
Every single movement he made registered in my brain without my permission.
The way he shifted his weight when we hit a pothole in the road, the way his fingers drummed against his thigh when he was thinking about something, the way he turned his head to look out the window at the passing landscape.
The mate bond made me notice absolutely everything about him.
His scent filled the enclosed space we were sharing. Something darkly masculine that made my wolf practically purr with satisfaction every single time I breathed in.
I hated it.
I hated that I noticed him at all. I hated that my body was reacting to his presence like this was something good instead of something I desperately wanted to escape from.
I hated the way my heart rate picked up speed whenever he spoke to give orders to his soldiers traveling alongside us.
I hated all of it with every fiber of my being.
Mira was sitting beside me. She kept shooting me concerned looks every few minutes like she could tell exactly how much this proximity was affecting me.
I stared out the window instead and tried to ignore everything else around me.
Hours passed like this. The landscape changed gradually from dense forest to open plains stretching out for miles. The sun climbed higher in the sky above us as morning turned to afternoon.
Finally we stopped near a stream to rest and water the horses they'd brought along with us.
I climbed out the second we stopped moving.
I needed air desperately.
I needed space.
I needed to not be trapped in a small enclosed area with him for even one more minute.
I walked toward the stream and crouched down by the water's edge. The sound of it rushing over smooth rocks was soothing in a way nothing else had been all morning long.
I splashed some of the cold water on my face, letting it run down my neck and soak into the collar of my dress.
Footsteps approached from behind me.
I knew it was him before he even opened his mouth to speak.
The mate bond told me exactly where he was at all times like a compass I couldn't turn off no matter what I did.
Rovian appeared beside me by the water. He was already breaking my very first boundary. The one about not coming near me without explicit permission first.
"We need to talk about the bond."
I looked up at him from where I was still crouching. He looked more bothered by something than he had yesterday when we spoke in the tent. There was visible tension in his shoulders. Worry written clearly in his eyes.
"There's nothing to talk about," I said.
"Daphne, you can feel it same as me. It's not going away no matter how much you want it to disappear."
"I can reject it. I will reject it."
"Rejecting a fated bond will kill us both." His voice was completely flat and serious. "Slowly and painfully. Over the course of months or years depending on how strong we both are physically."
I stared at him.
I hadn't known that information. I'd heard stories about mate bonds obviously over the years but nobody ever talked about what actually happened if you tried to reject one. Nobody I knew had ever attempted it before.
From his reaction to whatever he saw on my face, he could tell I hadn't known this crucial piece of information.
"The goddess doesn't give bonds that can be rejected," he continued. His voice was quieter now than before. "We're stuck with each other whether we like it or not. That's how this works."
Terror launched through my heart like an arrow hitting its target because it was likely completely true.
Mate bonds were tricky and complicated and tied to ancient beliefs I didn't fully understand.
I stood up from where I'd been crouching by the water.
I looked at him directly without flinching.
"So my options are what exactly?" My voice came out cold and dripping with sarcasm. "Accept the man who tortured me for two years, or die a slow painful death from rejecting the bond? Those are my only two choices in this situation?"
His face twisted with what looked like genuine guilt. "I know what I did to you was completely unforgivable but I need you to understand that—"
"You don't know." I cut him off sharply before he could finish whatever excuse he was about to make. "You have absolutely NO idea what you actually did to me. None whatsoever."
I stood up abruptly from the ground. My hands were shaking visibly. My chest felt too tight to breathe properly.
"Stay away from me, Rovian. I mean it this time."
Then I turned around and walked away from him as fast as I could without actually breaking into a run.
The mate bond suddenly snapped taut between us like a rubber band that had been stretched way too far.
Pain exploded through my chest without warning. It was visceral and burning hot and felt exactly like someone had just shoved a red-hot poker straight through my ribcage.
I gasped out loud and stumbled forward a step from the shock of it.
I glanced back at him over my shoulder.
He was standing completely frozen by the stream. His hand was pressed flat against his chest in the exact same spot where I was feeling the searing pain. His face had gone pale.
He felt it too.
We were connected whether we wanted to be or not. And when I had that kind of deep negativity in my heart toward him, when I said harsh things like that and meant every word, the bond reacted violently to the rejection of what it wanted.
We were completely and utterly fucked.