Chapter 15

At first, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t respond. I’d spent the last few weeks, obsessing over this woman, driving myself mad with thoughts of her, wanting to please her, and honor her, and learn more about her, and just live my life for nothing but her. But now… Now I stared down at the stranger she still was, numb with shock. There was nothing. All that hopeless longing, the blind devotion, the unbreakable bond I’d felt for her… It was gone.

Maybe I should’ve felt free.

Except I didn’t.

I wanted it back. I wanted to feel as if I belonged to my mate—my one true love—once again. I wanted her in my blood, in my soul, in the very air I breathed.

Besides… I glanced toward the crib where the newborn was squalling again, filling its lungs with fear as it demanded to be returned to its mother.

Had I cried like that when I’d been born and my mother lay dead a few feet away? I’d never gotten to know the woman who’d borne me; Vienne would not want the same fate for her child.

Soren shoved past