Page 78 of Awakened

I shrug. “Just humor me for a second.”

He laughs, but the sound is forced. Like he’s doing me a favor, he shrugs. “Alright, sure.”

At some point over the last few minutes, we’ve both crept closer, erasing the distance between us. Now we’re face to face, separated only by the cold iron bars of our prison.

I reach out and wrap my left hand around the metal bars between us, tattooed fingers curling around the iron. My grip tightens, my forearm muscles flexing with the movement.

“What if Caelan wakes up tomorrow? What happens if he wakes up, and you run to his bedside, sure you’re about to discover the truth once and for all, but what you discover… is that Idril’s been telling the truth this whole time?”

He blinks.

“Tell me what happens when you walk into Caelan’s hospital room and, rather than being overjoyed to see you, he’s frantic, demanding to know where Idril is. Demanding to know why she’s not with him.”

His face pales, draining of color.

“Tell me, Daxen. Tell me what you’re going to do when he looks in your eyes and tells you he wants you to find Idril and bring her to him—because she’s his Fated fucking Mate.”

Each point compounds the last, pushing him from wariness to fear to anger.

He clenches his jaw, grinding his teeth so hard a muscle ticks along his jawline like a heartbeat. “Then I guess I’m fucked.”

My Beast chuffs, enjoying this even more than I am. I wait, letting the silence stretch into awkwardness.

Like he just can’t help himself, he adds, “But that’s not going to happen.”

His grimace tells me he knows he just fell for a technique he’s probably deployed himself a thousand times before, which makes this all the more satisfying.

“You seem quite sure of that.”

“I am.”

I lift my right hand, wrapping my fingers around the bars in a mirror of my left, framing Daxen’s face between them. I lean in until I’m close enough to see the pores on his face.

“How sure? Sure enough to stake your relationship with Caelan?” I whisper, squeezing the thick metal bars in my fists. “Sure enough to stake your future on it?”

His eyes flit back and forth, searching my own for something he’s never going to find.

“Of—of course. Of course I am. What kind of question even is that?”

“Why are you so sure?”

I squeeze the iron bars harder, imagining it’s Daxen’s throat.

Come on… You’re right there. Say it, you pretentious shit.

His breathing grows faster. His hands fly up to the bars, and he grips the cold iron with fists mere inches below my own.

“Why?”

“Because—I told you already!”

“Tell me again.”

“Fates!” His fingers flex, tightening around the metal like he’s hanging onto the edge of a cliff. “A human cannot Mate with two different Species,” he shouts. “It’s—It’s fucking impossible. Humans can’t Mate with both a vampire and wolven. It’s irrefutable. Definitive. Proven time and time again by the Scientific community, the medical community, a dozen Fatesdamned Historians. Even the Pope agrees! Humans cannot be Fated to both!”

There it is. His line in the sand. The foundation he’s built everything on—including his opinion of my Mate.

I don’t speak. Don’t move. Daxen’s so worked up he’s panting. He curls his fingers into a fist, and he lifts it to his chest, pressing it against his sternum.