Page 71 of Before the Bond
What I felt had been building since the morning I found him face-down in my backyard. I felt it when my hands were on his chest.
It prickled at me when we met at the doorway.
And from there, it grew from firelit evenings, discussions about Jake, shared pain after he rescued me from wolves.
When he kissed me, he kissed me like a man who'd been holding something back for years and had finally, finally let himself stop. That was real, too — I'd felt it.
But reading a feeling and understanding its source were different things. I knew that the body produced real sensation for complicated reasons. Grief felt like a weight in the chest. Adrenaline felt like love. Biology didn't wait for context.
The Ashwood gate came into view and I slowed to a walk, breathing through it. There was a version of this that was fine. The bond wasn't something he'd chosen for me, but it wasn't something he'd chosen for himself either.
We were both in it without having asked to be, without having been consulted, without any say in the matter at all. That could be okay.
The word “love” stayed.
I didn’t know how much I liked that.
However, Caleb was different when I saw him again.
He was in the kitchen when I came in, standing at the counter with a coffee cup, reading something on his phone. His hair was still damp like he'd showered not long ago. He looked up when he heard me.
"Good run?"
"Yep.”
My chest tightened at my own shortness.
Caleb set the phone down. I moved over to make my own cup of coffee.
Normally, Caleb would join me at the table the moment I did. Instead, he finished his at the counter, and put it down.
"I'll be in the study," he said. It didn’t seem addressed to anyone in particular.
My mood soured more than I wanted it to.
I wanted to chalk it up to a bad day. But I'd noticed it starting a few days ago. Just like before the night I was attacked, Caleb was pulling away.
I told myself it was nothing.
I drank my coffee and went to check on Jake.
The oddities piled up.
Over the course of the week, Caleb was on his phone more. He would shut himself in his study when he wasn’t doing patrols.
Donovan took turns with him in exiting rooms, going outside, and closing doors no one was allowed to open.
I tried to distract myself with helping Jake, but even he didn’t need my attention that much. Instead, he began going to the library to read about things.
He still did me the courtesy of getting his vitals checked, and we still had lunch together. But there were no more garden walks, and no more evening readings.
I think what truly bothered me was that it wasn't a development. It was a regression.
This was exactly how I felt before all the secrets peeled back.
I didn’t know what it meant.
Was there just a busy season?
