60 Days Before the Mate Bond Kills Me

Pride was a luxury for people who were going to live to see autumn.

By Tuesday evening, three days had burned away from my countdown. Every morning brought a heavier weight in my chest, a dull, spreading ache that felt like dry cement hardening in my lungs. I had spent eighteen months protecting my dignity, sleeping in the guest wing, and pretending his indifference didn't shred me to pieces.

Dignity was not going to stop my organs from collapsing.

At eight o'clock, I walked down the stone stairs into the subterranean bathhouse beneath the pack's training pavilion. Cassian used the private spring every night after running drills with the border patrol. It was a fixed routine, as unyielding as the man himself.

I took off my robe at the entrance and hung it on the wooden peg.

Underneath, I wore a black two-piece swimsuit with thin string ties and a cut so low it left little to the imagination. It was nothing like the modest athletic suits I usually wore around the pack. I hated how exposed I felt, but desperate times demanded desperate measures.

I pushed open the frosted glass door.

Thick, mineral-heavy steam rolled across the tiled floor, smelling of warm pine and heated cedar. Cassian was already in the deep end, resting his arms along the smooth slate ledge. His eyes were closed, his wet dark hair pushed back from his forehead, droplets clinging to the hard planes of his shoulders and broad chest.

The soft click of the door latch gave me away.

Cassian opened his eyes. His gaze landed on me, trailing from my bare shoulders down to the curve of my waist and legs. For a fraction of a second, the dark gray in his irises dilated, sharp and reactive.

Then his jaw locked, and he forced his eyes toward the far stone wall.

"The bathhouse is reserved for command staff after seven," he said, his voice flat and dismissive.

"I am the Luna," I said, keeping my voice level as I walked across the slick flagstones toward the water. "Unless you've filed the paperwork with the council to strip my title, that makes me command staff."

"You don't train."

"My joints ache," I said. "The doctor said heat helps."

"Robert seems to have an opinion on everything these days." A cynical edge cut through his tone. "I thought you only needed one very specific cure."

I didn't answer. I stepped onto the submerged stone steps, letting the hot water rise over my knees, my hips, and finally my chest. The sudden heat sent a dizzying pulse through my skull. My wolf whined inside me, fragile and starved, reaching toward his proximity like a dying plant toward sunlight.

I waded deeper, moving toward the corner ledge just a foot away from where he sat.

He didn't move away, but every line of his body went rigid. Water dripped from his chin onto his chest, tracing the faint outline of an old training scar near his collarbone. I remembered the night he got that scar five years ago—how he had let me press a warm cloth against his bleeding skin while he held my other hand against his heart.

Back then, touching each other had been as natural as breathing.

Now, the gap between us felt like a minefield.

I shifted to step onto the raised stone bench beneath the water, but my weak leg buckled. The slick film of moss on the submerged rock offered zero grip.

My foot slid out from under me.

"Ah—"

A sharp gasp tore from my throat as my balance vanished, sending me crashing forward into the deep water.

Before my head went under, strong hands caught me.

Cassian's arm clamped around my waist, his grip iron-hard and unhesitating. He yanked me upward against his chest, breaking the surface in a rush of churning water.

My hands flew to his wet shoulders for support, my fingers digging into the firm muscle. The sudden collision knocked the air from my lungs, leaving me pressed flush against him from chest to thigh.

His fingers dug into the soft curve just above my left hip—the exact spot he used to grip whenever he pulled me into his lap, a habit so deeply ingrained his body had executed it before his mind could object.

The skin-to-skin contact struck me like an electric shock.

A sharp, searing warmth flooded through my chest, waking up the deadened channels of the mate bond for a single, blinding heartbeat. My ragged pulse leaped, fluttering rapidly against his bare skin.

He felt it too. I saw it in the sudden flare of his nostrils, the harsh intake of air through his teeth.

His chest rose and fell heavily against mine. His gray eyes stared down into mine, stripped of their usual cold armor, exposing raw, turbulent confusion.

"You're shaking," he murmured, his voice rough and low.

"My wolf is starving, Cassian," I whispered, our faces so close I could feel the heat of his breath against my lips. "Still think I'm faking this? Still think I'm doing all of this just to trap you with a baby?"

His fingers tightened on my hip, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer.

He looked at my mouth. The hostility in his expression fractured, replaced by an intense, suffocating pull that neither of us could control. The steam swirled around us, closing out the rest of the world.

He lowered his head. His mouth was less than an inch from mine, his dark lashes fluttering as his eyes began to close.

For the first time in eighteen months, he was going to kiss me.

*Click.*

The heavy brass latch on the main door turned.

"Cassian? Are you still down here?"

The soft, lilting voice echoed through the cavernous room, shattering the moment like glass.

Cassian froze. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by an instant flash of guilt.

He released my waist so abruptly that I stumbled backward into the water, having to grab the stone wall to stay upright. The sudden loss of his heat made my skin feel bitterly cold despite the steaming pool.

Talia stepped out from behind the privacy screen at the top of the stone stairs.

She was wearing Cassian's charcoal-gray fleece robe. The sleeves were rolled up twice to fit her small wrists, and the hem dragged slightly on the wet floor. The scent of Cassian's cedar aftershave practically radiated off the fabric.

She stopped at the edge of the pool, her wide brown eyes blinking in apparent surprise as she looked between the two of us.

"Oh," Talia said, pressing a hand to her chest. "Elara... I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were in here. Cassian told me earlier that I could use the private pool to soak my sore ankle from physical therapy."

She smiled softly, a timid, gentle expression that made me look like an aggressive intruder in my own home.

"You don't need to apologize," Cassian said immediately. His voice was steady again, though he kept his back turned to me as he waded toward the shallow steps. "We were just finishing."

"I don't want to interrupt," Talia murmured, taking a small step back toward the threshold. "I can come back later when you two are—"

She took a clumsy step backward. Her bare heel landed squarely against the exposed copper intake pipe that fed near-boiling water from the thermal vent into the pool.

"Ow!" Talia shrieked, stumbling sideways with a cry of pain. "It burns!"

Cassian didn't pause. He surged out of the water in a single, explosive movement, water spraying across the flagstones.

He crossed the distance between them in two strides, catching Talia before her knees hit the hard tile.

"Let me see," Cassian commanded, his voice thick with an urgent panic he had never once shown for me. He dropped to one knee, lifting her slender foot to inspect the red patch on her heel.

"It hurts, Cass," Talia whimpered, tears immediately spilling over her lashes as she looped her arms around his wet neck. "It really stings."

"I've got you. Don't put weight on it."

He stood up, scooping her into his arms and cradling her effortlessly against his chest. He held her close, shielding her with his body as if she were made of spun glass.

He walked toward the exit without glancing back into the steam. Not once.

"Hang on," he murmured to her softly as he pushed the door open. "I'm taking you to the infirmary right now."

The door swung shut behind them with a dull, heavy thud.

Silence settled over the bathhouse, thick and suffocating.

I stood alone in the pool, the mineral water lapping quietly against my ribs. The brief warmth from his touch was entirely gone, replaced by a deep, hollow ache that radiated straight to the center of my bones.

A sudden, sharp warmth trickled over my upper lip.

I raised a trembling hand and wiped under my nose. When I pulled my fingers back, a bright smear of crimson stained my pale skin.

A single drop of blood fell from my chin, hitting the surface of the spring and dissolving into the clear water until nothing remained.

Fifty-seven days.

And every second was slipping through my fingers.