Unbound

Chapter 31

I didn't want to tell her. I really, really did not want to tell her. In fact, I would have been happy keeping whatever it was Gabriel and I were doing private for however long he wanted to carry on with me. And even then, after it was over, I fully intended to take this fling to my grave.

Until he asked me out. On a date. To a very public restaurant.

"Have dinner with me," he'd said while we were in the middle of doing exactly that, after watching me pensively for several minutes. He still hadn't learned to present it as a question.

I'd gestured to my plate with my fork. "Is that not what we're doing?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I'm asking you on a date, Kiera."

He made us a reservation at Castle's nicest restaurant—one of only four restaurants in the settlement to begin with—for that Friday night. Knowing what was to come had me laced with nerves; the thought of being on display with him for the pack to gossip about made me nauseous. Though the glares and whispers when I went to the store had mostly died down, besides Aubrey and members of the Council, I hadn't met anyone yet who made an effort to be friendly. If they knew what I'd been doing with their Alpha, it probably wasn't going to help my case.

The way I saw it, there were two ways we could be received. The first, and how I saw myself, as Gabriel's rebound; a temporary distraction from Odette. Maybe they'd pity me for thinking there was something real between us. The second, as an outsider trying to sleep her way to the top of the pack hierarchy, maybe even sent for that specific reason by Dmitri in the first place.

Either way, I needed to tell Aubrey before she heard it from anyone else. I needed her in my corner.

I had a bottle of wine saved from the last time I'd visited Victor and Elodie for a check-up and made sure I had two very full glasses waiting when she arrived at the guesthouse that evening. Aubrey was hardly through the door before I'd thrust it into her hand, giving her a quick cheers and taking a few long sips of my own.

For a while, I let her talk about the clinic and her life outside of the job as we worked our way through the bottle. I wasn't hiding my anxiety well, but I needed to give the alcohol time to loosen my tongue or I'd never get the words out.

"There's...something I should tell you." I couldn't look her in the eye; instead, I trained my eyes on the blanket I'd thrown over my lap. I picked at the fibers nervously.

"Finally." She leaned in, eager to know what had been distracting me all evening. "What is it?"

"It's about..." I started, then stopped. Then started over: "Gabriel and I, we..."

"Motherfuck."

I winced at her tone. "Don't make me say it."

"I knew it!" Aubrey shouted, nearly spilling her wine on the sofa. I shot her a dark look.

"Shut up, no you didn't either."

She settled quickly. "Okay, maybe not. But I could tell you were into him."

I topped off my glass, emptying the bottle, and drank it down. Aubrey watched me closely through narrowed eyes. "He wants to take me on a date."

"And that's a...bad thing?" She prompted.

I dropped my head onto the couch cushions and with an exasperated sigh, ran her through the wavetop version of what had happened between us so far. Aubrey made for an excellent audience member, gasping and humming at all the right times. So much so that it almost made me feel silly, certainly at least for not telling her sooner.

But when I reached the part I was most concerned about, describing his headaches and what seemed to be his deteriorating health, she quieted to listen thoughtfully.

"It started with the headaches. He's only come to me three times, but he's implied that he's had more than that." No longer two friends gossiping, now we were two healers discussing a patient.

"Like migraines?" Aubrey asked.

"Similar, I think," I clarified. "They make him dizzy, but I'm not sure how quickly they come on. He won't take any of my medicine but working on his pressure points seems to help."

"Pressure points?" I felt like I should have given her a pad of paper and a pen along with the glass of wine; she looked like she wanted to be taking notes.

I showed her on my own temples. "Like that, just here."

She hummed. "And he's not healing well?"

I shook my head no. "You told me once about how when you and your mate were apart for a long period of time, it made you sick," I started.

"That's right."

"What if I'm the problem?" I chewed my lip; this was the first time I'd voiced my fear out loud and I didn't like the way it sounded to my own ears.

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"What if Odette really is his mate? What if denying that is what's making him sick, and using me as a distraction is making him even sicker?"

Aubrey considered this for a moment before nodding slowly. "It's possible. I've heard of fated pairs who try to resist their mate bond, and it can cause all kinds of physical and emotional distress. It's not healthy."

"What if I'm hurting him?" My voice wavered and I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to force the burning tears back in.

"But he can't mate, Kiera. He was bound. We know that."

My efforts were in vain. Tears spilled out over my cheeks, wine now fueling the overwhelming feelings instead of quelling them as pieces of the puzzle formed and came together in my mind. His worst headache by far had come the night before he sent her away. As soon as he and I had started seeing each other, he started getting sick. It all fit.

After Aubrey left, I remained caught in this whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Above all, I felt terribly selfish. If it were true, if Gabriel was doing this to himself by sending Odette away, I was now hurting three people with my actions: him, Odette, and Jack. Myself, too—by ignoring these signs, I was setting myself up to get my heart broken. And even after all that, I still had the audacity to feel jealous of Odette.

"Talk to him," Aubrey had stressed on her way out the door. "Don't keep all this to yourself."

Bound or not, Gabriel was torturing himself being with me and I needed to put an end to it. But I just wasn't ready to give up the way he made me feel. Not yet.